Chapter 11 #2
Squirming while the attire-woman looked her over from tip to toe, Robina held her tongue when Potter said, “As ye’ll likely agree, mistress, her ladyship should confine her hair more tidily.
Them plaits be too heavy and come loose too easily.
She’s still a maiden, so she need not wear a veil, but some nice netting would—”
“I’d liefer you not discuss me as if I were a plant to prune,” Robina interjected then. “Nor do I want to stuff my hair in a net. I like it as it is, because I can tend to it mysel—”
Catching Janet’s dancing gaze and the slight shake of her flaxen head, she broke off, saying, “You are all determined to make me miserable.”
“Not miserable, dearling,” Rosalie said. “But if you want a husband, you must—”
“I don’t want a husband,” Robina said impatiently. “I have Benjy to look after, and I love it here at Coklaw. Nor have I met anyone with whom I’d liefer spend my life. Men are too quick to command and rarely heed anyone save other men of their rank or higher.”
“I won’t argue that with you,” Rosalie said.
“But I can assure you, dearling, a married woman has more freedom and power in her home than a sister does. I know, because I was a sister first and then a wife. As a widow with a generous portion, I make my own decisions now. Imagine how glorious it is to do that!”
“You have told me that before, cousin, and almost does that persuade me. However, I cannot seek a husband merely to murder him so I may join your company.”
With a burst of laughter, Rosalie said, “I am so glad I decided to come to you, my dearling. You cannot imagine how many times I wanted to murder Richard Percy.”
From then until Robina and Janet retired to their beds and Rosalie to hers, she entertained them with tales of life in England. Many of her tales drew laughter, but several made Robina wonder how she had stood it for so long.
After Robina dismissed a contrite, nearly silent Corinne for the night and shut the door behind her, Janet said from her side of the bed near the wall, “I did not like to ask whilst Aunt Rosalie was with us, or your Corinne, but did Sir David tell you?”
The question stopped Robina’s breath in her throat, but Janet’s calm gaze reassured her enough to say as she climbed into the bed beside her, “Tell me what?”
“I thought he had not. I asked if I might stay longer and told them that you’d like me to do so, but Wat said no.”
“Mercy, why?”
“We did promise our mam and Gram that we’d return tomorrow. But I saw Wat look at Sir David first in that tentative way one has when one is considering another person’s wishes or needs before answering a question.”
“Well, if Dev dared to say no—”
“Nay, for I asked him first, and he said he had no objection. He did give me a look, too, then… almost the same look that Wat gave him.”
Robina chuckled. “He likely wondered if I’d put you up to it.”
“Do you think so? In troth, he seemed most sincere. Wat also said we will likely return soon, though, and I can stay then. That is the good news.”
“It is,” Robina agreed.
Despite being unaccustomed to sleeping with another in her bed, she slept well and awoke the next morning determined to show the well-meaning Rosalie that she could be compliant.
Accordingly, when Corinne entered cheerfully with their hot water, Robina said, “I’d like you to brush my hair this morning, Corinne. ”
The maid’s expressive eyebrows shot upward. “Aye, sure, mistress,” she said. “But if ye’re no going to do it the usual way, what will I do with it?”
Looking at Janet, whose pale gold tresses lay in their usual smooth, silky sheet to her waist, Robina said, “What do you think she should do?”
Cocking her head thoughtfully, Janet said, “You have long, thick, unruly hair, but I think that if she were to plait it carefully and wrap it round your head like a crown or a chaplet, it might look quite regal and gey becoming.”
It sounded to Robina as if it would be horrid, heavy, and uncomfortable. However, having vowed to herself to accept Janet’s advice, she did.
When Janet left to visit the garderobe, and while Corinne was still arranging Robina’s hair, Robina asked curiously, “How does a woman draw men’s notice, Corinne? I expect I should know that if they mean to plague me to seek a husband.”
Corinne stared at her in surprise before her eyes began to twinkle. “Aye, well,” she said. “I do ken more about that than about arranging hair, mistress.”
Dev went downstairs early to see his guests off, only to discover that Wat was still abed. He came down a short time later and said, “I decided to indulge myself and would wager that Jannie has made no appearance yet, either. The lass has no sense of time.”
“Nevertheless, she’s welcome here whenever she likes,” Dev said, amused.
“I know that, but you know women.” Regarding him more shrewdly, Wat added, “That is, you don’t, of course, not as well as I do. Gellis has been married for a decade or more, has she not?”
Dev nodded. “I do remember what it was like to live with her, though.”
“Perhaps, but Fiona adores you. Bella adores me, too. But I expect when she gets older, she’ll exert herself to wind me round her thumb, as Jannie does.”
“Sakes, Bella does that now,” Dev said, grinning.
“True, but it’s less worrisome when the ‘woman’ won’t see her thirteenth birthday until October. However, I was not thinking of my sisters.”
“Molly has you wound round her thumb, too.”
“I can hold my own with Molly and my sisters, just as you do with Robby. However, I still have to contend with Gram and my mother.”
“Aye,” Dev said, knowing better than to comment on either one. “You do have more to contend with than I do, my lord. I acknowledge my blessings.”
They were halfway through their meal when feminine voices from the stairs alerted them shortly before Janet and Robina entered the hall together.
Dev stared at Robby and heard a gasp beside him from Wat.
She wore a clean lavender-colored kirtle, but in place of the leather girdle she usually wore, she had knotted a purple-and-yellow striped ribbon round her hips with only her eating knife in its soft leather sheath attached to it.
But her hair was what had stirred his astonishment.
Somehow, she had created two much tighter plaits and coiled them into a massive crown atop her head.
The effect was rather alarming, although her face, looking almost pixyish beneath the mass and undeniably beautiful, also looked a bit more feminine and less like Rab’s.
Beside her, Janet beamed.
Dev glanced at Wat, who likewise stared but got to his feet and moved to greet the two young women. Reminded of his manners, Dev stood, too.
Robby avoided his gaze and smiled at Wat. She lowered her lashes then, doubtless to watch her skirts as she stepped onto the dais. When she looked back up at Wat, she fluttered her lashes rather oddly.
Dev wondered if she had got something in her eye.
Covertly watching Dev through her lashes as she smiled at Wat, Robina decided that he had not even noticed the new way Corinne and Janet had arranged her hair.
She liked the new ribbon that Janet had given her to wear with the lavender kirtle.
The hair was another matter. There was, she thought, too much of it to pile atop anyone’s head.
Errant strands escaped. Some were long enough to tickle her neck and cheeks, so she kept brushing them off with one hand or the other.
Each time she did, Janet gave her a stern look, but Robina could not abide the tickling.
“By my troth, Robby,” Janet muttered as they took their seats, “you will get used it, but do stop flicking your hands as if you were shooing flies. Gram would swiftly condemn such behavior. She certainly did so when I did that.”
“But your hair is smooth and tidy,” Robina protested. “This…”
“It is most becoming and one of the current styles of fashion.”
Robina clenched her teeth. But Tad, the lad who helped serve the high table, was approaching with their breakfast, so she held her tongue.
The men, having finished eating, excused themselves. As they did, Wat said, “I trust you have sent your bundle down already, Jannie.”
“Aye, I just have to wash my hands and fetch my cloak after I eat,” she said.
“We’ll be waiting outside with the horses,” he said.
“Men,” Janet said with a sigh. “You would think that one of them would notice how well you look this morning.”
Robina shook her head. “Dev… that is, Sir David, did notice the other day when he thought I’d dressed like a maidservant, Jannie. But I doubt he’ll offer me compliments now that he is the warden here at Coklaw.”
“Och, aye, I forgot about that,” Janet said. “Mam and Gram were concerned about your reputation.”
“Aye, Dev said as much when he told me that Rosalie was coming.”
When they’d finished eating and Janet had collected her cloak, Robina walked out to the yard with her to bid her farewell, with mixed emotions.
She understood why Wat had insisted they keep their promise, but she would miss Janet’s company.
Even so, the jar of coins called to her, and she hoped it was safe in its kist. Corinne or Ada might take a blanket or two out to exchange for others due for an airing.
Surely, they would not take all four at once out, though.
Dev and Wat stood with the horses, and Benjy was with them, too. Minutes later their guests rode through the gateway. When the gate shut again, Benjy darted into the stable, shouting that he had promised to help Jem Keith.
Dev put a warm hand to Robina’s back, between her shoulder blades. “I’ll walk in with you,” he said. “I expect you’ll miss Janet.”
“I will,” she agreed. “Although we live only fifteen or sixteen miles apart, we have rarely spent time together. While my father was alive, we spent our holidays at Gledstanes with cousins in Peebles and other kinsmen.”
“ ’Tis often the way of things,” he said, guiding her toward the steps. “We make plans to visit kinsmen who live at some distance and assume that we can see the nearer ones anytime. But time passes swiftly.”
“True,” she said, smiling.
He looked at her then and smiled back. She felt an impulse similar to what she had felt on Sunnyside Hill just before she had kissed him. Briefly, she wondered how she had dared, but when his smile reached his eyes, she wanted to do it again.
Truly, she thought, it was as if he were two different men, one stern enough to send chills up her spine, the other too attractive for her own good.
Her smile was like the sunrise—sudden, sparkling, and lighting up the world—and Dev was glad to see it. It warmed him all through, in more ways than one might expect. It was, he decided, a fortunate thing that the lady Rosalie had come to Coklaw to protect her.
Chukk watched from shrubbery on an east-facing hillside as the Lord of Buccleuch and Rankilburn departed from Coklaw on a well-muscled bay. A young fair-haired woman in a brown cloak with its hood thrown back rode a dun-colored horse beside him. His fighting tail, two-by-two, followed them.
He had heard that Buccleuch was there, so it was good that he was leaving. The fewer people at Coklaw, the better.
Although the sky was clear, the ground remained muddy, and thick ground fog had risen each night, covering the hills and lower areas till morning.
His hiding place was high enough to provide a panoramic view eastward, and had the hills around Ruber’s Law not been in his way, he might have seen all the way to Jedburgh.
The river Teviot flowed to the north, and from the hillcrest, he had seen the town of Hawick two miles to the northwest. Southwest of him, his men waited in the maze of rugged hills above Liddel Water, yet well away from Hermitage.
He had come to Coklaw alone, so he dared not let them catch him. He had wanted to see how it looked by daylight, to plant his bearings firmly in his mind.
The castle was starkly visible, its tower keep thrusting skyward surrounded by a solid stone wall.
He saw figures on the wall walk, ever watchful.
He could also see the grassy rise southeast of the wall in the wide clearing that surrounded it.
Doubtless, watchers also watched from nearby hills, but anyone who saw him would likely take him for a shepherd, perhaps seeking lost sheep.
If he could watch Coklaw for a time without drawing notice, he might learn something useful or see a way to get close enough to dig. Digging quietly enough would not be easy, either. Even at a distance, he could see grass and weeds growing on the rise.
He’d need a shovel or at least a sharp spade. Today, wanting to look like a shepherd, he’d brought only a shepherd’s crook and a dirk with him.
Perhaps the dirk would suffice if he could get close enough, unseen.
Until he knew more, he’d keep watch and see what he could see during a day’s time… or over the next few days, if he could stay hidden.
His men would wait. They knew better than to abandon him.