Chapter 17
Pouring claret into two goblets, Dev handed one to Ormiston and set the jug on the inner chamber table between them.
“Many folks have passed through here today,” Ormiston observed as Dev sat in the chair behind the table, facing him.
“They have, aye. News travels fast, as you know, so people have been coming since Tuesday to offer their felicitations. Since Robby decided only on Wednesday to marry me, we told our people to say ’twas nobbut a rumor before then.”
“Tell me the whole tale now,” Ormiston said.
Dev sipped his wine, taking the time to compose his thoughts. Then he said, “Lady Rosalie began it, sir. I’ll not accuse her of doing so willfully. But…”
He went on to explain what had happened and saw that Ormiston, too, was skeptical of Rosalie’s “misunderstanding.”
Since Dev had accepted his fate more willingly than he’d anticipated, he felt more amusement than empathy as he read his father’s changing expressions.
When Dev finished his tale, Ormiston said, “I know Lady Meg, of course, and her sister Amalie, who married Westruther. But I’ve not clapped eyes on their younger sister. I did hear that she’d married across the line.”
“Aye, to Richard Percy, a cousin of Northumberland’s and of her mother, Annabel Murray. He died in Wales several years ago. Their sons had fostered and married elsewhere, so Rosalie returned to Scotland, rather than live with either of them.”
“Does she often play mischief-maker?”
Dev smiled. “I’ve only just met her, sir, but Wat says she does not. I’d say she’s imperceptive, but she may just be unwilling to admit a mistake.”
“Or she thought you’d make a fine husband for Robina.”
“Aye,” Dev said. “But by my troth, sir, I feel as if I’m the fortunate one. I thought first that I was just doing the honorable thing, because I knew the news would spread no matter what I said or could persuade Rosalie to admit.”
“You were right,” Ormiston agreed. “Even someone claiming an error would just be adding fuel to the rumor. By the time it passed from one mouth to two ears, it had become a proposal of marriage, will-ye-nil-ye.”
“What I don’t know is if Robby agreed to it so she could stay here at Coklaw until Benjy is of age or because she truly cares for me.”
Ormiston shrugged. “That’s of no import now.”
“It’s important to me.”
“Then you must make her care, lad, as any husband must who wants his wife to think well of him.”
They chatted desultorily after that until a rap on the door announced that supper was ready. Adjourning to the dais in complete amity with his father, Dev hoped only that Ormiston would come to like Robby as much as he did.
She soon arrived, leading the other ladies with Fiona. While they went around to the ladies’ end of the table, Dev’s gaze followed Robby until she and Fiona paused to let Meg and Rosalie pass them and take their places next to his.
Stepping back so Ormiston could greet Lady Meg and let her present Rosalie to him, Dev saw his father’s gaze fix on Rosalie in a startled and unexpectedly intrigued way.
Rosalie smiled, and her eyes twinkled. However, she swiftly lowered her lashes, behaving, Dev thought sourly, more like a simpering miss than a woman of her years and experience.
The fur-trimmed rose-pink damask gown she wore boasted a deep décolletage, he noted, revealing her plump, inviting breasts.
Shifting his gaze back to Ormiston, only to meet Wat’s grin and raised eyebrows instead, Dev recollected himself. People in the lower hall were nearly all in their places. The shuffling ended, silence fell, and he asked Father Hubert to say the grace.
After the meal, Wat stood when Lady Meg did but kept Dev in his seat with a firm hand on his shoulder.
Then, in clarion tones, he said, “All who would aid in washing the bridegroom’s feet, as tradition demands, step forward without disturbing the ladies as they leave the hall. Geordie, did you fetch the basin?”
“Aye, laird,” Wat’s Geordie shouted from the rear of the hall.
Trying to stand, only to have Wat clamp steely hands on each of his shoulders, Dev saw Ormiston assisting Rosalie from the dais to follow the other ladies. Two serving lads moved to escort her from the hall, and Ormiston returned to the dais, beaming at Dev.
“ ’Tis been years since I aided a foot-washing,” he said with a boyish grin. “Methinks you’ll have the cleanest feet in Scotland if they don’t drown you in the process.”
“Help me turn him and his chair around,” Wat said.
Ormiston happily obeyed, while six men carried a huge tub to the dais.
Dev saw that it held little water and a great deal of mud. A cheering, ever-increasing crowd surrounded them until he began to fear that they would drown him.
Just as he thought they’d finished, Wat ordered a second bathing with soap and water, declaring that Dev’s feet were still filthy.
Hilarity, many riotous wagers, and much wine, whisky, and ribaldry followed.
By the end of the night, while those who could still walk aided each other in seeing him “safely” upstairs, the—by then—drink-sodden Dev wondered if he’d survive to see his bedchamber, let alone his wedding day.
He knew no more until the bed curtains rattled noisily open at what he was sure must be hours before sunrise. Coll greeted him then with a too-hearty, nearly deafening “Good day to ye, sir! ’Tis a grand day for a wedding!”
“Doucely, man, doucely,” Dev protested, but it came out in a croak. His mouth was dry. Some imp of Satan was playing drums in his head, and his eyes objected to even the gray light from a nearby unshuttered window.
“Ye’ll want this,” Coll said, handing him a small towel-wrapped bundle. “Sym Elliot brung it from the ice house.”
Gratefully leaning against the pillows and placing the cold, damp bundle over his eyes, Dev groaned. “How long till my wedding?”
“Nobbut an hour or so,” Coll said, startling him so that he nearly bolted upright before his head reminded him of how foolhardy such abruptness was.
“Fetch me some water, will you?”
Coll handed him a mug. “Sym said t’ gi’e ye this, instead. It’ll aid ye more than water, he said.”
The smell nearly did Dev in. However, he sipped manfully and discovered that the taste was better than the smell. When he’d finished it all, he said, “What was in that?”
“Sym said not to ask,” Coll said.
Deciding it would either cure him or kill him, and if it killed him, he’d neither know nor care, Dev lay back again and held the ice-filled towel to his head.
At nearly the same time, Corinne woke Robina, who had gone to bed much earlier than Dev had. The other women had assured her that she’d be wiser to sleep than to fret about what the men were doing to Dev.
When Robina protested, Lady Meg had said firmly, “You have naught left to do, love. Thanks to Mistress Geddes’s skill and efficiency, your dress will be finished by the time we put it on you in the morning.”
“But what if it doesn’t fit?”
“You cannot try it on without risking the happiness of your marriage, Robby,” Janet reminded her. “So leave everything to us now and go to sleep. I’ll sleep with Bella in one of the wee rooms upstairs, so you’ll have your bedchamber to yourself tonight.”
“Aye, dearling; sleep well,” Rosalie said. Then, with a knowing smile, she added, “You may not get another chance for some time.”
Robina did not know how tired she was until she lay under the covers, but that was the last thought she had until morning.
“I’m famished, Corinne,” she said then, sitting up and stretching. “I feel as if I’ve not eaten for days.”
“Ye slept longer than usual, aye,” Corinne said.
“But ye canna go down yet. Sir David mustna see ye till the wedding, and ye’ve nae time to eat, anyway.
Since ye washed your hair and bathed yesterday and ye’ll wear your hair doon yer back today, Lady Meg said I wasna t’ wake ye till it were time t’ dress. ”
“The wedding is to be shortly before our midday meal. It cannot be that late!”
“Aye, it is, though. It doesna look it because o’ the clouds. It looks like rain, m’lady, and that be bad luck on a wedding day.”
“Not hereabouts,” Robina said. “People in Hawick say, ‘Happy be the bride gits a shower on her side.’ ”
“Perhaps, but ye’ll no chance fastening buttons or tying your laces, or looking back as ye walk from the altar wi’ Sir David. ’Twould be tempting the devil to do such things. Everyone kens that.”
Robina wondered about tempting the devil. Mayhap she would start calling Dev “Davy” as his sister and Wat did. She dismissed the thought as soon as it occurred, though. She couldn’t think of him as “Davy.” To her, he was and always would be Dev.
The other ladies arrived to help her dress, and shortly afterward, Lady Meg and Rosalie went downstairs.
Leading Janet, Bella, and Fiona down more slowly, in her sleek saffron-silk gown, Robina stopped at the hall archway, amazed at the size of the crowd.
She prayed that no part of her gown would open to embarrass her before so many.
The ladies had slipped loose white ribbons through the aglets in back where her bodice lacing should be, ribbons that audience members would snatch away when she passed by afterward.
The eight silk-covered buttons on each sleeve were undone.
And, beneath the gown, the ribbon that gathered it close to keep it on was untied.
Tradition also forbade sashes, belts, or buckles, so she had not worn a girdle round her hips. She had never felt so vulnerable.
All anyone need do, she thought uneasily, was to reach out, grab a sleeve as she passed, and give it a good yank. That would bare her to everyone.
Her silk-shod feet had rooted to the archway’s flagstone floor.
Fiona, Bella, and Janet kept silent, but Robina sensed their impatience.
Dev stood on the dais by the makeshift altar, next to the priest, murmuring to Benjy, who stood beside him. Ormiston was next to Benjy, gazing on the lower hall. The men were tall, dwarfing the young laird.