Chapter 29 #2
Mairi frowned and shrugged. “I saw him only a few times before last year. He came back when we lost Robert—he and Lyall were close and had served together as pages, then squires for my stepfather. After Robert died, Lyall stayed at Greystone Manor with us. I believe he and my stepfather thought it best the boys and I were not without family close. My sons adore him, and I think after some time, they were good for him. There were days when I thought perhaps he might be coming back into himself again, but then de Hay contacted him.”
Glenna was as quiet as Mairi as she applied the knowledge to Lyall and his manner and actions. My Lord, what had he thought when he came rushing into the tower at Kinnesswood as she jumped?
The door opened and a young, fresh-faced maid came in. “Milady?”
“Aida. Oh, I had forgotten.”
“The bath you ordered is ready, milady.”
“And becoming cold whilst I stand in here yammering?” Mairi gave her maid a wry smile. “We will be right there. Forgive me, Glenna. I forgot myself. You must long for some comforts.”
Glenna thought the soft bed and furs she was sitting on was the finest comfort she’d ever experienced.
“There is a meal waiting for you and a bath. In your chamber.” Mairi extended an arm. “Come. We will see to your needs.”
Glenna followed her, pensive, but no longer tentative, and wondering if she could be so very wrong about the people in her future.
Nights were cooling off and the sun setting earlier, signs of autumn and the changing of all things about them was edging out summer.
Owls flew across the sky, landing on trees near the river, calling to the moon.
But within the walls, noisy frogs had left the water ponds in the last weeks, making the air in the baileys quiet and peaceful but for the hum of insects.
The air was brisk enough to make the ground cold and wet early in the morn, to turn the grass in the meadows silver with dawn dew.
The time of year to think about what had passed and what was coming. A time for changing with the season.
There was slight wind when Ramsey opened the thick oaken door to the eastern wall and found his stepson leaning against the stonework with his elbows resting on a parapet, hands relaxed, face reflected in the moonlight as he stared out at the countryside.
Only if he could get inside his stepson’s head and his thoughts.
Perhaps he could understand the demons driving him to commit the worse of mistakes and pretend he did not care.
Lyall was not that shallow. The lad had not been, and the man could not be, though at that moment he was still angry and disgusted enough and ready to beat some sense into Lyall.
Ramsey closed the door and walked along the wall. “I have been looking for you.”
“And I have been avoiding you.” Lyall turned away from the parapet and faced him, that cocksure attitude in every nuance of his body.
It angered him, how Lyall would go out of his way to not let anyone help him, to not change but continue on some bitter, self-destructive path to a hell of his own making.
Ramsey believed life served up its disappointments.
How one dealt with them proved the measure of the man.
“You are a thick-skulled son of a bitch,” Ramsey said, aware of the sunken, angry depths to which their conversations had come.
“You think so little of my mother?” Lyall quipped.
“Nay, I think so little of her son.”
His cruel words hit their mark. Lyall chewed his lip and his jaw tightened.
Ramsey regretted saying them the moment they came from his mouth.
Yet nothing moved his stepson. So their conversations were insults and anger, barbs and truths hidden behind sardonic comments meant to stop the talk between them.
“I am sorry for that. It is not true. My anger speaks before my head can.” Ramsey sighed and ran a hand over his face.
“I am weary of this hostility between us, Lyall. I want to understand you. You stop me at every turn. Where is the lad who pestered me senseless, the one who was determined to prove his worth and his honor?”
“Buried under a yellow cloak of dishonor. Ironic is it not? I am held fast amidst the black muck of disloyalty by the family name: traitor. Bad blood breeds bad blood.”
“You will let the words of a young woman with no knowledge or life outside a nunnery define who you are?”
“Life has its lessons. There is the truth of what people think, but don’t say. That is what follows me and my name. The name of Robertson is like carrying manure on your boot, except it does not wash off.”
“I have never believed that,” Ramsey said and tapped his fist against his heart. “You are still here, son. Despite all that you do otherwise, I believe in your good soul. Would that you were not so determined to prove me wrong.” Ramsey paused, then added, “But that is not why I have come.”
“Why then? To tell me why I cannot be wed to the fair Canmore first born?”
“I suppose there is that, too. But I desire information. I want to know how you knew I was ordered to escort and protect Glenna.”
Lyall straightened, frowning, clearly surprised by the question.
His expression changed from sardonic to serious, signaling he was willing to talk straight.
“De Hay told me. He knew of the orders and papers and letters. He knew about her, where she was. I knew nothing of it or her existence until he summoned me.”
Ramsey was afraid of that. He began to pace and took a long breath.
“Then there is a traitor among us. A spy for those tied with de Hay, someone with close access to information, even the most secret communications between Sutherland and myself. The existence of the king’s daughters was kept between only three of us and those trusted with protecting them for years.
But now the truth suddenly comes out after so many years. Something reeks.”
“What of the other two?” Lyall asked. “Her sisters. You think they are in danger? De Hay was the one who told me Glenna was not the only daughter. He seemed to have plenty of information.”
“One is Sutherland’s own ward, and I am certain she is safe.
The other is in a convent. Both have protectors.
But we thought we were working without suspect, and to have the knowledge of their existence in the hands of the king’s enemies…
” Ramsey shook his head. “Who knows what is happening as we speak. I have sent word to Sutherland, but I fear we might be too late, that other plans are in motion.” Ramsey paused again and looked at Lyall.
“I would have wished that you would have come to me after de Hay summoned you.”
Lyall was silent, staring at his hand.
“We could have worked together to fool them into thinking you were working with them and still have kept Glenna safe. But then ‘twas all for Dunkeldon.”
“At first. Now the land does not seem so important. That has surprised me.” Lyall gave a short laugh. “I have a writ to the lands and I no longer care.”
Ah! There was the sad truth of it. “That is often the way of things, son.” What he saw in Lyall could only make for more pain, pain Ramsey had known for all too many years to count. “She is the daughter of the king. Far from your reach, Lyall.”
His stepson said nothing.
“Do you love her?”
“Aye.”
“Then make the sacrifice and stay away from her. No good can come from this, no matter what has already passed between you.”
“She is not defiled. She lied,” Lyall admitted.
Ramsey was relieved and surprised, but he masked it, still acutely aware of what that cost Lyall to admit, and it gave him hope that the young man standing before him was not lost. “You need to keep her that way. She is not yours for the taking, no matter where you believe your heart is. Whom she weds is her father’s choice.
And he is my liege and I will protect his right and his daughter, even if from my own stepson. ”
They exchanged a long look, not unlike two hounds, each sizing up the other. Lyall gave him a quick nod.
“Were she anyone else, I would be happy for you,” Ramsey told him.
“Were she anyone else, there would be no reason to be happy.” Lyall did not look at him, but continued to stare out at something or nothing.
“Come, lad. Your mother has ordered a meal for us.”
“I need more air. ‘Tis quiet here.” He gave a sharp laugh. “I had thought this spot was one where I would not have to answer for my actions.”
“We always have to answer for our actions, son. Our choices in life can help us or haunt us.”
“Or haunt those left behind,” Lyall said pointedly. “Go. I will be down shortly.”
Ramsey nodded and crossed the wall walk, but he paused at the door and looked back at Lyall, and he saw not his stepson, but the tall, golden ghost of his closest friend.
“This is your chamber while you stay here," Mairi said as Glenna followed her inside, then stood with her back pressed against the door.
“Glenna?”
“Like it? Lud!” She laughed and faced Mairi. “’Tis a far cry from two room cottage with a grass roof, built into the side of a hill on the outermost edges of a remote island.”
Giant timber beams crossed the high ceilings, and in the room’s center, a circular iron candelabrum as wide as a trestle table well hung down from heavy chains bolted into the beams. Near a stone hearth that climbed clear upward to the roof, stood a large wooden tub filled with water, and a stool nearby held a bowl of small round soaps with flower petals in them, rare lemon citron with a long iron file, and a stack of towels folded while others warmed from a wooden rack set in front of the fire.
“The servants will bring more hot water for your bath, but there is food here.”