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  Molly smiled. “Me, too,” she said.

  Returning her smile, Meg said, “I do want you to be contented here, child. So, curious though I am to know all that has happened to you since Marjory’s death, I shan’t urge you to tell me aught that you are reluctant to discuss. And if you have questions for me…”

  After that, their conversation proceeded amiably, although Molly could not quite bring herself to quiz Lady Meg about her past or even her present. Having little experience with polite discourse, she let her hostess guide their discussion and soon learned that Meg kept her word.

  Although she asked a few questions about Piers Cockburn and Molly’s brothers, she expressed stronger interest in Molly’s activities at Henderland.

  After describing some of them, Molly said, “I love to ride, my lady. I wonder, in fact, if I might be able to do so whilst I am here.”

  Meg began to frown, saying, “I have no doubt that you are as expert a rider as any other Border woman, my dear. I am concerned only about your safety, as I am sure that Tam will be.”

  “By my troth, my lady—” She stopped when Meg held up a hand.

  “At best,” Meg said, no longer frowning, “You must wait until Wat returns and ask him. I cannot take it on myself to put your safety at risk. Even if your father does not have men out looking for you, your brother Will surely does. Some may even dare to invade the forest again and come here.”

  “I suppose you are right,” Molly said with a sigh. “I will ask his lordship, though. If he will escort me, or provide an escort—”

  “He will escort you himself,” Meg said firmly. “Now tell me more about your horses. For myself, I like a dependable Border pony. I was never as skilled a rider as my sister Amalie or my good-sister Sibylla. But, in my younger days, I did love riding out with my sisters.”

  Molly was glad to pursue that topic. By the time the bell rang for the midday meal, she had begun to feel as if she had known Lady Meg for years rather than two and a half short days.

  She also realized that she was now yearning for Walter Scott to come home.

  To Wat’s surprise, the Douglas’s steward came for him after a quarter-hour, just long enough to warm himself at the great-hall fire.

  “His lordship will see ye now, sir. I’ll take ye in.”

  They crossed the hall to the dais and across it to a door that a servant hurried to open for them. In the room beyond, known in most such establishments as the inner chamber, Douglas sat behind a wide table piled at one end with scrolled documents and a stack of four books at the other.

  A smaller fire burned on the hearth there, but the room was comfortable.

  Douglas was lanky and had a long face and dark hair that was graying, especially at his temples. He also had a dark tan, and his bushy eyebrows shaded eyes so dark that they looked black in the chamber’s dim light.

  ’Twas no wonder, Wat thought, that people called him the Black Douglas.

  His chamber boasted a beamed ceiling like the one in the great hall, and high windows. A walkway around its perimeter gave access to arrow slits on the west, facing the street, and on the side facing the stableyard. Openings on that upper level also led to corridors. The Black Tower, like its town, was easily defensible.

  Douglas waved a hand, dismissing the steward as he said, “I’m glad ye came, Wat. I was sorry to learn of your father’s death. He was a good man. Moreover, I ken fine that to inherit a powerful title from a powerful man is not just cake and ale. Still, I am sure ye’ll bear the title well.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” Wat said, still standing. “I mean to continue the work my father began. To that end, I must tell you that I visited Melrose before coming here, to assure the monks that nowt will change there.”

  “The Scotts have been generous to the abbey, I know,” Douglas said.

  “I should tell you that his grace was staying there,” Wat said. “I met him.”

  “Did ye? Then I warrant he had cause to speak to ye.”

  “He did,” Wat agreed. “A certain reiver has displeased him.”

  “Gilbert Rutherford, aye,” Douglas said with a sigh. “Jamie wanted me to seize the man by the heels. I have too much to do to content my own clan, though. In troth, lad, the Rutherfords are more closely connected to the Scotts than they are to me.”

  “Then you will not object when I tell you that his grace asked me to see to the matter,” Wat said. When the Douglas remained silent, he added, “I did agree.”

  “He didna command ye, then?”

  “Not in so many words,” Wat admitted. “But he wants Rutherford to stop killing innocents on both sides of the line. I know of no way to do that without capturing him and either locking him up or giving him to his grace.”

  “Jamie will hang him.”

  “I expect so,” Wat agreed. “But so would any nobleman who caught Rutherford stealing his kine. That is, if any could catch him.”

  “I expect ye feel obliged to honor your agreement, then.”

  “I gave my word as a Borderer,” Wat said.

  “Then there be nae more to say,” Douglas said with a shrug.

  Wat felt an unexpected urge to shake the man. Having dealt primarily with Douglas’s officers and spoken personally with the earl only twice that he could recall, he had spared little thought for the man himself.

  His father had said that the fifth earl was a milder, less impetuous, less belligerent man than his predecessors. But Robert had counted that a good thing.

  After all, the inexperienced, impetuous, determined-to-prove-himself fourth Earl of Douglas had gotten Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch killed at Homildon Hill. The fourth earl’s father, aptly named Archie the Grim, had been a much stronger leader by all accounts but had rarely endeared himself to others.

  Wat could read the current earl well enough to be sure that Archie wanted nothing to do with confrontation or battle. He also knew that Jamie disliked this particular Douglas and that Archie tended to ignore the King. So, their relationship remained tense and unpredictable.

  Aware that his best chance of knighthood would come from either Jamie or Douglas, Wat also knew he could create a political maelstrom if he acted unwisely.

  That Douglas would likely avoid any fray suggested that a wise man should side with the King if the two disagreed.

  However, Douglas was still the most powerful man in the Borders and could raise ten thousand men in a sennight, so Jamie needed him to keep the English at bay.

  Since the earl apparently had no more that he wished to say, Wat said quietly, “Will that be all, my lord?”

  “We’ll eat anon, and ye’ll sit wi’ me,” Douglas said. “I would hear more about your father’s death. Also, I’d ask ye to extend my respects and condolences to Lady Scott and the dowager Lady Scott. Robert’s loss must sorely grieve them.”

  “I’ll tell them, sir,” Wat said.

  As he followed the Douglas from the inner chamber to the high table, he wondered how it was that, in the course of one short journey, he had unexpectedly trebled his responsibilities, and how his father had done all that he’d managed to do so deftly and without seeming ever to create new problems for himself.

  His thoughts shifted abruptly then to his own most recent problem. Since he would be away chasing Rutherford, he would have to strengthen security at the Hall.

  Therefore, the sooner he returned the better.

  Molly’s golden-eyed image stole back into his mind throughout the meal, so he counted it fortunate that the Douglas seemed not to notice his distraction.

  Molly spent the afternoon with Janet and Bella, who took her on a tour of the Hall’s three towers. As they left the third one, with the bell ringing for supper, Bella said with a sad sigh, “Whenever we come into the yard, I expect to see Father striding across it. I know he never will again, but…”

  “You must miss him dreadfully,” Molly said.

  “I don’t know how we’ll go on without him,” Bella said dismally.

 
“But you know that we will, Belle,” Janet told her, patting her shoulder. “Wat will go on exactly as Father would have. Father did train him, after all.”

  “But Wat was away for a long time, training to become a knight,” Bella protested. “He cannot know all that Father knew.”

  “He will have learned all about leading men, though,” Molly said. “Is that not much of what a successful landholder must do?”

  “I suppose,” Bella said.

  “Of course, it is,” Janet said firmly. “Prithee, do not show that face to Mam, Bella. You know how sensitive she is to our emotions.”

  Bella nodded silently.

  Entering the main tower, they hurried upstairs to tidy themselves. By the time they joined Lady Meg and Lady Scott on the dais, Bella had herself in hand.

  Molly wondered what it was like to have loved a father so much. She wondered, too, when Walter would return.

  Much as she liked his sisters, she was accustomed to more solitude and found that she missed it at times. That thought led her to recall Lady Meg’s warning that Will’s men were likely searching for her, that Will might even come to the Hall.

  Could she trust Walter’s people to protect her as carefully as he might?

  That thought went to bed with her that night and continued to tease her mind until she lay sleepless, trying to find a comfortable position.

  Giving up, she went to the window and opened the shutters to gaze out at the night. The moon shone brightly against a black sky until a cloud obscured it.

  While he rode, Wat, too, was watching the moon play all-hide with the clouds. Its beams pierced the forest canopy and set pebbles on the forest path agleam.

  The sight reminded him of the dream he’d had at Melrose. He wondered if Molly’s eyes were ever as golden as they had looked in that dream.

  “ ’Tis gey late, sir; mayhap we should stop soon,” Jed said, rudely banishing that pleasant, most intriguing reverie. Sakes, did the man peer into his head that he could choose so easily to interrupt anything pleasurable there?

  Giving him a look that made Jed’s eyes widen, Wat said, “Not yet.”

  An hour later, still restless and abandoning sleep for at least a while, Molly tried to imagine any way to avoid returning to Henderland.

  Instead, her head began to ache, and her thoughts became harder to control. Refusing to present a pleasant picture of living with her brothers and father, her imagination produced only her likely life with Ringan Tuedy.

  Giving her head a fierce shake, Molly knew she needed to move, to go somewhere, if only to the bottom of the stairs and back again.

  Recalling that if she took the service stairs, she would end in the kitchen, she decided to see if she could find something to eat. She had not been hungry for her supper, but her growling stomach made it clear that she was starving now.

  Snatching up the robe that Janet had given her, she threw it on and took the service stairs, trying to recall what was in the storeroom that might assuage her hunger. Remembering apples and dried beef, she decided that an apple would do.

  She made her way quietly. The last thing she wanted was to wake anyone.

  Also, the stairway darkness was nearly complete. A window or other opening at the top admitted pale moonlight, but her own body blocked the light, keeping the area below her impenetrably black.

  She felt a slight draft. Then she heard a sound as of light footsteps, doubtless a servant seeking his bed.

  Or perhaps an invader who did not belong in the Hall!

  With the rounding moon up as it was… a Borderer’s aval moon… what if it was Will or Ned, leading others?

  She stopped where she was and tried to peer through the blackness. Focused as she was on what she sought, when a man’s solid form suddenly became clear, so certain was she that only someone with nefarious intent would behave so that, gasping, Molly whirled and fled.

  When she reached the next landing, he was a step behind her. A strong hand caught her arm. Another clapped across her mouth before she could scream.

  Chapter 7

  Don’t shriek, lass!” Wat muttered. “And, for the love of God, don’t bite me. I ken fine that I scared the liver and lights out of you. I’m sorry for that.”

  She relaxed, and he saw that standing on the step above him as she was, she was nearly his height. Her back was against him, and his jack was open, so he could feel the warmth of her body through his shirt and the thin dressing gown she wore.

  “You won’t scream when I let go, will you?” he murmured into her ear.

  She shook her head.

  He could feel her trembling and felt guilty again for scaring her. Gently, he released her and turned her to face him. “Where were you going?”

  “To the kitchen,” she said. “I… I couldn’t sleep, and I’m hungry. I thought I might find an apple.”

  “Come along then,” he said quietly, turning. “I could do with a bite myself.”

  When she did not reply and he sensed no movement behind him, he wondered if she would follow or if she distrusted his motives. She would have to decide for herself, though. One could not command or persuade trust.

  “I never thought you’d be back so soon,” she said at last. Still, he felt an unexpected surge of relief when he heard her dressing gown rustle as she followed him. “When my brothers go away,” she added, “they go for days, even weeks.”

  “My business at Melrose was brief,” he said. “Then I went to Hawick to be sure the Douglas knew about my father’s death.”

  “You did say you meant to see him,” she said. “You also said you’d be back before I could miss you. You certainly did that.”

  She fell silent again, and although he knew she must be burning to hear all he’d learned from the abbot, she did not ask about that. Likely, she knew as well as he did that wisdom precluded speaking of such things in a stairwell.

  When they reached the vaulted chamber housing the bake oven and buttery, he lit candles for each of them at embers in the fire. Then he opened the buttery door in the stone wall opposite the oven to find the apples.

  “Do you want anything more?” he asked. “There’s some good cheese here, too.”

  “Just an apple, thank you,” she said, gathering the dressing gown closer around her. Her feet were bare.

  “Art warm enough?” he asked, handing her an apple.

  “Aye, sure, ’tis warm here,” she replied, burnishing her apple on a dressing gown sleeve. Taking a dainty bite, she chewed and swallowed it before she said, “Do you mean to tell me what you learned from the abbot?”

  Gesturing toward a nearby bench, he waited for her to sit on it. As she did, he noted again the exquisite grace with which she moved and decided that he’d be wiser to remain standing than to sit so close beside her.

  With a hope of looking casual rather than concerned for her reputation, he set his left foot on the end of the bench. Leaning a forearm on the upraised thigh, he said, “First, I’ll tell you what Father Abbot said about marriage laws.”

  The apple was good, but Molly scarcely tasted it after that first bite. The chamber was much smaller than the kitchen beyond it.

  She had never been alone with any man who was not her brother, her father, a cousin, or Ringan Tuedy… until now. Nor had she ever experienced the feelings that had coursed through her since the moment he’d grabbed her on the stairway.

  He was tall, a full head taller than she was and more, and muscular.

  The muscles she had felt through her robe when he’d held her against him were rock hard. She had known it was he a scant minute after he’d caught her, though.

  His very scent carried with it the same sense of shelter that his cloak had given her the first night. It relaxed her and made her feel protected again.

  Something about the man just radiated safety.

  “Art listening, lass?”

  Startled, she realized he’d been talking and struggled to catch the echo of his words. Something about marriage laws an
d the abbot.

  “What did the abbot say about them?” she asked, pleased that she had remembered. “Did you ask him about the laws, or did you just tell him about me?”

  “I told him about that wedding of yours and asked if it fit within the law. He said he will look into it further.”

  Molly grimaced, having little faith in such a statement, even from an abbot.

  “However,” Wat added, “he also said that, in his opinion, your marriage to Tuedy is unlawful. You need merely declare the marriage so if you are still a maiden, he said. If not, you must apply to the Pope for an annulment.”

  “Mercy, sir, if I am married, how could I possibly still be a maiden?”

  Since Wat had believed all along that Molly was unlikely still to be a virgin, the answer to that question was easy. “If you are not,” he said, “we must talk more with the abbot and ask him how you should phrase your appeal. You should know, though, that he suspects such a plea will fail. The Pope—”

  “But if an appeal will do me no good…”

  “You cannot know that until you try,” Wat said.

  “But if I have to return to Tuedy, will it not look as if I want to be with him? After all,” she added hastily when Wat frowned, “no one heeded aught save Will’s forcing me to nod as if I’d accepted the horrid man as my husband.”

  “You will have my protection and that of my family for as long as you need it,” Wat said. “You may stay here as long as necessary.”

  “Thank you, sir, but what if my father finds out that I am here and demands my return? Do the laws of Scotland not support his wishes over mine?”

  “That is another question to ask the abbot,” Wat said. When she looked right at him, guilt stirred again. He was nearly sure she was right about that point of law.

  Visibly disappointed, she said, “I think I should go back upstairs. I doubt that your lady mother or Lady Meg would approve of us being here like this.”