Fair Border Bride (13 page)

It was possible Harry was one of the West March Warden’s men. He certainly did not have the look of a tradesman or a farmer. She frowned. Perhaps she had been unwise to give her heart so precipitately. Yet given it was, and she would prove herself a coward if she settled so easily for marriage to John Errington.

“You like John,” she called to her brother, who rode alongside the cart. “Why? Why do you like him?”

Lionel’s shoulders lifted briefly. “There’s nothing to dislike about him. He’s quiet and considerate and he’ll listen to you.” He glanced at Alina from the side of his eye. “He’s not as flash as Harry Scott, but he has many of the same qualities, I think.”

His remark surprised her. “What do you mean?”

Lionel sighed. “Think of the best horse you’ve ever seen. Now think of the pony that pulls your cart every day of the year. They both do their best for you but you will always favour the horse over the humble pony.”

Alina stared at him. “You think I’m so horrid? I love this pony almost as much as I love Dragon!”

“Don’t be so literal,” Lionel snapped. “Think about it and maybe you’ll grasp what I mean.” He nudged his horse and cantered on, heading out across the fields where the cart could not venture.

Alina glanced sideways at Joseph, who stared straight ahead as if suddenly struck deaf and dumb. He had heard everything her brother said and he was so much older than either of them. Perhaps he understood.

“Joseph? Do you know what he means?”

Joseph looked down at his blunt-fingered hands and twisted them in his lap. “Aye, I know what the lad means, but I’m not sure I can explain it any better than he did.”

Alina sighed. She focussed on the pony’s ears. “Do try, Joseph. I need to know. Does he mean that I only care for expensive things?”

Joseph shook his head. “No, Miss Alina. I think he means that the pony is worth as much as the horse, though they do different things and the horse will always catch your eye first. Anyone’s eye, that is.”

“So, he thinks John is worth as much as Harry.”

Joseph nodded.

Alina rolled her eyes, but refrained from staring at the man at her side. “But Harry is so much…so much better than John.”

“Only in your mind, Miss Alina.
To anyone else, they are much the same.”

She frowned.
“Really?”

“As peas in a pod.
Both gentry, both young, both handsome.
Maybe both care for you.”

“But…” She shook her head. “I cannot agree with you.”

“That’s because you think yourself in love with one of them, and not
wi
t’other
. That’s what makes the difference.”

“Oh.” She could feel warmth creeping into her cheeks. It seemed even Joseph could tell she was in love with Harry.

“Keep thinking of horses,” Joseph said. “It makes life that much easier.”

***

When Alina walked into the solar, the atmosphere was heavy with disquiet. Her steps faltered as she glanced around the room. Her mother’s restrained greeting and blank expression told its own tale. Alina looked beyond her mother to the window, where her father stared out over the ravine. Alina hovered uncertainly by the table. Her spindle lay there next to the carding basket. She reached for it and then froze.

“If you ever disgrace me again, in public or out of it, I shall take the leather strap to you as I did for the boys when they sheltered Scott.” The cold fury in her father’s voice stunned her. He stared out of the window, his words pitched to carry no further than the solar. “Do not think that because you are a girl, you will escape.”

The boys never mentioned a beating. Had she escaped the leather strap simply because she was female? “No, Father. I’m sorry, but I thought only to save you—”

Carnaby swung round and took a step towards her. “I do not need you to save me, you interfering little bitch!”

“Husband!”
Margery Carnaby jerked upright in her chair.

“It is all right, Mama. I did not mean to annoy Father, but if I have, I must apologise.” The look in her father’s eye caused a shiver to run down Alina’s spine but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to meet his gaze.

“I don’t want your apologies,” he growled. “Nor your half-baked excuses. I am tired of arranging matches for you that come to naught. The sooner you marry Errington, the better I’ll like it. Go to your room and stay there until I say you may leave.”

Alina turned, her back stiff, and walked to the stairway. Her father’s voice followed her as he vented his spleen on his wife. “That girl is full of her own importance. I give her the best of everything, and she repays me by favouring that snivelling whelp Scott. She made me look a fool in front of the entire marketplace today.”

With one foot on the lowest stair, Alina halted and looked back. He was watching her. “Ungrateful girl,” he snarled. “Don’t think to come down to the next meal. Dry bread and water is all you may expect.”

She opened her mouth to apologise once more. His hand flashed out. “No. Don’t speak. Go.”

Alina went slowly upstairs and lifted the latch of her door. As far as she knew, he had arranged only one match for her with young Woodrington, who had so carelessly died. How many families had he approached, trying to marry her off? It was a chilling thought, made even colder by the thought that they had all refused.

She trudged into her room under the rafters of the sloping roof and glanced up at the round window. Sometimes a sparrow perched there, or a pigeon. The room was fit only for servants. But at least it offered privacy, of a kind. She sat on the edge of the wooden bed frame and covered her face with her hands.

She had saved Harry, and prevented her father being injured. When she compared Harry’s health and strength against her father’s age and bulk, she shuddered to think of the outcome of a swordfight between them. To have Harry kill her father would have been unthinkable. She had done the only thing possible, though her brother and her father’s pride had suffered. She’d probably put herself in a bad light in John Errington’s eyes as well, but that could not be helped.

She would endure her punishment. Mama would see she did not starve. Lance and Cuddy would creep in and talk to her. She had a book to read. With a sigh, she realised she had only the stub of a candle and no means of lighting it.

Alina opened her eyes, heard the birdsong outside and discovered the kitten curled into a soft grey ball across her throat. Disentangling the creature, she wondered if Father would allow her to leave her room today. The last week had been tedious, and today was the day Harry had promised to return. Delight and apprehension rolled through her because she knew she must meet him before he and Father bumped into each other, otherwise Father was likely to froth at the mouth and attack him with a sword.

She sighed. Father allowed her to speak with John Errington when he called, and she was allowed to sit and sew with her mother; but the rest of the long, dreary week had been spent in her small, cramped room. There was every chance her punishment might continue. If so, she might never get to see Harry.

John had no clue to her inner thoughts and dreams, and she knew he would be hurt when she avoided the marriage ceremony scheduled for the morrow. But unless she sacrificed her chance of happiness with Harry, there was nothing she could do. Guilt, coupled with lots of time to think about Joseph and Lionel’s impressions of John, had made her treat John more kindly during the week. In doing so, she had discovered his quiet charm and determination.

She closed her eyes and visualised her wedding. Harry would stand close behind her, one hand on her shoulder, the other at her waist. Because he was so tall, his chin would touch the top of her head. She would wear her best gown, the one with the dark blue stomacher and the gold embroidery, and her hair would be braided in a coronet around her head.

Harry wore…she frowned. She had only seen him in drab brown, no doubt selected to make him as unnoticeable as possible. In her imagination she promptly changed the brown to crimson, and found he suited the rich colour. When she clothed him in tawny velvet, he looked better still.

A sudden clamour erupted in the solar below. Hurried footsteps rattled across the floorboards and a maid shrieked and called for Mistress Carnaby. Alina sat up, pushed her blanket aside and deposited the kitten in the middle of her bed. Some urgent matter was afoot.

She stole to the landing and peered down the rickety stairs. The boys’ door opened and Lance padded barefoot across to join her. “What’s happening?”

“No idea,” she muttered. The muffled sound of sobs reached them. “But I think I’ll get dressed and go down.”

She retreated to her room. Lance, clad only in his long linen nightshirt, skipped down the narrow stairs.

By the time she splashed her face in her basin of cold water, combed her hair, pulled on her clothes and persuaded the kitten it really didn’t want to hook its claws into her skirt, Lance thudded back up the wooden stairs.
“Ally!”

She went to the door. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“It’s Uncle Reynold,” he said. “They think he’s going to die.”

She stared at her brother. No doubt her eyes had rounded, like his. She wondered if he felt the same mixture of sadness and horror. “Of course,” she said slowly. “He has been ill for so long…I am ashamed to say I had forgotten him.
Oh, how awful of me.”

Stricken by guilt, she tied off the end of her plait and forced her feet into soft, round-toed shoes. The kitten pounced and she put the creature back on the old blanket, then stood on the landing, waiting.

Lance appeared first. “Are we to see him?” she murmured.

“Don’t know. Mother’s with him now. Father’s getting up.” He looked back into the room he shared with his brother. “Cuddy, get dressed!” His troubled hazel eyes regarded her sadly. “I’ve never seen a dead person.”

“Oh, Lance, neither have I. We’ll see him together, shall we? And I expect Mama will be there, too. Father will miss him.”

She couldn’t guarantee what her father would do. Cuthbert had always deferred to his elder, more successful brother, but there was no obvious sign of love between the two men.
None that she had been allowed to see, certainly.

“I’m not sure I want to see a dead…um…body.” Lance went back into the room he shared with Cuddy, shut the door and left Alina standing on the dark landing.

Slowly, she went to the ground floor, the oldest part of the hall. The low ceiling, the bare stone walls and the small windows made the long room gloomy. Sunshine never penetrated here, and today, with overcast skies outside, there was little light coming through the windows.

A few candles burned beside the stone sink, and a fire glowed in the vast stone hearth. Servants tiptoed about with cloths and pans of water. A maid sat and peeled potatoes. Alina retreated to the fireplace in the corner of the long room, and waited for her mother.

The door to Sir Reynold’s room was shut, but a rim of light shone under the door. Someone descended the narrow wooden staircase from the solar. Alina saw her father’s hand drift uncertainly over the handrail until he came to a halt facing the doorway into Sir Reynold’s room.

Cuthbert Carnaby hesitated on the bottom step. His hand closed on the handrail so hard his knuckles turned white. Three deep, rasping breaths followed before he squared his shoulders and lifted his head as though a battle awaited him in the silent, candlelit room his brother had occupied most of the summer.

Alina rose from her stool by the fireplace, but he did not notice her. She watched him walk slowly forward, saw his hand hover over the door latch as if he was reluctant to enter. His shoulders lifted as he drew in a final, mournful breath of air and it came to her that she knew the cause of her father’s irascibility this summer.

Tears welled, and she was hard pressed to stay them as her father finally entered the room. Once, she supposed, he and Reynold had played together as boys, and been friends, just as she and Lance—

One hand to her mouth, she turned away, and walked to the window overlooking the orchard. To her, Sir Reynold Carnaby was a small, well-dressed man who spent his life moving between his many residences. He bestowed liberal gifts and then vanished once more on his eternal business with local gentlemen. She realised she hardly knew him. Her visits to him had been infrequent over the last few weeks as he grew weaker, and now it was too late.

For her father, of course, he meant so much more. An older brother who would have been part of Father’s life from the day he was born, a presence, always there, through the precarious days of childhood adventures.

Lance and Cuddy clattered down the wooden stairs to join her. Alina met them, shushed them and bade them sit by the fireplace. Almost immediately their mother beckoned them into the room where their uncle lay. Alina hesitated, but the boys moved forward, half curious, half in awe. Her mother put a calm hand on each boy’s shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze.

“Say your goodbyes now,” she whispered. “Bid him Godspeed, for he will not last long.”

Alina’s throat tightened. She wondered if she would be able to speak at all.

***

The rest of the day passed in quiet prayer and contemplation. The household crept about, all visitors refused except Sir William, who arrived from Halton and marched into his son’s room with barely a word for any one.

Alina caught a glimpse of her grandfather’s ravaged face and took the boys into the orchard, where they sat in the sunshine and played with Midge and Fly, the herder’s dogs. Against the tragedy of death, her own problems concerning her coming wedding and Harry Scott seemed of little consequence. Yet as the day wore on, she wondered how Harry would reach her if all visitors were refused, as they had been today.

“I didn’t like that.” Cuddy’s small voice broke into her thoughts.

“You didn’t like what?” Alina asked. Cuddy’s face was pinched and white. Lance stared fixedly at Fly, who waited for him to pick up the ball once more.

“Uncle looked like the
tharecrow
in the
Eath
Field.”

“Oh, Cuddy!”
She gave him a swift, one-armed hug, privately thinking that his description was accurate.

Lance stuck out his bottom lip. “It’s true. He did, you know he did.”

“I never said he didn’t,” she replied. “He got so thin of late, I know. But can you not remember him as he was at Christmas? Or last year, when he was happy and healthy? That would be a better memory.”

“Will we look like that one day?”

She looked down at Cuddy’s small, white face and hugged him again.
“No, of course not.
Uncle was ill, has been ill for a long time. Since May, I think.”

“Is that why he was so thin? I’ve never seen anybody that thin, not even Alice.” Lance was too old for cuddles, but he sat beside her and allowed Midge to jump onto his lap. He clutched the bitch close beneath his arm and allowed her to lick his cheek. Nor did he object when she pushed her smooth head beneath his chin.

Alina nodded. “Alice isn’t ill, Lance. She doesn’t have much to eat, and she’s growing so tall. She is thin, though, I grant you that.”

“We could take her
thom
bramble fool.” Cuddy looked up hopefully.

“Not till the brambles ripen we can’t,” Lance muttered. He looked up. “Hello, Matho. Have you heard? Uncle’s dying, so everyone’s got to be quiet.”

Matho’s red head gleamed like a beech leaf in the sunshine “Aye, ah know.” His burly shoulders dwarfed Lance and Cuddy as both boys ran towards him. Midge went, too, in that silent, slinking way of dogs trained to herding.

Matho sombre gaze met Alina’s over the boys’ heads. “You know
ah’ve
orders not to let anyone in for the next few days?”

Her eyes widened in horror. That meant Harry would not be able to enter. “Has anyone I know approached the gate, Matho?”

“Only local
folk,
and they made no fuss. Ah was
wonderin
’ if anyone else was expected, so ah could warn them like.”

Alina relaxed as she realised what Matho wanted. “Matho, what would I do without you?” She laid a hand on each of her brothers’ shoulders and smiled down at them in turn. “I want a few words with Matho. Play with the dogs. I’ll be over there by the gate.”

She walked slowly across the grass and stepped out through the gate onto the narrow path that ran along the rim of the ravine and the south front of the hall. Matho followed her. She could have stayed in the orchard, but walking the little distance gave her time to collect her thoughts and decide what she wanted to say.

The sun heated the vast grey stones of the hall that were comfortingly warm on her back when she leant against them. She looked at Matho. “Harry said he would come back, and he’s due today, but I don’t know if he’ll ride up to the front gate. I have no idea what he plans to do.”

Matho nodded. “He’d be daft to
dee
that, right enough. Better
t’slide
in by the back door.” He stared out across the treetops. “Ah
wus
thinkin
’ that he’d be on the look-out for a handy lad who’ll
tak
a message to ye like. He might think
ah’d
dee
it.”

“You would, wouldn’t you, Matho?” Alina laid a tentative palm against the rough linen of his shirtsleeve and let her eyes plead for her.

His grin was fleeting, the merest flash of even teeth. “Aye, ah suppose so. There’s summat
aboot
that lad.” He shook his head. “He went off that bloody cliff like he was sure of soft landing in a pile o’—
er
, in a
haystook
.” He met her glance, and nodded.
“Oh, aye.
Nae
doot
aboot
him coming.
It’s not
knawin
’ where or when ’
e’ll
come, that’s the problem.”

“You know I’m supposed to marry John Errington?”

He nodded.

“Well, if Harry hasn’t arrived by midnight, I shall leave. I’ll go back home, to Grey House. If Harry comes, send him there.”

Matho’s brows lifted, but she matched his look with a steadfast one of her own. “I’ve had many hours alone in my room this week, Matho. Before you ask, yes, I’ve thought about it.”

Dreams of Harry had given way to a more sober consideration of the likelihood of happiness with John Errington. She had reluctantly drawn the conclusion that she might come to hate him. His pleasant and comfortable presence would always be a reminder of what she had lost, may even become the symbol of all that forced her to give up Harry.

Added to that was the plain fact that whereas John might always be her friend, he would never be her lover. There was no small shock to her system when he appeared, no jolt when he touched her hand, no sense of something missing when he was not with her. She knew she could live without John in her life, but she was not sure she wanted to live in a world without Harry.

“That’s a bit daft. ’
ave
ye really thought
aboot
this?”

The rough sentiments brought her back to Matho’s worried face.

“I shouldn’t marry John.”

Matho glanced about as if they might be overheard and Alina realised that they were not far from the window to Sir Reynold’s room. She crossed her arms and shook her head as Matho’s frown deepened.

“’as Harry ever spoken to ye
aboot
marriage?
Will he wed
ye
? Ye name will be good for
nowt
if ye run out on Errington and Harry
doesna
want ye. Errington’s not a bad lad, when all’s said and done.”