Seduced by a Rogue (38 page)

“Pish tush,” Jenny remarked when Mairi explained as much to her. “She said the same to me after I ran away with the minstrels.
But I can tell you this, Mairi. When a woman bears a title in her own right, such events become just interesting facts about
her life. Even a countess may draw dour looks, to be sure. But people forgive her much that would destroy an untitled woman,
unfair as that may be. A husband will make a difference, too, when you wed. I promise you that.”

“Aye, perhaps,” Mairi said, striving to look disinterested. “But a baroness who takes her
maidservant
with her when she runs off with minstrels is a much different matter than a lady stolen from her home and kept prisoner by
a laird she had met only once, and gey briefly.”

“I expect it is different,” Jenny said. She looked as if she might ask a more ticklish question next, but Mairi went right
on to describe the sheriff’s attempt to take custody of her, and the moment passed. Still, she was sure Jenny must wonder
if Rob had taken advantage of her.

He had, of course, but only with her aid and consent. And he had proposed marriage directly afterward. But that detail was
another she did not mean to share.

She still believed that while a husband could make a difference in her situation, no one would react well to the idea of any
woman marrying her abductor.

Nor could she blame anyone for thinking badly of such a plan. It was clearly daft. So, she would put it right out of her head.
She would certainly not tell Jenny that the notion had ever crossed her mind. Nor would she allow it to do so again.

In fact, it was possible that Rob did not even love her, and just as well.

After all, when she had asked him to leave, he had put up little argument. And, in view of Fiona’s elopement and their father’s
death, even the thought of trying to explain to Phaeline, or to anyone else, that Mairi
might
want to marry the man who had abducted her was beyond her ability just then to imagine.

Jenny asked next about Dunwythie. Learning that he was properly interred in the hillside cemetery at Annan House, she had
only one question.

“Did you read his will?”

“Aye, straightaway. ’Twas just as he had told me, including leaving Annan House to me, although Phaeline retains her tocher
right to live there until she dies.”

“’Tis odd that Fiona did not show herself even for the burial, is it not?”

“I sent messengers twice,” Mairi said. “First to tell her he had died and urge her to come home. I said Phaeline needed her,
and I, too. Then I sent to remind her that we were all to come here for Easter. She did send a message that time, saying dearest
Will thought they ought not to travel whilst she was so upset by her loss and that mayhap they would see me when next I visit
Dunwythie Mains.”

“Sakes, how
very
odd,” Jenny said with a sigh. “I still miss my father. I felt close to him right to the minute he died. Still, I’m glad we
Borderers do not make such a great fuss of death and burial as the English do, and some Scots.”

Mairi agreed, but Dunwythie’s death was still raw within her, and she missed Fiona. Although she had not felt as close to
her father as Jenny had to hers, neither had she lived alone with Dunwythie as Jenny had with Easdale after
her
mother died. Easdale never wanted to remarry and, from the outset, had accepted Jenny as his heiress. That would not have
been Dunwythie’s way, Phaeline or no Phaeline.

“Attending to burials quickly and without fuss was only sensible hereabouts when the next raid or invasion might occur before
they were done,” Mairi said. “Mayhap now that we’ve had peace for a time, things can begin to change.”

“Perhaps,” Jenny said. “But life is for the living, and one should get on with it.”

Easter Sunday arrived in the royal burgh of Dumfries with sunshine blazing.

The sky was clear, grass green, and a large crowd gathered for the Mass in St. Michael’s Kirk near the nine-arched bridge
spanning the river Nith.

The kirk was a splendid structure. Its interior was solemn but well appointed to provide for all who attended services there.

The public area near the front was large and open for prayer stools or cushions. Private pews nearer the main entrance were
grand enough and screened well so that royals and nobles could worship, safe from the stares of lesser folk.

Sir Hugh’s party had seats in a private pew that the Douglases provided for any kinsmen who had business that might keep them
in town over a Sunday.

Mairi lowered her eyes demurely as she and Phaeline followed Sir Hugh and Jenny inside. Gibby, Hugh’s man Lucas Horne, and
other servants had gone ahead to the open space in front to find places for the prayer stools they had brought.

Sir Hugh stopped at a pew, opened its gate, and gestured for Phaeline to enter. Mairi, just behind her, looked at Hugh to
see if she should go next. As he nodded, abrupt movement beyond him diverted Mairi’s attention, and she was suddenly looking
into Rob’s eyes.

He had paused to let others in his party precede him into the pew across from and a row ahead of theirs. She saw Lady Kelso
just going in, head bowed.

“Go ahead, my lady,” Hugh murmured to Mairi.

Startled, and realizing that her mouth had fallen open, she shut it, gave Hugh an apologetic smile, and hurried to take her
place with Jenny and Hugh following.

From where Mairi sat, she could no longer see Rob over the privacy screen. But every time the congregation stood during the
Mass, she could see him only too well. Each time, he glanced back at her, and she could not mistake the hunger she saw in
his expression.

Wondering how many others might notice, she tried to fix her mind on the priest and the resurrection. But all she could see
when she closed her eyes was another pair of eyes, clear pale-blue ones with long dark lashes. She had once thought them cold
but knew now how much they could warm.

The service ended at last. Hugh waited for those in front to leave with their prayer stools before he opened the pew gate,
stepped into the aisle, and made way for Jenny. As Mairi followed her and stepped past Hugh, she looked for Rob.

She found find him nearer than she had expected.

“Sir Hugh Douglas?” he said, extending a hand to Hugh. “I am Robert Maxwell. If you will permit it, sir, I would beg a word
with the lady Mairi.”

Despite the low murmur of voices and footsteps of people leaving, Mairi could hear her own heart pounding in her chest as
she looked next at Hugh.

To her astonishment, he said, “Well, lass? Art willing?”

“Aye, sir,” she said. “To talk, at least.”

Hugh nodded, and gestured for her to go ahead of him with Rob. They walked side by side, not talking, until they were outside.

“Come this way,” he murmured then, turning toward an area out of the way of the main portion of the crowd that was heading
back toward the center of town.

When they stopped, Mairi kept very still, wondering what he would do next.

She felt as if she could read his mind but wished he would say something to clarify
his
feelings if not her own.

Remembering the day he had abducted her, when she had been outraged and angry but never truly afraid…

He moved then and touched her hand, shooting a thrill through her that warmed her whole body.

Rob wanted to squeeze her hand but was afraid she would pull away if he did. Moreover, if they looked too intimately engaged,
Hugh Douglas would likely intervene. He was watching them, and although his lovely wife watched, too, she was smiling. Hugh
was not.

Rob heard Mairi murmur something and bent nearer. “What is it, lass?”

“What did you want to say to me?”

He would have been content with silence, just to be with her. But he had to speak, to be sure she understood. “I wanted you
to know that I’m here,” he said. “That is, that I will always come if you need me. You need only send for me.”

“You are kind, sir.”

“Nay, not kind, lass. Don’t ever think me kind, for I am nowt o’ the sort. Sithee, I feared I might never see you again. This
is but a step to make it possible that I may. If I do not, it will be a grievous penance to me and a lesson.”

“Prithee, sir, I do not think this is a good idea. I should go.”

“Shall I tell you what I think? I think that if we had met at a different time, in a different way—especially a different
way—you might have loved me. But because of what I did and all that has happened since, I spoiled what might have been. You
think me arrogant and thoughtless, impulsive and—”

“I do not think you arrogant,” she muttered. “Only that your behavior is sometimes so. Sakes, but you try to control all save
your own impulses. Now you even try to tell me what I think and feel. But we cannot stand here any longer. People are watching.
I must go.”

“Not yet,” he said, suppressing an urge to grab her, to make her stay. “Tell me first how bad it has been for you. Has your
stepmother made you miserable? Does she continue to plague you with her certainty that the bairn she carries is a son? I own
I was surprised to see that she would endanger the succession by—”

“Say no more, sir. She is no longer… that is, she never was. I am—” She broke off, blushing deeply.

“You are Dunwythie’s heiress then,” he said. “That is good, my lady, aye—Lady Dunwythie of that Ilk. Now, fewer people will
dare to chide you.”

“That is what Jenny said,” Mairi confided. “But I
must
go.”

Sir Hugh took a step toward them then, so Rob nodded, saying, “Aye, you must. But remember… if you need anything that I can
provide…”

“I know. Thank you.”

As she turned away, he remembered one thing more. “What of Gib?” he asked. “Did you bring him with you?”

“Aye, sir, he is here with the servants. But he has not said what he wants to do, and he is welcome to stay. He has impressed
my steward, who admires his reliability. And Gib has made himself guardian-in-chief of the wee terror.”

Rob chuckled, saw Sir Hugh striding toward them, and said, “Go now, my lady. Your own guardian approaches.”

“I see him, but we return to Annan House in a few days’ time and will pass near Dumfries,” she said. “I will see that Gib
gets to you then if he does decide to return, and if you are still here in the burgh.”

Assuring her that he would be there, he watched as she walked gracefully away, wishing he had the words and time to tell her
how she made him feel, that just looking at her put warmth in his heart, that she was all that he was not.

For months before he had come to know her, he had felt an emptiness inside him that was hard to define. In truth, though,
he had not recognized the feeling until meeting her had made the difference, before that moment and after, so clear to him.

Although he had immersed himself in projects and
duties at Trailinghail, he had felt no true urge to live there full-time until he had been there with her.

Before then, he had itched for more, mayhap to ply his sword in service to the Lord of Galloway, to help Archie speed the
remaining English from Scotland.

Still, he had not wanted anything enough to take the first step toward it.

He had therefore wandered from one objective to another, doing many things and nothing, chiefly tasks that Alex had demanded
of him. He had nearly always felt angry about something, too—or about nothing in particular that he could name.

Then Fate had brought Mairi into his life.

He had talked with her, laughed with her, and fought with her. Even as she had fought back, even when she confided her own
loneliness to him, she had shown that her heart was open to all and that she had soft words even for a harsh man.

She could light up a room by entering it. Sakes, but she lit up his mind whenever some seemingly disconnected thought brought
her image into it.

He did not deserve her, and he could not have her. He was not even sure that he loved her, because he did not know how a man
knew love when it came. But he did know that he wanted her in his life more than he had ever wanted anything else.