Seduced by a Rogue (5 page)

“Aye, your lot is a hard one,” Fiona agreed with a grimace.

Mairi looked narrowly at her, suspecting sarcasm.

Catching the look, Fiona said hastily, “I mean that, Mairi, for it
is
hard. It would be gey easier for all of us if my mother and our father would stop trying to make a son and Father would name
you his heir. Think about
me
!”

Mairi did not try to conceal her amusement at the rider. “You think that your lot is even harder?”

“Aye, sure, it is! Sithee, you will inherit Father’s title and all his estates. I shall inherit only Mam’s tocher.”

“Only our beautiful Annan House, its lands, and a generous sum to support it,” Mairi said. “Poor Fee! But whatever happens,
no good can come from encouraging the likes of William Jardine.”

“But we never meet any
eligible
young men, and I
like
Will Jardine!”

Gathering patience, Mairi said, “Dearest one, we talk of a man whose entire family is untrustworthy. The Jardines have a long
history of collaborating with the English against us. Now they simply accept English occupation of Lochmaben, the ancient
seat of the Bruces and the most impregnable castle in Annandale.”

“So do the Maxwells!”

“Aye, they do. But recall how Will Jardine treated you. Could you truly care for a man so insensitive to your rank and to
the respect due to a noblewoman… to any woman? Faith, he treated you with extraordinary incivility!”

“I don’t
care
about civility. I thought he was amusing and charming. And he is quite the handsomest man I have ever seen.”

Mairi might have debated that point, because she thought Robert Maxwell was better looking. However, comparing the two men
in any way being clearly unwise then, she said only, “Mayhap so, but I warrant William will look just like his father one
day. Men frequently do, you know. Have you ever seen Old Jardine?”

Fiona frowned. “I never saw any Jardine before today.”

“He came here once to raise some sort of grievance when I was about twelve. I remember that he had a bulbous red nose, tiny
eyes, and he was fat. He was angry, though, which may account for the redness but not for his piggy eyes or vast girth.”

“Mercy, I would not allow any husband of mine to grow fat,” Fiona declared. “Why was Old Jardine angry?”

“I don’t know,” Mairi said. “I could see that he was as soon as they announced him, but Father sent me away. Whatever it was,
I expect Jardine got short shrift.”

With a sudden mischievous glint, Fiona said, “Think you that Robert Maxwell will take supper with us this evening?”

Mairi rolled her eyes. “He has already departed, Fee, likely for Applegarth. Sithee, it has begun to rain, and he would never
make Dumfries before dark.”

Inside Spedlins Tower, the Jardine stronghold at Applegarth, Rob changed to warm, dry clothing and found his younger host
awaiting him in the great hall.

“Come in and take a whisky to warm you,” Will said. As he poured from jug to mug, he shot Rob a look from under his eyebrows.
“Did Dunwythie submit?”

“Nay, but I did not expect it,” Rob said, gratefully accepting the whisky and taking a sip as he moved to stand by the fire.
The ride back in increasingly heavy rain had chilled him to the bone. But the fire and the whisky warmed him.

Will’s father, known generally as Old Jardine, entered soon afterward. As he shook Rob’s hand, the old man said, “I’d wager
ye got nowt from Dunwythie.”

“You’d be right, sir,” Rob replied evenly.

His host grinned. “Ye’ll get nowt from me, either, for all that we be friends.”

“I know that,” Rob said. He knew, too, that although the Jardines were currently Maxwell allies, they were apt to change shirts
with any passing breeze. Regarding taxes, at least, Old Jardine was at one with the men of Annandale.

Pacifically, the old man said, “I’ve nae particular quarrel wi’ Dunwythie at present. Sithee, he’s a peaceable chap most days.”

“Peace is good, sir,” Rob said. “We would be wise to encourage more of it. The last thing we want is for war to erupt hereabouts.”

“’Tis true,” Jardine said. “With Dunwythie’s connections to the Lord o’ Galloway and Douglas o’ Thornhill, anyone who stirs
trouble in Annandale risks bringing the whole lot o’ them down on us. I’ve nae wish to stir up any Douglas.”

“No one has such a wish,” Rob said. Trailinghail lay in Galloway, and he knew that men had good reason for calling its lord
“Archie the Grim.”

“Aye, well, the Jardines have strong connections, too,” Will said.

“We Maxwells amongst them,” Rob said amiably. “But you cannot want to quarrel with the Dunwythies. Sakes, you’d make friends
with at least one of them.”

“Which o’ them would that be, lad?” Old Jardine said, shooting his son a narrow-eyed look.

Will shrugged. “Just a wench, Da. Nae one of import, although I’ll admit she’d be a tasty morsel. Ye’ll be leaving us come
morning, Rob, won’t ye?”

Rob agreed that he would and took the opportunity to change the subject to one less likely to stir debate. He was glad to
bid them both goodnight right after supper, although he was not looking forward to returning to Dumfries.

He had gathered the information Alex wanted about Annandale landholders. But he knew the sheriff had hoped—even expected—that
he would somehow manage to persuade Dunwythie and the others to submit to his authority.

Rob still doubted that anything short of an army could accomplish that goal. The Maxwells could certainly raise one if necessary.
But so could others, including Archie the Grim. And Archie would surely side with his kinsman.

Heaven alone knew what the result of such a clash as that might be.

W
aking the following morning from a dream in which she had been riding from Annan House to Dunwythie Mains in the company of
Robert Maxwell, rather than with her parents and Fiona, Mairi eyed with a sense of unreality the sun streaming through the
window of the bedchamber she shared with Fiona.

The rain had stopped.

Her sister still slept, so Mairi crept out of bed without disturbing her while silently scolding herself for allowing Robert
Maxwell to invade her dreams.

As she poured water from the ewer on the washstand into the basin to wash her face and hands, she continued to wonder at such
a foolish dream. He was not even the sort of man she had hoped one day to meet, let alone to marry.

Someone, doubtless the same maidservant who had come in quietly, and as quietly had opened the shutters and filled the ewer
with fresh water, had set out clothing for Mairi and Fiona to wear that day. The pink-and-green embroidered gray kirtle she
had put out for Mairi laced up the back. So, after slipping on her soft cambric shift and tying its white silk ribbons at
her cleavage, Mairi opened the door and peeked around it to the landing.

No one was there. But hearing footsteps above, she waited. And presently the plump, rosy lass who served them came into view
round the turn.

“Flory, I need help lacing my kirtle,” Mairi said quietly.

“Aye, m’lady, I were just a-coming. Be the lady Fiona up yet?”

“Nay, but I doubt we will wake her.”

“That lassie does sleep as if she were deaf,” Flory said, straightening her cap. “Will I brush your hair first, m’lady?”

“Nay, I’ll dress first. The air is gey chilly in here.”

While she concentrated on dressing and not waking Fiona, who would sleep soundly for only so long, Mairi did not think of
Maxwell. But as she made her way downstairs to the hall to break her fast, she wondered if he might still be angry.

That he had been fuming just before he’d taken leave of them would have been plain to the meanest intelligence. She was sorry
for that, although her father had been the one to anger him. Even Dunwythie had admitted that a sheriff generally did command
a whole shire. Still, the Maxwells were overstepping tradition. That, too, was clear.

Never in Annandale’s history had its nobles paid their share of the Crown’s demands to anyone save their own steward or seneschal
to deliver to the King. That the sheriff hoped to change that tradition was one thing. That he had the right or the power
to do so without Annandale’s consent was another question.

Still, she could wish that Robert Maxwell had come into her life in some other way—and as some person other than a Maxwell.

Chuckling at her own whimsy, she thrust all thought of him from her mind at the hall landing and stepped onto the dais with
a smile for her father and another for her stepmother. The latter had come down earlier than usual.

“I trust you slept well, madam,” Mairi said.

“Och, aye, as well as I ever do these days, I expect,” Phaeline said.

Dunwythie was halfway through his breakfast, his attention clearly on other matters. But after Mairi had taken a manchet from
the basket and allowed a gillie to serve her ale from the flagon, and a small fried trout doubtless caught fresh from the
river that morning, she said to her father, “Sir, do you think the Sheriff of Dumfries can just force his authority on Annandale?”

Giving her a fond look, Dunwythie said, “Ye women! I tell ye, ye needna fret about such things.”

“Mayhap we need not, sir,” Mairi said. “But one dislikes seeing anyone leave here in anger, as Robert Maxwell did yestereve.
And he did say the sheriff has power to seize our estates.
Can
he, sir?”

“Nay, nay, lass. Dinna be thinking such things. It willna happen. I mean to make it plain that I’ll have nae bowing down to
the Maxwells. They just want to exert such power to raise more gelt for their own purpose. I ken fine what it be, too—rebuilding
Caerlaverock!” With a look that included his lady wife, he added, “We’ll be saying no more about this now, d’ye hear?”

Mairi willingly complied with what amounted to an order. She nearly always preferred peace to its absence. Although her father
shared the same peaceful nature, like many men accustomed to command, he was apt to lose his temper when anyone who owed him
duty defied him.

Despite her intent to banish thoughts and memories of Robert Maxwell, they continued to plague her, stirring oddly conflicting
emotions as they did. She would recall his arrogance one moment, how clear his eyes were the next. Uneasily recalling his
anger, she remembered the look he had given her as he’d turned to go.

There had been no anger in
that
look.

Calling her wits to order at last, she thrust him out of her head and focused instead on diverting Fiona from thoughts of
Will Jardine and on fixing her own thoughts on what her father could teach her about the Dunwythie estates.

Leaving Spedlins Tower as the sun peeked over the eastern hills, Rob and his men enjoyed a peaceful ride back to Dumfries,
fifteen miles to the southwest.

Mist rising from the river Annan and the still rain-damp landscape clung to shrubbery and trees in shredded skirts, but by
the time the sun had climbed above the hilltops, the mist had disappeared.

Rob and his men forded the Annan a few miles south of Applegarth. Staying north of the springtime morass of water meadows
and bogs surrounding Lochmaben Castle, they met the Dumfries road a few miles to the west.

Two hours later, they reached the royal burgh of Dumfries and followed its High Street to the tall stone edifice known as
Alan’s Tower.

Overlooking the river Nith, the tower was ancient. It had belonged to Alan, last Lord of Galloway until Archie assumed that
title 140 years later. Rob’s branch of Maxwells having owned the Tower for some time before that, it had long served as the
residence and court of the hereditary Sheriff of Dumfries.

Dismounting in the yard, Rob tossed his reins to a minion, then paused to exchange a few words with the itinerant knacker,
Parland Dow, who had his cottage rent-free from the Maxwells as payment for his many services to them.

Touching his cap, he said to Rob, “Good to see ye, sir. I be a-heading into Annandale from here but I mean to be in Kirkcudbright
again nae more than a sennight from now, ten days at most.”