Susan Johnson (26 page)

“Yes, sair, I’m afraid so.”

“Should I get back on my horse and ride away, Willie?” he mockingly asked, not sure of the extent of his iniquity.

“I couldn’t say, sair. Ye’d best decide yerself.”

Which was not a comforting answer.

And when he opened the library door a few minutes later, not certain Mrs. Reid would actually be inside after the style of her departure, he found her sitting bolt upright in one of the tapestry chairs.

“She’s gettin married, you know,” Mrs. Reid instantly declared, the harsh syllables of her words booming in the silence of the high-ceilinged room.

It wasn’t necessary to ask the identity of her subject. “She has a right to marry, does she not?” he said,
entering the room, closing the door behind him, not moving beyond the threshold, as if he could use the distance between them as impediment to the coming conversation.

“Do ye find it strange then, that she dinna choose to tell any of us?”

“Yet you know?”

“Only because I sent over some fruit from the orchard, and the drivers returned yesterday with the news. She hadna even told Munro. De ye find that strange, Johnnie, me boy?”

“She has her own life.”

“And ye don’t care about it?”

“Do I deserve this dressing-down?” He couldn’t understand the outrage, the bristling umbrage. After all these years she understood the pattern of his friendships with women.

“Do ye care that she’s two months gone with child? Or dinna ye care about those matters either?”

“How do you know?” His voice had changed.

“Because it’s not a secret at Three Kings, ye see, and the drivers brought back the glad tidings. They say Lady Graham’s moonglow happy about the coming bairn.”

“Who’s she marrying?” Curt, pointed, the flattering civility was gone.

“Sir George Baldwin.”

Nothing moved in his large body for a flashing moment, not breath or heartbeat, not blood or spark of life. And then he found his breath again and felt the presence of the world return. “Thank you, Mrs. Reid, for the information,” he said, responding with a practiced sangfroid. “We should send a gift to the newlyweds. I’ll leave it up to you.”

“Ye’re a coldhearted bastard.”

He had his hand on the door latch already, and he half turned at the sound of her words. “I know that already,” he quietly said.

• • •

Johnnie was unresponsive at dinner that night, and later, when the covers were cleared and the brandy came out, he became even more sullen and moody.

None of his men brought up the subject of Elizabeth’s imminent marriage, although all were aware of the event and the reasons for it. Munro was as surly as his cousin, more so perhaps in the depths of his moral outrage; Kinmont was careful to keep the conversation on business matters alone. Adam and several of the younger men had taken bets on the outcome of the evening and watched the Laird of Ravensby closely as he tested his capacity for brandy.

At one minute before two in the morning, Johnnie said in a soft drawl, “How many riders can we raise in an hour?”

Kinmont, half-asleep in his chair, instantly came awake at the lazy inquiry.

While Munro said with heated sarcasm, “It’s about time.”

Flashing a smile at his compatriots because he’d won the bet by a timely minute, Adam said with the authority of foresight, “Just under three hundred.”

Rising from his chair with an energy that belied the number of bottles he’d consumed, Johnny surveyed his lieutenants with a remarkably clear-eyed gaze. “Be ready then in an hour, fully armed. Bring a lady’s mount. We ride for Three Kings.”

The alarm was raised with hunting horn and beacon fire, and within the hour the Carres were assembled en masse, ready to ride. The moonless night was dangerous for fast riding but helpful in concealing the passage of a large troop. Strung out for miles along the narrow backroads, they made for the border. Lights came on in the villages they galloped through, and occasionally a voice shouted out, “Godspeed, Johnnie!” The Roxburgh villagers knew the sound of night raiders traveling fast into England, and their good wishes followed the Carres like fluttering pennants in the wind.

The small army crossed into England at Carter Bar just as the dark began to fade, Johnnie in the lead on his fast barb, Munro keeping pace, Kinmont and Adam a length behind, all the men whipping their mounts to keep pace.

Johnnie surveyed the glimmer of grey on the horizon with a practiced eye, estimating the time, knowing he had two hours yet till Three Kings. Seven o’clock should find him there; and no one married at seven. He should reach her in time.

Edgy and moody after two hard-riding hours in the saddle, his head aching from the brandy, he wasn’t thinking with lucid clarity. Or perhaps he wasn’t thinking at all. Perhaps he was riding to Three Kings on instinct alone. Perhaps primitive feeling compelled him, or fatal necessity. He was beyond introspection or rational argument or understanding; he knew only that he didn’t wish Elizabeth Graham to marry. He didn’t know whether it mattered more that she was carrying his child or that she was giving herself to George Baldwin.

He knew only that he had to stop her.

But it was too quiet when they rode into Three Kings, the bright morning sunlight glinting off the new structure under construction on the hill. Even that site of activity was ominously deserted. And Munro, as snappish and testy as his cousin after the long ride and the longer night of drinking and his resentment over Johnnie’s cavalier treatment of Elizabeth, growled, “You’re too bloody late.

“Fuck you, Munro,” Johnnie curtly retorted, leaping from his mount before the barb had come to a complete halt. “No one marries at seven in the morning. I’ve just got to find her,” he shouted, already sprinting for the house. And while his men milled around on the gravel drive, Johnnie raced to the front door of the redbrick house and, finding it locked against him, pounded on the ancient oak with such force, the hinges squealed.

In short order a retainer timidly opened the portal,
the sight of a multitude of armed men enough to test anyone’s courage.

“Where’s Lady Graham?” Johnnie tersely inquired, the absence of Redmond and his men evidence of Elizabeth’s departure.

The servant recognized Johnnie. “In Hexham, Your Grace,” he quickly replied; no one at Three Kings had questioned the paternity of Elizabeth’s child. “At the cathedral.”

“What time’s the wedding?”

The retainer’s gaze traveled beyond Johnnie to the mass of armed riders, even the most simpleminded capable of interpreting the reason for their sudden appearance. “At eleven, sir, but Redmond’s there,” he added, the warning too late for the Laird of Ravensby, who was running full-out toward his mount.

“Hexham,” Johnnie shouted to those close enough to hear as he vaulted into the saddle. “By eleven,” he cried, already wheeling his horse. And he spurred his tired barb.

Another troop of horse were on their way to Hexham, intent like Johnnie Carre on stopping the wedding of Elizabeth Graham. The Grahams had heard earlier that week of her marriage, and their plans were more prepared than Johnnie’s ad hoc gallop south. They rode out of Redesdale Forest that morning two hundred strong, with the object of abducting the bride for a nuptial ceremony of their own.

All five of Hotchane’s sons were in good humor. No one would anticipate a raid in the bishop’s town, and timing would give them the advantage if their numbers weren’t advantageous enough.

They intended to reach the cathedral shortly before the ceremony, when everyone was already seated inside. Daytime raids were rare—almost unheard of. The element of surprise should be complete. They traveled slowly, a festive air to their cavalcade, the bridegroom, Luke, dressed beneath his breastplate in his wedding
doublet, ribbons tied to his lance in honor of the occasion. He was looking forward to bedding his former stepmama, while Matthew cheerfully contemplated the return of his father’s money.

More violent and uncurbed emotion drove Johnnie Carre to Hexham, nothing as leisured or callous as the Grahams’ casual lust and greed. He had more significant personal reasons for reaching Hexham before the wedding ceremony, although in his present black mood, he’d take Elizabeth Graham married or not. And he touched the basket hilt of his sword in assurance. A gauntlet remained between himself and Elizabeth. Redmond, his troop, George Baldwin. It could be a bloody wedding day.

Munro pointed. On the skyline the shape of Hexham came into view, the church crowning the swell of higher ground. Johnnie whipped his horse.

And the Carres reached the crest of the rise bordering the River Tyne at Hexham just as the Grahams advanced from their concealed position northwest of the town.

It was ten minutes before the hour, high morning, and the bucolic river valley lay sleepy under the autumn sun.

The sudden appearance of massed cavalry strung out along the low hills, fronting the river in close-line formation, astonished the Grahams, who’d not expected combatants other than Elizabeth’s bodyguard. And the Graham brothers drew together on horseback to assess their foe.

“How many do you think?” Matthew asked his brother Andrew, who held a glass up to his eye.

“Three score, maybe four …” Andrew murmured, swinging the glass along the green hills where a line of horsemen were ranged on the skyline, their accoutrements winking and flashing under the sun.

“We’ll stand at the bridge then. Let them come to
us. Or they might decide the odds aren’t in their favor. Can you tell who they are?”

“No one I recognize, but they’ve ridden a distance. Their mounts are lathered.”

“To our advantage,” Matthew remarked, already deploying his younger brothers into position with simple gestures, confident with his overwhelming numbers.

“Is that Redmond?” Munro was saying as he and Johnnie sat their horses on the crest of the hill, scrutinizing the opposition moving into position at the entrance to the bridge leading into Hexham.

“It doesn’t matter,” Johnnie tersely said, swinging his head around briefly to see that his men had all assembled on the terrain behind him. “We need you at left, Adam at right, I’ll take the center. I don’t want them to have time to outflank us. We move out as soon as you’re in place. Keep your men out of sight behind the hill until we charge. Go!” And he signaled for Adam to come up.

In five frantic minutes of wheeling horses and close-order drill, the Carres were dispersed. Johnnie rode along the lines giving instructions, a nervous energy beneath his casual drawl. Satisfied everyone understood the orders, he rode to the head of his men and raised his gloved hand. His long hair stirred in the breeze as he sat motionless for an abridged moment.

Then his arm came slashing down, his black barb leaped forward, his bloodcurdling scream rent the morning air, and a few men shy of three hundred Carres, their ferocious voices raised to the sky, surged after Johnnie Carre in a headlong charge. There was no time for a detailed battle plan, but they’d fight by eye and ear and tactical sense in a cut-and-thrust brawl that they’d honed to a fine art in years of border raids.

Whipping his horse, Johnnie raced down the hill, the thunder of hoofbeats behind him. Those men below were going to have to move out of his way or fall before him, he grimly thought, his black hair streaming behind him, his eyes half-shut against the rushing wind, his fingers loosely curled around his pistol grip … because he was coming through. Because he had powerful reasons to get to the other side of the river. The stocky squared bulk
of the provincial cathedral dominated the high ground on the distant bank, drawing the eye from any direction. And she was inside.

Pounding along the flat at the river valley, drawing closer to the defended position, he sighted in on a rider and, bellowing the Carre battle cry, rode headlong at the bridgehead.

Before the Grahams’ horrified gaze, those few horsemen on the hill had grown in terrifying numbers, unending waves of riders streaming over the ridge of the hill, galloping toward them packed knee-to-knee like a vast flail sweeping down the grassy slope. The Grahams waited uneasily at the halt, realizing that not four score men had ridden to Hexham from the north, but more like ten times that number. As they sat their horses waiting, the earth under them reverberated with the pounding of hooves, carrying the wild charge toward them with ever-greater momentum.

A horde riding straight out of hell advanced on them, their battle cry a shrieking fearsome harbinger of death, their pistols spurting flame.

The defenders recoiled as the first volley struck them, and Matthew Graham’s nerve cracked before such an unflinching, blood-thirsty host, launching at them now with drawn swords. Wheeling his horse, he broke for the west, his men tumbling after him in disordered retreat, their scattered flight dissolving in a panic-stricken swarm across the flats and riverbanks and rolling hills.

Johnnie smiled, his teeth flashing white against his dust-smeared countenance as he galloped toward the stone-arched bridge. Like a fist through a rotten plank, he thought, smiling for the first time since mounting at Goldiehouse long hours ago.

God’s mark of favor, he mockingly thought, against whomever those cowards were. Now, if he could rout Redmond’s bodyguards as easily.…

Inside the cathedral the choir had just finished singing when the piercing Carre battle cry shattered the sanctified
silence, echoing like ricocheting warning shots across the peaceful sunlight interior of the medieval church.

“Stay with her!” Redmond shouted to George Baldwin, lunging up from his seat in the front row of the assembled guests, racing down the carpeted aisle toward the entrance, his sword in his hand, his men following him in a pell-mell rush.

And within minutes his troops had surrounded the cathedral in a solid armed wall, so when Johnnie Carre and his men came careening up the cobbled streets to the church at the summit of the hill, they found a strong defense in place.

The market square north of the church facade barely contained Johnnie’s mounted men, an agitated melee of horses and riders jostling for space in the area between the storefronts and council chambers, redeploying after the initial confusion into battle array around the smaller circuit of Redmond’s men.