The Border Lord's Bride (25 page)

"How can you laugh?" Adair demanded. "We have traveled for several days in this damned winter weather to get here, and if the truth be known we wouldn‘t have come at all had it not been a royal command, and then there is no bed for us?"

"Let us see this chamber you have been offered," Duncan Armstrong said in practical tones. "If it is large enough we may all share it, eh?"

Adair huffed angrily.

"Do you know where it is?" Ellen asked quietly.

"The servant said it was in the northwest wing of the palace," Conal answered. "Do you know the way, Ellen?"

Ellen nodded and led them from the hall. When they reached the wing in question they found an upper servant waiting at its entry. "The lord and lady of Cleit, and the lord and lady of Duffdour, please," she said.

The servant glanced at the list he had been given. "A chamber has been set aside for the ladies,"

he said, repeating what they already knew. "Third door on the right down this corridor, my lady."

"Do you think it‘s large enough for us all?" Ellen questioned gently. She knew very well from her year at court that the servant would have already heard numerous complaints about the housing. She smiled at the man.

"You can look," he said, grateful for her soft tones, "but there is only one bed."

"Do you know if it has a trundle?" Ellen pressed further.

The servant shook his head. "Nay, lady."

Accepting the taperstick he offered them, they followed the corridor to the chamber in question.

It was a very little space, and the bed took up the entire room. Even if there had been a trundle beneath the bed, and there was not, there would not have been any room to pull it out. The saddlebags in which they had packed their clothing lay flung carelessly upon the bed.

Adair stamped her foot. "This is intolerable!" she declared.

"Perhaps," her husband said with an effort at humor, "if you had identified the faux prince as the true one, our accommodations might have been changed for the better."

Both Ellen and Duncan snickered, and Adair shot them a venomous look.

"You and Conal take the bed," Ellen said. "I know the palace, and I can find a place for Duncan and me to lay our heads. There will be some nook empty."

"Nay," the laird of Cleit answered her. "You and Adair will share the bed, as was planned. My brother and I will find an empty space somewhere. But we will change our garments here, for I‘m of no mind to show my bony legs in public." And before either of the women might argue, the two men withdrew, leaving them alone.

"I‘ll leave on the morrow," Adair said. "If my cousin can offer his own kin no better place to lay her head then he may celebrate the holiday without me."

"How are you related to King James?" Ellen wanted to know.

"We both descend from King Edward the Third of England, albeit through different lines," Adair explained. "My descent is through that king‘s third and fifth sons. King James‘s line comes down from the fourth son. It is a nebulous connection, to be sure, but it amuses King James to claim it with me, and if truth be known it enhances my small reputation to have him address me as cousin."

"When I lived in Lady Margaret‘s household and the king would call upon me to play chess with him we would often speak. Actually I listened, for the king had far more to say than I ever did."

Ellen smiled. "He spoke of you now and again. Of your beauty, but more often of your intellect.

He says ‘twas you who suggested he send out ambassadors to France, England, and the other lands across the water."

"When you are brought up in a sophisticated court, as I was," Adair said, "you can learn a great deal if you keep your lips sealed but to ask questions, and if you listen carefully without making judgments. My father was self-indulgent and amoral, but he was a good king, Ellen. No one was more clever at manipulating people than Edward Plantagenet of York. He might have been great had he been more interested in being a king and less of a sybarite. But he did have charm."

"Your life has been so different from mine," Ellen said. "I was just a Highland lass raised mostly by my grandsire, a simple laird. Yet we have become friends."

Adair smiled. Her humor was already restored being in Ellen‘s company. Duncan‘s wife was a sweet lass by nature, but not as dewy-eyed as she appeared. It was a pose she took on to put people at their ease. Adair thought her actually quite clever, else her brother-in-law would not have been as happy as he appeared these days. Duncan Armstrong, of the three brothers, was the most intelligent, and quite clever to boot. He was really quite wasted at Duffdour. He would have made a fine adviser or diplomat for King James. "Your time in Lady Margaret‘s household was not wasted," Adair remarked. "It gives us something in common besides our husbands."

The two women continued chatting amiably as they prepared for bed. They did so quickly, for the tiny chamber was icy, and it had no hearth. Though the single little window‘s wooden shutter was tightly closed, there was still a bit of a draft, and Ellen would have sworn that there was hoarfrost upon the chamber‘s stone walls. The bed the two women shared was comfortable, however, with a good featherbed beneath them, and a thick coverlet of down and a heavy fur rug to snuggle under.

In the morning it was agreed that they would remain for a day or two more to enjoy the company of the court. They hunted in the hills about Linlithgow one day, but the following day dawned cold and rainy, and while there was jousting in the courtyard, the day was generally unpleasant.

The king, having gotten what he wanted from Adair, no longer cared whether they were there.

On the third night of their stay he announced to the inhabitants of the great hall that Lady Katherine Gordon would wed with King Richard of York after the New Year.

"Let us leave on the morrow," Ellen suggested to her companions. "Unless, of course, any of you have a desire to see the wedding between the Gordon and England‘s trew king," she teased them, grinning.

"A pallet in a monastery guesthouse will be more comfortable than where Conal and I have been sleeping," Duncan Armstrong said.

"And just where have you been sleeping?" Ellen wanted to know.

"In an unused garderobe at the top of the east wing," her husband told her.

"Ohh, poor Duncan!" Ellen sympathized, but her eyes were dancing.

"It‘s just big enough for one," he said. "We take turns, with one of us inside the garderobe and the other on the stone floor outside of it. It‘s cold, and it‘s uncomfortable besides," the laird of Duffdour complained.

"Then we had best take our leave of the king now," Ellen said, and the two couples walked across the Lyon Chamber to where the king was now seated; they waited for him to recognize them. When he did Duncan Armstrong stepped forward and bowed.

"My liege, the court is crowded, and while we are honored to have been asked to join your Christmas revels, we should with your permission take our leave of you on the morrow. Our journey home will be hard in the best of circumstances, and neither my brother of Cleit nor I should want to find ourselves caught in a blizzard."

James Stewart looked at the two couples standing before him. "Do you not wish to remain and be witness to the wedding of our cousin Katherine Gordon and England‘s true king?" he asked them innocently, noting as he spoke the fury that leaped into Adair‘s eyes, and the sad, almost chiding look in Ellen‘s.

"You are more than gracious, my liege," the laird of Duffdour said, a wry twist to his lips. "I am certain that the happiness of the young couple will be guaranteed without us, else we would certainly remain to assure it."

James Stewart laughed aloud. "You are wasted in the borders, Duncan," he told the handsome laird. "You would make me a fine diplomat if I could but convince you to leave your beloved Duffdour. Aye, you have our permission, my lords, to return to your homes." He turned to Ellen.

"Are you still disappointed in me, my bonny?" he asked, low, his blue eyes searching her face.

"Nay, my lord," she told him. "I am coming to terms now with what it really means to be a king.

I never before understood. But I owe you much, and I will always be your most loyal liege woman, my lord." She curtsied to him.

James Stewart leaned forward and kissed Ellen‘s rosy cheek. "Godspeed, my bonny," he said softly. Then he looked to Adair. "Thank you, cousin. Though you disapprove of my actions, thank you for your discretion."

Adair curtsied to him. "I may be the wife of a simple bonnet laird, my lord, but I was raised a king‘s daughter. Beware, however, of the English lion. His claws are sharp, and his memory for a fault is a long one. I should not like to see you harmed."

The king grinned. "I am younger and more agile than Henry Tudor," he declared. "Godspeed to you also, my lady of Cleit."

Adair curtsied again, and then, taking her husband‘s arm, she backed from the royal presence.

Then the two women sought out Margaret Stewart and bade her farewell.

"You are not remaining for the wedding?" the king‘s aunt asked. "Pity."

"Did he tell you?" Adair asked her.

The older woman nodded. "I do not know if my nephew is being exceeding clever, or exceeding foolish," she said. "Go home, my lasses, and escape the mayhem of the court‘s political maneuverings. I think the border may prove a safer place."

"Perhaps if it snows," Ellen said, "but then, thanks to the king, Duffdour is now well fortified.

Come the spring, however, the raiding back and forth will begin again." She kissed the hand held out to her. "Farewell, my lady. God keep you safe."

In the morning the two brothers, their wives in tow, departed Linlithgow in the company of their men at arms. They traveled together for several days, parting finally as the road south of Edinburgh divided. The weather was cold, and it was gray most of the days as they rode, but the rain and the snows held off. Only as the laird of Duffdour and Ellen found themselves and their men a few hours from home did the snow begin to fall. It was midday, and Duncan Armstrong was glad he had forced the pace. By the time the walls of his house came into view the snow was falling thickly. They rode through the gates and up before the house, dismounting. One of their men at arms took their horses and started for the stables. Hand in hand the laird and his wife entered their house.

No sooner had they stepped through the door than they were surrounded by armed men who hustled them into their great hall, where a handsome gentleman lounged at their high board, the laird‘s frightened servants hurrying to serve him. "You‘ve done a fine job of fortifying your house, Armstrong," the man said.

"Who the hell are you?" Duncan demanded.

"Lord Roger Colby, at your service, sir," the gentleman said, standing and coming down to greet his host. "I‘m sorry you were not here when I arrived."

"I built walls to keep the English out," the laird replied dryly.

"Aye, and fine walls they are. Unfortunately you did not teach your people how to keep your gates locked. By slowing our pace and not appearing threatening we were able to ride right in this morning." He grinned. "There‘s going to be hell to pay here when I‘m gone, isn‘t there, Armstrong? Still, I thought it only fair that, as you had visited my home some months back, I should visit yours."

Duncan Armstrong laughed, for he saw the humor in the situation, as dangerous as it was.

"You‘ll be remaining the night, my lord," he told his guest. "We come heralding the blizzard behind us, I fear." He drew Ellen forward. "This is my wife, the lady Ellen, my lord. Sweeting, go to the kitchens and see that they know our guests are remaining at least the night. And tell cook I am quite hungry after our ride."

"Aye, my lord, and I will see that a bed space here in the hall is prepared for Lord Colby." She curtsied to her husband, then, turning, hurried off.

"A most fetching armful," Lord Colby drawled. "She‘s not border-born."

"Nay, she‘s a Highlander. She was the king‘s ward, and a favorite of his aunt. They saw us wed, as I needed a wife and Ellen needed a husband," the laird replied.

"You are so important that the king himself picked you a wife?" Lord Colby was intrigued by this scrap of information.

"I am of no import at all," the laird answered him. "I had simply done the king a small favor. He wished to repay me in kind. And Ellen‘s betrothed husband had been killed. The king‘s aunt, in whose household Ellen lived, wished to see her wed. I was in the right place at the right time.

‘Tis no more than that."

The laird‘s servants, more at ease now that their master was home, came with cups of wine for the two men lounging by the fire. The hall had once again taken on an air of normalcy. The servants moved quietly back and forth, setting the high board up for the meal that was to be served. In the kitchens Ellen reassured the cook and her helpers that Lord Colby would not harm them. He was merely visiting.

"Since when do the English visit the Scots in such a manner?" the cook, who was named Lizzie, wanted to know. She was a tall, bony woman with perpetually rosy cheeks.

"Since the fools standing guard at the gates let them ride through," Ellen said. "There aren‘t that many of them. Only the lord and six men at arms."

"We can kill them then!" the cook said enthusiastically, grabbing a particularly large and dangerous-looking knife up from the table.

Ellen held her hand up in a cautionary gesture. "I do not believe there is any necessity for that,"

she quietly told the kitchen staff. "If Lord Colby had meant us any harm it would have long ago been accomplished, and he would have brought more than six men with him. The laird ordered the gates barred behind us when we returned. Our walls are strong and secure. There is a blizzard raging outside. I do not believe any of us are in any danger, cook. Now," she said briskly, "you have seven more mouths to feed, at least until this storm has blown itself down into England.

And be warned that my lord is hungry, and ready for a good meal." Ellen then turned and hurried from the kitchens. On the stairs she met Sim and drew him aside. "How did this happen?" she asked him. "Did my lord not give instructions when we departed that the gates were to be kept closed and locked at all times? There is a very dangerous man in our hall right now."