The Border Vixen (12 page)

Maggie made a quick attempt to bolt, but Fingal Stewart pulled her back, his arm tightening about her.

“Nah, nah, lassie, yer my wife. A husband has the right to cuddle with his woman.” His gray eyes caught her hazel eyes. “Have ye not cuddled with a sweetheart?”

“I’ve never had a sweetheart, my lord. Do ye think me wanton? I have more important things to be about,” Maggie told him angrily. She was not comfortable. She didn’t like being imprisoned by his arm. Her head had no place to go but his shoulder. She could smell the damp leather of his garments. It was strong, and it was too masculine. He reeked of power, and it frightened her. “Let me go,” she said, attempting to keep her voice level and without fear. “Please release me, my lord.”

“Yer afraid,” he said, surprised. “Why are ye afraid?”

“I don’t wish to be constrained,” Maggie answered him.

He was silent a moment and then said, “I am but attempting to know my wife, lady. If I loosen my arm, will you remain in my lap for the interim? I know your word will be good.”

“Ohh, that is so unfair!” Maggie cried softly.

“Why?” His tone was innocent of any deception, but they both knew better.

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. “So you either hold me within yer embrace, or trust me to remain within it by my own choice,” Maggie said. “And ye do not think it an unfair preference ye put before me?”

“Nay,” he replied in the same bland tone. “Ye are too used to gaining yer own way, Margaret Jean Kerr. Now there will be times in the future when it will amuse me to let ye run headstrong as yer grandfather has done these seventeen years, but ye will not always have yer way with me. I’ll be wearing the breeks in this family.”

She stiffened. First with the use of her full Christian name—how had he known it?—and then with her outrage at his speech. “Ohh, yer an arrogant man!” she told him. She was actually more at a loss for words than she had ever been. Never had she been spoken to in such a manner. She was Maggie Kerr, the heiress to Brae Aisir, damn it!

“Excellent!” he praised her. “Yer beginning to understand me. I am Fingal David Stewart, Lord of Torra and one day laird of Brae Aisir. I am arrogant, but not without cause. I descend from kings, lass, and the master of Scotland himself has sent me to marry ye, get bairns on ye, and keep the Aisir nam Breug as it has always been. My family has ever been faithful, and I will not shame them or their memory. Now will ye let me court ye, or will this be a war between us?”

His arm had loosened from about her. Maggie jumped from his lap. She had made him no promises, and she would make him none. “I don’t know,” she said in answer to his question. Then she ran from the library.

Fin sat before the small chamber’s little hearth for some time after she had gone.

He had had enough experience with women to know she was confused and frightened.
God deliver me from skittish virgins
, Fingal Stewart thought to himself, but he knew that her fear of intimacy between them wasn’t really the problem. Once he could kiss and caress her, he would win her over, and their bedsport would be pleasant, not that that mattered. Her duty would be to produce bairns for Brae Aisir; sons and daughters to ally them with other border families. But that wasn’t the true difficulty between them.

It was control of the Aisir nam Breug that stood between them. The old laird had been wrong not to impress upon his heiress that it would be her husband controlling the pass, and not Mad Maggie Kerr. Still he had a great deal to learn about that traverse, and it was Maggie who would have to teach him for her grandfather was old. He had already turned his duties over to the lass. Oh, Fingal Stewart could beat his bride in the physical challenge she demanded. Of that he had no doubt, though others had failed. But it was his education regarding the Aisir nam Breug that would win Maggie’s heart once she realized he could manage the responsibilities involved.

Martinmas came, and they still had not enough meat to last the winter. They hunted each day from dawn to dusk as the days shortened. Slowly the cold larder began to fill up. The meat from the deer they took was butchered. It hung alongside strings of rabbits, geese, and ducks. The boar, however, continued to elude them, but Maggie didn’t care now that she was satisfied the keep and village were safe from starvation.

Like many border keeps, the Kerrs had royal permission to fish in the streams, rivers, and lochs in their area. They smoked and salted their catch, storing them in barrels. Dugald Kerr was a kindly man. He allowed the head of each household in his village to trap two coneys a month for their families and to lay away a small keg of salted fish. It was considered a generous gesture, especially given that the laird allowed them to grind in his mill the little grain they grew each growing season. The miller, of course, was allowed to take a tenth share for his trouble.

On St. Andrew’s Day, Maggie pronounced the larder was filled to capacity. The weather was growing colder each day, and the nights were much longer now than they had been in September. The moat beneath the drawbridge was covered by a thin sheet of ice most mornings. It melted away during the daylight hours, but re-formed each night. Eventually it would not melt until spring. The stone walls of the keep began to show rimes of frost except in the few chambers where the hearths blazed. The men-at-arms began to sleep in the hall most nights now, for their barracks just within the walls had no hearth. In the stables and barn, those caring for the beasts slept with them in the hay for warmth.

The first day of December dawned sunny and unnaturally mild. A peddler asked shelter for the night. He would be traveling through the Aisir nam Breug in the morning. He had come from Perth via Stirling and Edinburgh. The peddler brought with him a large fund of gossip he was only too willing to share with the hall. He was surprised to learn the heiress to Brae Aisir had a husband, and one who had been sent by the king himself.

“Our Jamie has gone to France to seek a bride,” he began, and he chuckled. “He’s well funded to go courting, thanks to the church.”

“What has the church to do with it?” the old laird asked.

“Why, sir, with these Protestant heretics rising up all over across the water, and even in England, our king’s allegiance to Holy Mother Church is a valuable commodity for the pope to have. The king needs an income, and the church is wealthy. I heard he is to have seventy-two thousand Scots pounds over the next few years. ’Tis a fortune! And three of our most important abbeys and three priories of great consequence are to be given to his bastards for their income. He has six, and I’m told his latest mistress, Janet Munro, is with child.” The peddler chortled. “Why, this fifth Jamie is every bit the man his da was, God bless him!” The peddler raised his tankard, drank to the king’s health, and continued on with his gossip.

“They say he can have his choice of a wife from among the noble and royal families in Italy, France, and Denmark. That devil who rules England, King Henry, has even suggested a match with Princess Mary, his daughter,” the peddler said. “And our Jamie has been presented with many diplomatic honors by those wooing him.”

“The king prefers a French match,” Lord Stewart said quietly.

“Aye! Aye! So he does,” the peddler agreed. “They say the Duke of Vendôme is offering one hundred thousand gold crowns as a dower for his daughter, Marie. But the king turned the lass down.”

“How on earth could you know that?” Lord Stewart demanded.

“Ah, sir, I passed through Leith recently. Word had just come that the king visited the court of the Duke of Vendôme in disguise. Despite her great dower, ’tis said he found the lady deformed and crippled. He left the duke’s household quickly without making an offer for the lass. He has, it is said, fallen in love with Princess Madeleine, King François’s daughter. It is reported she is a bonnie lass. The king offered for her, and the betrothal has been made. The marriage will be celebrated in January at the great Cathedral of Our Lady in Paris. We’ll have a new French queen when the king brings her home,” the peddler said, pleased to have been able to deliver this news to Brae Aisir.

But he had also gained some excellent gossip to pass on to the Netherdale Kerrs. It would gain him a night’s lodging and a few meals in their hall on the morrow when he had traveled through the Aisir nam Breug. While he had told his tale standing before the high board, he had not, of course, been invited to be seated there. He was, after all, only a humble peddler. He had sat below the board with a trestle full of men-at-arms. It was there he had learned that the heiress to Brae Aisir’s bridegroom was a cousin of King Jamie himself and had been sent by the king to wed Mad Maggie Kerr.

The contracts, he was told, had been signed weeks ago, but the couple had not yet bedded because Lord Stewart had yet to fulfill the famous challenge issued by the bride that was known throughout the Borders. The challenge was to take place on December fifth. The peddler wished he had an excuse to remain at Brae Aisir so he might relate firsthand what transpired. Looking at Fingal Stewart, however, he already knew. The man stood at least eight inches taller than the lass. He was muscled and in prime condition. If he couldn’t outrun, outride, and outfight Mad Maggie Kerr, he didn’t deserve to bed her.

The next day, however, dawned cold and rainy. The old laird invited the peddler to remain until the weather cleared. He accepted. He was in no hurry for he was on his way home to Carlisle where he would spend the winter months with his wife making another bairn. The peddler had plans. One day he intended to open a shop in the town, and it would be his sons he sent out to spend the spring, summer, and autumn months on the road while he remained behind in his shop. Word that he was in the keep had spread to the village. The women came to purchase ribbons, threads, needles, pins, and the fine lace trim he was known to carry. It turned into a profitable day, and when the peddler departed the following morning, he was in an excellent mood. The day might be cold, and the north wind had begun blowing, but he had a plump purse, and his wife was waiting for him at the end of his journey.

It took him the daylight hours to ride through the pass, leading his pack horses behind him. But as a weak sun was setting, he came in sight of Netherdale Hall where he was warmly welcomed by Lord Edmund. “Let me eat first, my lord, and then I shall bring you all the news I have gathered along my way,” the peddler said. “I have some that will be of particular interest to you.”

“Eat,” Lord Edmund Kerr said, curious, but hardly anxious. The peddler was an unimportant fellow, but amusing, and the quality of his merchandise was excellent. “News of King James, I expect,” he said.

“Aye, and of the Kerrs of Brae Aisir,” the peddler replied as he dug a spoon into the wooden trencher of hot rabbit stew.

Lord Edmund raised an eyebrow but remained silent. To appear eager would make him look foolish. He would wait for the fellow to eat his meal. An imperceptible nod of his head brought a servant to fill his goblet. He sipped it slowly, thoughtfully, as he waited to learn the latest news. Had his cousin Dugald died? He doubted it. The old man for all his frailty was going to outlive them all.

Edmund Kerr had lived a half century. He had buried two wives. The first had given him six sons and three daughters. The second had borne three sons before she died in childbed with a sickly daughter. He was a handsome man with nut-brown hair just now being sprinkled with flecks of silver. He had the hazel eyes so many of the Kerrs on both sides of the border had. He stood six feet in height and was stocky with his age. And while he had a very satisfactory mistress, he wanted another wife.

Dugald Kerr would have to wed his granddaughter sooner than later. And who better to husband the wench than Edmund Kerr? He might even get a son or two on her, for a woman without children was prone to mischief. He had fathered several bastards. His mistress, Aldis, had given him a fine little daughter just a few months back. With nine legitimate sons to his credit, a new female child was more than welcome.

As for Maggie Kerr, his niece, he had seen her several times. She was a beauty, and his cock tightened in his breeks just thinking about her. A strong lass, she would make a fine wife for a man entering his old age—a young wife just like the king’s, he thought. But more important was that she was the heiress to Brae Aisir. That he was her uncle and that the Church might object meant nothing to him. She was only his half sister’s child. He would have the lass no matter. When he wed her, the Aisir nam Breug would belong to him. He would use this new power to his own advantage.

The peddler finished his meal and, rising, went to stand before Lord Kerr’s high board. He recounted all the gossip about King James while all in Netherdale Hall listened. Then clearing his throat, he delivered the newest tidbit in his arsenal. “The heiress to Brae Aisir has a husband,” he said.

Edmund Kerr grew pale and then flushed with anger. “Say on, peddler,” he commanded the man in a hard, tight voice.

“One of the lass’s rejected suitors went to the king, complaining. ’Tis thought he believed King Jamie would order his marriage to Mad Maggie to protect the Aisir nam Breug. Instead, the king sent his cousin, Lord Fingal Stewart, instructing him to wed the lass, and take charge of the pass himself. Though he has not bedded her yet, the contracts making them man and wife were signed weeks ago,” the peddler concluded.

“How do ye know he hasn’t bedded her?” Lord Edmund asked.

“The old laird has insisted Lord Stewart meet the conditions his granddaughter has set out. He must face her challenge to outrun, outride, and outfight her,” the peddler explained to his host. “He’ll win too, I expect. He’s a big man with long legs.”

Lord Edmund cursed softly beneath his breath. Why couldn’t his life be simple? Now he would have to kill Lord Stewart, and widow the heiress. She could have no love for this stranger sent by her king. The death of an unwanted husband wouldn’t matter to her at all. But it was hardly an auspicious way to begin a courting. “When will this challenge take place?” he asked the peddler. “Do ye know?”