16
Cate put on a show of cheerful resignation. It seemed best if Braesford thought she had taken his refusal to heart and given up her intention. Meanwhile, she began her preparations.
Her first act was to stroll through the stables and discover the stall where Rosie was kept, also where she might find the saddle and other accoutrements. She took notice of the posts of the battlement guards, and the times of least activity around the postern gate. Food and drink had to be secured for her journey. This was a slow process, to make certain the provisions were not missed.
She could have asked Gwynne to see to these things, but preferred to do them herself. It was not that she didn’t trust the serving woman, but rather feared she might let something slip to Marguerite or Isabel. Her sisters were discretion itself, but Isabel could decide the danger was too great to be allowed, and so go to Braesford.
Several times every day, Cate mounted to the battlements to stare in the direction Ross had taken. Her heartbeat increased as she reached that height, in her hope that she might see him returning, so her preparations would be for naught. The land remained empty, however, rolling in green waves to the slate-blue mountains.
On the day she had appointed, nearly two weeks after her talk with Braesford, Cate slid from her bed before dawn and dressed in the dark. Taking her cloth sack of provisions from its hiding place deep in the chest at the foot of the bed, she eased her door open and peered out into the empty corridor. Dim light shone from the staircase that led down to the hall, a reflection from the smoldering coals in the cavernous fireplace on one wall. Though she listened with care, the only sounds she heard were snores from the small chamber Gwynne shared with the serving women who looked after Isabel, and a few from the men-at-arms who slept in the great hall. She stepped out, closing the door soundlessly behind her in hope of discouraging too early notice that she was missing.
Her footsteps barely whispered along the stone floor as she made her way down the short corridor. Every sense was painfully alert, her pulse leaping under the skin, her heart shuddering in her throat. The head of the stairs appeared in front of her. She shifted her burden to her left hand, reaching for the heavy railing as she put her foot on the first step.
The cry came the instant her toes touched the tread. It was faint and oddly disembodied, echoing like the hollow moan of a ghost.
Cate ceased to breathe. Her every muscle seized.
Another moan followed the first. It seemed to come from the far end of the corridor, where it ended at the garderobe set into the wall, with its latrine in one corner. Cate thought it had a familiar timbre. She turned toward the sound, listening with painful intensity.
It came again.
Isabel!
Cate whirled and ran toward the garderobe. Pushing through the door that stood half-open, she almost stumbled over her sister. Isabel was slumped on the floor, one shoulder against the wall for support. As she slowly raised her head to look at Cate, the faint light from the hall showed her face pale and sweating and her eyes glazed with pain.
“What is it?” Cate demanded, dropping her sack as she flung herself to her knees beside her sister. “Did you fall? Are you hurt?”
“The baby,” Isabel gasped. “My stomach was cramping. I thought… My water broke. The baby is coming.”
Cate saw then that Isabel sat in a widening puddle of liquid tinted red with blood. A strangled gasp caught in her throat. It was too early by almost a month for her sister to go into labor.
“Gwynne! To me!” she shouted in terror, an unconscious echo of a battle cry. “Braesford! To me! To me!”
What followed was a nightmare of flaring torches, curses, running servants and moans. Braesford, barely decent in hastily donned braises, slammed into the garderobe and lifted Isabel in his arms, carrying her at a run to their bed, which was raised on a dais in the solar. He stripped away the quilted coverlet and laid her upon the mattress, roaring out orders in a hoarse voice while fear darkened his eyes. It was Gwynne who pushed him away, shoving him out the door while instructing one serving woman to build up the fire, another to bring old linen set aside for the event, another to set water to boiling and Cate to bring her a bag of simples.
They stripped Isabel, washed her and wrapped her in soft, worn linen. Gwynne mixed a weak tincture of honey, herbs and warm, watered wine, and bade Isabel drink it. The birthing chair was brought from a storehouse. Then they prepared to wait.
The pains grew regular as dawn rose and daylight glowed beyond the shutters that covered the glazed windows. They came closer together near noon. As the day waned and still they continued, Braesford cursed at Gwynne and pushed her aside when she would have kept him from the solar. His presence seemed to give Isabel strength. A mere half hour after he joined her, she gave a final gut-wrenching push while gripping her husband’s hands so tightly her nails cut him to the bone. Her child slithered from her body, a perfectly formed boy. He was small but mighty; his voice raised in raging protest at his entry into the world was enough to frighten the rooks from their tower perches.
Cate could not prevent tears from seeping down her face as she saw her sister’s joy and Braesford’s pride and fervent relief that the ordeal was done. An ache throbbed in Cate’s abdomen, as well, an odd sympathetic emptiness. It was impossible not to imagine what it would be like to present Ross with so fine and lusty a son. Would her husband be glad or sorry? Would he care? Yes, and would it affect him at all to think she might have died while giving birth?
A short time later, when Isabel finally slept with her babe in her arms and Braesford watching over her, Cate slipped away. She retrieved her sack of supplies from the garderobe. Returning it to the chest where it had been hidden, she closed the lid upon it.
She could not leave now, not while Isabel had need of her. Even if it were possible, she would not trouble her sister with worries over what might happen to her on her journey. The joy Isabel held was precious. It could end soon enough if the Yorkist faction forced Henry to fight. Nothing must mar this time with her husband and new son, nothing at all.
Weary beyond description, Cate bathed and ate a light meal in her room while darkness deepened in the courtyard beyond. A light spring rain had begun, pattering against the window. She lay listening to it, staring into the darkness, wondering if it fell wherever Ross might be sleeping. Finally exhaustion crept over her and she closed her eyes.
The dream was exhilarating, a beguilement of the senses that was disturbingly real. The scent of rain-washed, herbal freshness surrounded her. Caresses more vivid than mere memory sent heated pleasure from the tips of her breasts to the furrow between her thighs. Bare flesh, roughened with hair, glided against her so she murmured in her sleep, rolling closer. Her blood poured through her veins with the intoxication of strong mead. She was deliciously warm, in spite of the cool, hard surface she pressed against. It seemed natural to lift her knee, to rest it on a hard flank. She shivered, moaning with incredible gratification as hard heat entered her, and callused hands caught her hips and pulled her close until she surrounded it, clenched upon it as she came suddenly awake.
Ross inhaled with a hissing oath that was like a prayer. Cate tried to push away from him, but he gripped her with such uncontrollable need that he feared he left bruises. Her body held him, her internal muscles so tight around him that he ached, yet the completion was too perfect to relinquish. “Don’t,” he whispered against her hair, with its faint scent of roses. “Just…don’t.”
“What are you doing?”
“If you don’t know,” he said with a tired laugh, “then Braesford was right, and I’ve neglected you far too long.”
She stilled in his arms, though the sharp breath she took drove the small, tight buds of her nipples into his chest. “Braesford?”
“Aye. He said I’d best come to you or he feared you would try to come to me. Knowing the determination of your sister, he feared you might succeed in escaping his guard.”
“Did he indeed?”
“You needn’t sound so surprised. He can’t be everywhere, and he does have a few other things on his mind.” Ross hardly knew what he said, for his attention was on the soft skin under his hand as he smoothed upward from her hip to her back in soothing circles. She relaxed a degree, so he was able to ease from her an inch or two and slide back again.
“Other more important things…I suppose,” she said with a definite hitch in her voice.
“Different, that’s all.”
“He is a father. Isabel had her babe today.”
“So he said, after he signaled the guard to open the gate for me.”
Cate clutched at his arm with a small sound deep in her throat as he twisted his hips, gently circling, abrading the small nub of her greatest desire. “You were abroad late.”
“I rode hard,” he said, plunging a little, “and fast,” he added with a short, swift pumping, “as I could not let you ride out alone. Would you have come to me, sweet Cate?”
She allowed her fingertips to roam over his chest, threading through the hair that grew there. Finding one flat, hard nipple, she ducked her head to lick it. Her breath warm against him, she said, “I meant to see your hall, to turn it into a decent place to live.”
His disappointment was like a knife thrust. Heaving up, he flipped her to her back, shoving his hips between her thighs and spreading her legs wide so he filled her to the hilt. “And that’s all?”
She sucked in a breath, tilting her head back. He thought she closed her eyes tight, though it was too dark to see. “Should…should there be more?”
“This,” he said, and set a rhythm that sent the blood thundering through his veins, racing away from his brain and heart to his nether parts so fast he felt light-headed, delirious with the pounding, shuddering bliss. He plumbed her, learning anew the enthralling silken heat and depths of her, absorbing every surge she made toward him, taking it, taking her, having her as he had dreamed, had planned with every weary mile he rode in these past hellish hours.
He couldn’t go deep enough, couldn’t have enough of the feel of her against him, her thighs, the smooth surface of her belly, the tender yet firm globes of her breasts. He took her mouth in the extremity of his need, an additional possession, as if he could consume her in that manner if in no other. She was his, and no small corner of her would be unknown to him. He held the hard pressure of his need in unrelenting constraint, even as he felt the small contraction, the liquid heat of her release. It was too soon, too soon. Not enough, never enough. And even as his own release escaped him, as he felt the fierce explosion of pleasure beyond limit, he was still hungry for her, still longing, still afraid he might never have her again, as he had been afraid every second since he had received Braesford’s message in hand.
No, it was not enough, and so he waited until her breathing slowed, until she was boneless in her relaxation against him. Then he began again. This time he was slow, thorough, tasting her essence in every hollow, suckling her breasts, licking, teasing and tempting until she writhed under him, moaning and calling his name in plea and demand. When he pushed into her, he went deep, hovering until he felt the hard throb of her heart deep inside, could count its beats against his own tender skin. He drove into her with carefully measured force, testing her depths again and again, until he saw red behind his eyes and his scalp felt on fire, until every muscle burned and his teeth ached from the effort of containment.
He let go then, but did not let her go. No, he was seated inside her still when sleep took him. He would have stayed there until dawn except he shifted in his sleep, or she moved, and he slipped free.
He groaned in the depths of his dreams as he felt it.
Three days later, the drilling in preparation for war began.
Ross had brought with him the men Henry required from the lands given him, along with the horses, arms and supplies to support them. Well, he had actually ridden ahead in his impatience and fear that Cate might be riding into danger, had left his men to follow behind. His haste had caused no end of ribald comment among them, he was certain. He could ignore it as long as no one dared say anything to his face, or in front of Cate.
Gathering the company of cowherds, shepherds, field laborers, poachers, an itinerant knight or two and a few hill outlaws had been no easy task. He’d first had to estimate the number of men of fighting age in each village, and then decide who could be spared and who could not. At least they were no longer as green as when they’d first lined up for inspection.
The past three months had been spent putting them through their paces, trying to give them some familiarity with weapons and following orders. He’d no stomach for herding them onto the king’s battlefield to be slaughtered without at least some idea of defense. For one thing, he had need of them to see to his lands in the years to come. For another, facing the mothers and wives of those who did not return was not his favorite part of a homecoming from raid or battle. Winning a degree of acceptance as their new lord from them, and the cooperation that went with it, had also seemed better than riding with a sullen company at his back.
Marching and countermarching, following the orders of Ross’s captain of the guard, could only be beneficial to them. He should have brought them sooner, should have come sooner himself. That he had not was…
He wouldn’t think of that.
Surveying Braesford’s keep, his several villages near and far, the animals that grazed his field, his various craftsmen and the lands that were beginning to be cultivated for crops, Ross felt a new respect for the man Cate’s sister had married. All was order, energetic activity and harmony. Every person in sight seemed to know what to do and be doing it without complaint. No one shirked or slouched about with a dullard, uncooperative mien, as had the villagers at Grimes Hall.
Things had started to improve by the time he left. Pray God he could return there before his labor was completely undone.
This time, he would take Cate with him, the consequences be damned.
“You’ve heard the king is on the move?”
Ross woke from his reverie, swinging toward Braesford where they sat their horses while overseeing their combined men at their drill. “A few tinkers’ tales only.”
“Word is he showed himself in the eastern counties during Lent, that being where rebellion seemed most likely to break out. At Easter he made a pilgrimage to Walsingham, for whatever blessing that might convey.”
“Pious Henry,” Ross said with a wry smile.
“God’s truth. He apparently sent for papal bulls some time back, for they were duly read while he was in Coventry for the Feast of Saint George. Now all who rise up to resist his rule are cursed with bell, book and candle.”
“A canny move, that.”
Braesford dipped his head in assent. “It won’t hurt to have the head of the church on his side. And he may need divine intervention. Margaret of Burgundy’s German mercenaries have landed in Ireland. Some put the number at five thousand or more, though others say only two thousand.”
“We did hear that,” Ross said. “It seems a clear signal for war.”
“The Germans arrived in good time to guard against interference while this boy they call a prince is crowned. He’s to be Edward VI, with a new coin struck carrying his image.”
“Sure of themselves, aren’t they?”
“Or making every effort to appear that way.”
Ross frowned as he considered the implications. “And Henry has made no effort to prevent all this?”
“None that I’ve heard, though that makes no odds. Henry, like Richard before him, and many another king of this isle, will doubtless wait for invasion.”
“It will come,” Ross said with conviction.
“Oh, aye. It’s proved too successful in the past for it to be otherwise.”
“Surely Henry will call up his forces beforehand.”
“So he will, and I will go,” Braesford said, his gaze assessing. “The question is, will you?”
Ross gave him a straight look. “I’ve done as Henry commanded so far.”
“But will you fight?”
That was plain speaking. It was also a question Ross had answered for Cate, as well as asking it of himself a hundred times since leaving Shene Palace. England’s wars were no concern of his. The more Sassenachs that killed each other, the better for his countrymen. Henry had threatened him with prison and forced him to the altar. What reason had he to aid the man?
And yet he liked Henry, with his constant labor for the crown and lack of regal airs. He had given him Cate and a fair and valuable property. He had played square, also, for a king. That was more than his own father, high-handed, hot-tempered old curmudgeonly laird that he was, had done. With Scotland and his patrimony lost to Ross, what was left? This new boy-king, Edward VI, and those who advised him were hardly likely to honor the pledges made by Henry VII. Ross could well lose what he held now by the king’s grace.
“I’ll fight for Cate,” he said.
“Well spoken,” Braesford said with a low laugh, and reached out to offer his hand in the pact of friendship.
It felt like a benediction. It felt as if he had come home.
Ross was not so in charity with his brother-in-law that afternoon, when they had a small set-to with swords and dirks. It was practice only, a fine bout of cut and thrust to keep them in fighting trim and with their reflexes well-oiled. Their weapons were not blunted, however, nor were their intentions.
Ross was no stranger to the game. He and his cousins had often indulged in such swordplay, and he had the scars to prove it—nothing like sundry slices here and there to teach a man to keep up his guard. He had faced off against Henry’s yeoman guards now and then at court, as well, though he chose his opponents with care. Nick the wrong man, and it could become a killing affair; kill the wrong man, and it could mean the scaffold.
Braesford was more than a match for him. His skill was so lethal, in fact, that Ross’s heart pounded against his breastbone in high exhilaration every second that they strove together. He fought with scant thought, advancing, retreating, attacking, parrying by instinct alone. Isabel’s husband had a few tricks he’d not met with before, while he himself had a handful culled from an Italian who had wintered at his father’s table and taught them in return for the hospitality. They exchanged these in mutual respect, circling, attacking, defending, while their muscles burned and sweat ran into their eyes and dripped from the ends of their hair. Their swords clanged like a pair of blacksmiths hammering at their anvils. They scraped and slithered, singing, clanking, glittering in the sunlight.
A crowd gathered to cheer them on, among them Braesford’s squire, David, who stood with his hands on his hips and a frown on his handsome young face. Around him, the others placed bets, yelled encouragement. Insults were also exchanged as Braesford’s men ranged themselves on the side of their champion and Ross’s did the same.
It was David who put a stop to it. He said not a word, but only stepped close and then jerked his thumb toward the battlements that rose above them.
Braesford followed his gaze with a fraction of his attention. Ross, catching his brother-in-law’s blade on a cross made of dirk and sword, did the same.
Lady Isabel stood there, with Cate on one side holding her sister’s newborn babe, and Marguerite on the other. Their veils blew around them in the late spring wind, and their skirts flew back behind them. The sun poured its pale gold light over them until they seemed to glow with it. Though they were too far away for the men to see their expressions, their very stillness, the set of their heads and stiffness of their shoulders, told its own tale. The ladies, unlike some, were not entertained by the prospect of imminent bloodshed, nor were they amused by the air of joyous mayhem.
A strong shudder ran down the back of Ross’s neck. In that moment, he would have sworn the three females on the battlements had a touch of the divine about them, some sublime protection beyond the kin of mortal men. He’d have accepted without question that a curse had them in its keeping.
He slewed his head around to stare at his opponent, half fearful of a fatal blow coming at him during that instant of distraction. Braesford seemed as shaken as he, however.
They pushed away from each other with a single hard shove, downed their swords, whipped a salute and stepped back. Turning together, they walked in the direction of the tower that sheltered their wives.
“If you had killed Braesford,” Cate said some time later, speaking in conversational tones as she sat beside him at the evening meal, “Isabel would have spitted you herself, I do believe, and served your gizzard to you as a delicacy.”
Ross slanted a glance at his wife, watching her between his lashes. “And you, my sweeting, what would you have done if he had dispatched me?”
“Applauded.”
He had asked for it, yet the answer pained him more than he expected. “I might have guessed.”
She looked away an instant, and then back again. “No, but truly, it was not well done by either of you when Isabel has just risen from childbed. Isn’t it enough to fear you’ll fall on the field of battle without having you try to annihilate each other?”
“It was because of the coming battle,” Ross said shortly.
“Deliver me from the logic of men. It was bad enough watching David and Braesford hack at each other, though at least one of them had the sense to end it. You and Braesford seemed ready to carry it to the death.”
Her cheeks were pink with her fury, her eyes like twin blue flames, and her breasts heaved in a way that hardened him to a state not unlike his sword blade. His lips twisted for an instant before he spoke. “Why such outrage, as you care so little?”
“A fine question,” she answered, taking him up at once, “and here’s another of like nature. Why such fervor in returning to my bed when you could not be bothered to send for me to join you?”
“That’s a sore spot, is it?”
“I am your wife, so chatelaine of whatever keep you are pleased to call your base. It’s my duty and privilege to set it to rights.”
He shook his head. “Not this one.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was a shambles, Cate. The walls were falling down, the bailey one huge dung heap and the great hall a den for wild animals. There was not a tapestry that was not rotted or ripped to tatters, or a bed mattress that had not been pissed upon, if not worse. I could not ask you to live there.”
She stared at him for a long moment while the heat died out of her eyes. “You lived in it.”
“Only after I had made a fire in the bailey and thrown everything in it that would burn. Cate…”
She gave a small shake of her head. “It was a bad bargain then.”
“Nay. The land is there, grand open stretches of it, as are the villages and the people. The wall has been mended, cottages repaired, the bailey and keep made wholesome again. The rest can be replaced in time.”
“I can do that,” she said, her eyes darkly blue as they rested upon him. “It would be my pleasure.”
“Nay, that won’t be necessary,” he said with finality.
“I have the means, and it will be my home, too.”
He could feel his anger like a hot coal in his chest. “I’ll not be dipping into your money chest, heavy though it may be.”
“Why not? Every other man in Christendom would feel it his right.”
“Call me a stiff-necked Scot, but I’d rather place every stone with my bare hands than be beholden for so much as a bread crust.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Beholden to me, you mean.”
“Aye.”
“Pride is an excellent thing, but meanwhile I’m to have no part of it, no say in how things are to be arranged. You will decide all, while I remain here upon the charity of my sister and her husband.”
Put like that, it did sound more than a little overbearing. That could not be helped. “Mayhap Isabel and Braesford will take your coin, but I can’t. I won’t.”
“I can be your bedmate, possibly even the mother of your child, but not a helpmate.”
His heart stopped. “You think you may be with child?” he asked, the words coming out in abrupt demand.
She shook her head so her veil shifted around her shoulders. “No, but continue as we are and—”
“Aye,” he interrupted, more aware than he wanted to be of the bleak disappointment inside him. The thought of Cate carrying his babe had been with him since he caught sight of her on the battlement with Isabel’s little one in her arms. It had seemed so natural, so right. He had wanted, with desperation more painful than a sword slice, to know she had his get under her heart when the call to war came.
It wasn’t too late.
Heat rose inside him along with a fierce, stinging pressure that coalesced, throbbing, between his legs. He drank down his wine, set the glass back on the high table with a thump. “Mayhap we should.”
“Should what?”
She met his gaze with a look of inquiry in her eyes, yet soft, wild rose color slowly tinted her cheeks. Something in his face must have given him away, for she knew, oh yes, she knew.
“Continue,” he said around the knot in his throat. Pushing back his chair, he stood and held out his hand. Never had he been so glad of his plaid and sporran, which hid his rampant state.
The hot color in her face deepened. She sent a quick glance around the hall, as if to see if anyone paid attention to them. Then the smallest of smiles tipped her mouth. She gave him her hand.
It felt like a victory. Ross drew a breath so deep it hurt the back of his throat. Turning, he led her carefully from the hall.