“Donald?”
“Aye, me!” Donald Fleming said belligerently. “Do ye find that strange, madame?”
“Nay, sir, I do not, for does not the church teach that there is a woman for every man? She must be a most special lass, Donald Fleming, to put up with you.”
“Aye, she’s special,” came the retort, “and a biddable lass too, unlike some I’m too polite to mention.”
“More ale, Donald Fleming?” Arabella said sweetly, and when he nodded, she poured the contents of the pitcher into his lap. With a particularly violent oath that set the elderly priest to gasping, he leapt up roaring. Arabella cried out in seemingly distressed tones, “Ohh, sir, you must forgive me my clumsiness. I am so nervous with the thought of the battle to come.”
Donald Fleming rushed from the table, followed by a manservant whom Arabella had signaled to care for her somewhat wet guest. FitzWalter swallowed his laughter lest he offend Donald Fleming, but it was not easy.
“Ye hae nae changed, spitfire,” the earl chuckled, then sobered when she said to him:
“How wise you are to understand that, my lord.”
Tavis Stewart nodded. “Aye, lassie,” he told her softly, “I do understand. More, perhaps, than even ye may realize.”
“Tell me how you will overcome Sir Jasper,” Arabella asked him, changing the subject deftly.
“By means of an old ruse,” the earl answered. “Before first light Donald will leave Greyfaire with half of my force. They will be concealed just over yon hills. When our old nemesis attacks, we will catch him in a pincers movement. Donald will fall upon him from the rear, while my half of our clansmen and I will take the offensive and charge forth over yer drawbridge. Sir Jasper will be expecting neither of us because he does nae know we are here. He thinks ye helpless, and will be filled with thoughts of a final victory over Greyfaire. He will be dead before nightfall, madame, I swear it!”
“‘Tis a good plan, my lord,” she told him. “More rabbit stew?”
“Aye,” he said, and she filled his plate once more, adding a chunk of crusty, fresh bread and a wedge of a hard, sharp cheese.
“I have no sweet,” she apologized. “The orchards are gone, and I have not yet had the time to bring supplies in from York.”
“Yer company, Arabella Grey, is sweet enough,” he replied.
She looked astounded by the compliment. Was it possible that he still cared for her, even after knowing that she had been the Duc de Lambour’s mistress while in France? His face betrayed nothing, and Arabella decided that he was simply being polite to her. He had always been quick to turn a pretty phrase. She smiled. “You are gracious, my lord, but the truth is, I am a poor hostess tonight. I will remedy my circumstances once we have disposed of our enemy. When you come to Greyfaire again, and you must for Margaret’s sake, I shall entertain you in far fairer fashion, I promise.”
When the Scots were well filled with stew, and trout, small game birds, bread and cheese, one of them brought out his pipes and began to play. The ale cask was drained, and Arabella saw that another was set in its place before she excused herself from the hall.
“FitzWalter will show you to your room, my lord,” she told the earl, and curtsying, went to her own rooms, where Lona awaited her mistress.
“‘Tis to be hoped that Sir Jasper has had himself shriven recently,” the servant said pertly. “They say he’ll be lying in his grave by this time tomorrow night if the earl has anything to say about it,and he will!”
“Pray God and His blessed Mother,” Arabella said, and she undressed, wondering briefly—before she forced the unsettling thought from her—what it would be like to lie in the Earl of Dunmor’s arms again. She shivered, knowing the answer.
“When shall I awaken you, my lady?”
“By first light, Lona. I want to watch the battle from the battlements. I want to see my lord…I want to see the earl deliver that wretch, Jasper Keane, his death blow. I hope the bastard sees me looking down on him in his death throes. All that has happened, Lona…all that has happened to me these past seven years has been because of Sir Jasper Keane. My mother’s death, Jamie Stewart, Greyfaire’s destruction, my stay in France! All of that misery due to one man.I want him dead!”
“There was good things too, my lady,” Lona said quietly. “Your marriage to the earl, and little Margaret.”
Arabella said nothing further, instead climbing into her bed. She crossed herself devoutly and turned her back to the maidservant, but Lona knew that the barb had hit its mark from the flush on her mistress’s cheeks.
Arabella should not have slept that night, and yet she did. More soundly than she had slept in months, and when she finally awoke, she heard Tavis Stewart’s voice raised in ferocious anger coming from the hall. “Lona? Lona, where are you?” Arabella called, and the girl hurried in, talking even as she came, wide-eyed with the importance of her news.
“The earl is fearful angry, my lady! Sir Jasper Keane is dead! The earl and his brother are having a row the likes of which I have never seen! They’re like to kill each other!”
“Give me myrobe de chambre!” Arabella said, scrambling from her bed. Quickly she put it on and raced barefoot from her room and downstairs into the hall.
“Ye hae no right!” the earl was shouting at his younger brother, and he hit him a blow that knocked the younger man across the room.
“What the hell haerightgot to do wi’ it, damnit?” Donald Fleming shouted back, stumbling to his feet and across the hall to deliver a blow to the earl’s jaw.
“I should hae been the one to kill him, not ye!” the earl cried angrily, striking Donald a second time with all of his might and sending him reeling.
