The way he almost crooned her name sent a little shiver of delight down her spine. “Why not yet, Tavis?” she asked him honestly.
“I want ye to know me better and be content,” he replied.
She nodded. “Then, too, there is the matter of Greyfaire, my lord. When will ye regain it for me? It is all I can offer you, though it be just a little keep. Still, the pasture land is good, and we’ve a fine orchard.”
“Yer new English king will nae be ready quite yet to settle such a dispute, lassie,” he told her. “There are still little pockets of resistance to him which he must overcome, and then there is his coronation to be scheduled, the opening of Parliament, and his marriage to Princess Elizabeth of York. Greyfaire is important to ye, I know, but ‘tis a little affair to Henry Tudor.”
Arabella found herself in a quandary. She did not wish to renew her quarrel with Tavis Stewart, especially just when she was trying to make peace with this big man to whom she was, for better or for worse, married. “I know that Greyfaire is a small matter in the politics of England, my lord, but the longer Sir Jasper Keane holds it, the harder, I think, it will be for us to dislodge him. Sooner or later you will kill him, of course, but should my mother bear him a son, it is possible the new king will favor that child over me by virtue of his male sex. That a stranger should hold lands that have belonged to the Greys for so many years is unthinkable. For now there is peace between England and Scotland, and I am told that several troops of young Scotsmen fought with King Henry against King Richard. Surely this is a good time for you to sue King Henry for the return of my lands.”
“Ye must trust me in this matter, Arabella,” Tavis Stewart said. “This winter I shall take ye to court to meet my brother, King James. We will tell him of yer plight and let Jemmie sue King Henry for ye. Such a request coming from one king to another will carry more weight than should either ye or I sue the English king. Ye understand, however, that England may refuse even Jemmie, or they may demand Greyfaire be held for our first daughter, whom they will betroth to a husband of the English king’s choice. That child will be sent to England to be fostered by her husband’s family at an early age in order that she be more English than Scots, and hae no divided loyalties in the event of war between our countries. Or England may simply pay ye what they feel yer lands are worth and end the matter that way. Ye will nae be allowed to live at Greyfaire again, lovey. Yer the Countess of Dunmor now and related to Scotland’s king.”
Never to go home to Greyfaire again? Arabella’s eyes welled with tears. Until this moment she had not realized how very much she had really lost—and none of it through her own doing. She was suddenly angry. Angry that all that was important in her life, that was of consequence or of relevance to her happiness, was being or had been decided for her by someone else, usually a man. It wasn’t fair! She wanted to control her own life, a somewhat radical thought, she knew. Her sweet mother would be horrified by such an idea. Father Anselm would tell her that women were bound by tradition and God’s law to be subservient to men, but that didn’t mean, Arabella decided, that she had to like it.
“What is it, lassie?” the earl asked her. “Ye look like a wee thundercloud.”
A sharp reply sprang to her lips, but Arabella bit it back, suddenly realizing that to behave in such a manner was childish. Her entire life was not her husband’s fault…only these last few months concerned him. She had to take charge of her own fate. No one else had the right, but a direct assault upon Tavis Stewart would earn her nothing. “I am angered,” she said honestly, “by the fact my ancestral home is in the hands of a stranger who may be more successful at pressing his claim to it than I.”
“’Tis natural ye would feel that way, Arabella,” the earl told her.
“Promise me that you will doeverythingto regain Greyfaire for me, my lord,” Arabella said. “I do not want royal gold. I want my border keep.”
“I dinna need the gold, though that be a somewhat sacrilegious statement for a good Scotsman to make,” he told her with some humor. “But it will nae be easy, Arabella Stewart. I will do my best for ye, I swear it.”
“I am satisfied that you will, my lord,” she answered him, but in her heart she knew that should he fail, she would not let it rest at that.
He smiled at her, and Arabella suddenly realized that it was the first time she had ever seen Tavis Stewart smile. She had seen him laugh, but never had his mouth stretched wide to show her a top row of square white teeth. “Yer such a solemn little puss, Arabella Stewart,” he said. “I like ye, lass.”
“‘Tis fortunate you do, my lord,” she replied with spirit, “since you are bound to me in marriage.”
He chuckled. “Shall I court ye, lovey? Ye can scarce call our acquaintance to date a courtship.”
Now it was Arabella’s turn to chuckle. “Nay, my lord, you have certainly not courted me the way I ever imagined a maid should be courted. Rather you have waged a rough wooing of my person. I think I should like it if you courted me properly.”
“And how long is this courting to last?”
“If you please me, Tavis Stewart, then I shall go home to Dunmor with you after your sister’s wedding on December fifth,” Arabella told him. There was a long moment of silence, and then she said, “You have not asked me what will happen if you do not please me, my lord.”
“I dinna need to know,” he said softly, “for I shall please ye well, my little English spitfire.” And he tipped her chin up with his fingers and touched her mouth once again with his. “I have never wooed a woman properly, Arabella Stewart, but ye will hae nae cause for complaint, I promise ye.”
Would his kiss always send that delicious little ripple down her backbone? Arabella wondered. She hoped so! And when he took her hand in his big paw and led her through his mother’s gardens, all rational thoughts seemed to drift away. They did not speak now, and, indeed, there seemed no need to speak. The September day was fair and the air yet warm. Above a bed of Michaelmas daisies several fat bumblebees hovered, their gossamer wings beating the air and, by some miracle, holding up their plump black and yellow bodies.
“When will you go to court?” Arabella finally asked, breaking the silence.
“Not until after Twelfth Night,” the earl replied. “I would take ye wi’ me, lassie. Both Jemmie and his queen are anxious to meet ye. The hunting is too good now for me to leave Dunmor, particularly since my brother doesna need me.”
“I have heard it said that your king is not well liked among his nobility,” Arabella noted. “Why is that? You seem to hold him in great affection, and I do not think you would feel that way if he were not a good man, Tavis.”
The earl sighed. “James is a man of peace in an age that esteems militaristic values and all that goes with it. He despises violence and all martial pastimes, but even so, he might have redeemed himself in the eyes of the nobility if he at least sat a horse well, but alas, he doesna. If the truth be known, my brother is afraid of horses. He is most like his mother, Marie of Gueldres, who was the niece of Burgundy’s duke, Philip the Good. She was raised at the Burgundian court, and was a lady of great wit, intellect, and piety. Jemmie even favors her with his olive skin, dark eyes and hair, and though he has always been a handsome man, he has a foreign look to him which has nae endeared him to many.
“He had two younger brothers, Alexander, Duke of Albany, and John, Earl of Mar. Both were Stewarts in face and form, and totally narrow Scots in their thinking. Several years ago they were arrested upon suspicion of treason, and God knows, Albany aspired to the throne. Mar died in prison, but Albany escaped to France, where the French king arranged an aristocratic marriage for him but would nae help him overthrow Jemmie, so Albany crossed the channel to England. Yer King Edward was more man willing to meddle in a business that was nae his own. He publicly recognized Jemmie’s brother as King Alexander IV of Scotland and sent his brother, Duke Richard, with an army to invade Scotland.”
“That was the summer my father was killed,” Arabella said. “I never really understood it. I remember the summons coming from the king and my mother begging him not to go. My father laughed and said ‘twas no more than a border skirmish, for all King Edward was involved. He said the Scots king would not allow himself to be so easily unseated by a younger brother, that King Edward supported the usurper merely to annoy Scotland, relations between our two countries had not been going well.”
“Nay, they hadna,” the earl replied. “Jemmie marched south to meet the challenge to his throne. Unfortunately he took with him a group of his favorites, none of whom excelled particularly in the warlike arts, some of whom did excel in the arts, and all of whom were most cordially disliked by the nobility. Robert Cochrane, who was the architect of the Great Hall at Stirling Castle, was my brother’s chief favorite. He was a pompous, overbearing man, lacking in humor and hated by most who knew him. Jemmie chose Cochrane to be his Master of the Artillery over a number of eminently well-qualified men. It was like putting a light to gunpowder.
“We were camped at Lauder when the Earl of Angus and his troop of other nobles seized Cochrane and five others and hung them over Lauder Bridge. The rumors of these creatures of Jemmie’s, and the king himself, had so revolted Angus and his party that, unaware of Albany’s full treason against James—for Alexander Stewart had secretly sworn his and Scotland’s fealty to England—they had decided to replace James wi’ his younger brother. They forced the king to witness the execution of his friends, and then escorted him back to Edinburgh.”
“Were you with him? Why did you not help him?” Arabella demanded.
