At the sound of Eufemia’s voice, he turned his gaze back to the front of the house, which he could see quite clearly from his vantage point just at one of its corners. Sir Jasper Keane was half dragging her from the house while she struggled and cursed him with all the pent-up violence in her soul. As they passed over the threshold, the laird saw flames leaping behind the two figures. He groaned softly with despair. The damned bastard had fired Culcairn House!
“Jasper! Jasper! Don’t do this to me!”Eufemia was desperately endeavoring to escape her lover’s grasp.
The Englishman laughed, and his hand wrapped itself even more tightly in her dark red hair, forcing her face to his. He kissed her hard, and then said loudly, “I told you, Eufemia, that you would be mine only as long as you pleased me. You no longer please me, my border bitch.”
“Then let me go,” she pleaded, and Robert Hamilton could see the terror in his sister’s face. Her dark blue eyes were almost rolling in her head like some panicked animal.
“Let you go?To the Earl of Dunmor? Nay! If you will not be mine, then by God, you will not be his either! I don’t want you as my whore any longer, Eufemia, but it is my right to decide your fate.” He yanked her about so that she faced his troop of men, and using his other hand, he tore her clothes from her, rendering her naked.
“Dinna look,” Robert Hamilton commanded his younger sisters, knowing what was about to transpire, and feeling a deep dread in the pit of his stomach.
“Tis poor pickings we’ll have this night, my lads,” Sir Jasper Keane told his followers, “but you may want this pretty piece of goods for your amusement. She’s hot and juicy, and I’ve already primed her well, so that she’s ready for the taking.Have her!”And he brutally shoved Eufemia forward.
She stumbled, but somehow managed to keep her balance. The ring of English borderers about her closed even as she looked wildly about for a chance to elude them. Belatedly her hands moved to cover her bosom and the triangle between her thighs. The flames from the burning house threw dappled shadows over her fair, white body, and but for the crackle of the fire, the night was suddenly, for a brief moment, deathly silent. Then a large borderer moved forward from the circle of men, loosening his engorged male organ free of his breeches as he came toward her. Eufemia shrieked and whirled wildly about, seeking an avenue of escape, but there was none.
“Come on, lassie,” the man crooned, moving stealthily onward. “Johnny will fuck you nicely.” He reached out his hand to her. Eufemia screamed again and made to bolt, but two other men jumped forward, wrestling her to the ground even as the one who called himself Johnny stepped to stand over Eufemia and then smilingly fell to his knees to straddle her.
Robert Hamilton shuddered with the violence of the memory. Now haunted and hollow-eyed he looked up at the Earl of Dunmor. “In a moment’s time all discipline was gone, and they violently savaged her. Before my very eyes, and those of my sisters, they ravished her again, and again, and again. Like Meg, I shall hear Eufemia’s screams until my dying day! I shall never forgive myself, my lord! I might have saved her earlier, but I did not. I crouched helplessly in a ditch while my elder sister was murdered before me. I could not help her. It was all I could do to soothe Meg and Mary, and to keep little Geordie from crying out, for he was terribly frightened.
“I was one. The English were many. The girls and old Una clung to me, begging me not to leave them. What was I to do? I could not sacrifice my younger sisters and brother to the brutality of those devils!Icould not!And when they had finished with Eufemia, they threw her naked body into the flames of our home. She was long dead by then, I am certain, for she had made no sound for several minutes before.
“Then the English took my horses and my cattle, and drove them off across the border. Despite my love for Eufemia—and I did love her for all her wild ways, my lord—none of this would have happened had my sister not been the whore that she was. Now ye know the truth of this matter.The whole truth!”the young laird concluded defiantly, looking up at the earl.
A deep silence prevailed for a long minute between the older and the younger man. Then Tavis Stewart put a comforting hand upon the laird’s shoulder. “‘Tis done then,” he said quietly. “Yer family and servants will come back wi’ me to Dunmor Castle, and there ye will stay until yer home can be rebuilt.” His voice was devoid of emotion. “Whatever else she was, Eufemia Hamilton was to have been my wife. I’ll nae let her family suffer. The English, in murdering yer sister, have besmirched the honor of the Stewarts of Dunmor, as well as the Hamiltons of Culcairn. As the Earl of Dunmor it is my right to wreak my vengeance upon this little English lordling. We’ll hae our revenge, laddie, that I promise ye!”
“What will we do, my lord?” Robert Hamilton asked.
“Och, Rob, we must first find where this English fox has his den, and then we’ll burn it to the ground, even as he burned yer home. We’ll take back yer horses and cattle, and of course we’ll hae his horses and cattle as well in forfeit. That done, I expect the Englishman will think us finished wi’ him, but we will nae be, Rob. We will wait, and we will watch. Sir Jasper bragged to yer sister that King Richard would make him a fine match.”
“Perhaps ‘twas all it was,” the laird said, “idle boasting and nothing more. Why would the English king be bothered with a petty vassal? I dinna know a great deal about the man other than what Eufemia told me. I dinna even know if he has a house, but my sister never spoke of any important connections that this man might have.”
“Patience, lad,” the earl counseled. “In time we will learn everything we need to learn about Sir Jasper Keane. If indeed King Richard makes an advantageous match for this man, we will know it, and it may be we will make this unknown heiress a widow before she is a bride. The English will pay a heavy forfeit for this night’s work at Culcairn.”
“But how will we find Sir Jasper’s home?” the laird persisted.
“Think, Rob! The man canna keep his cock to himself, and has lasses, ye’ve said, on both sides of the border. God only knows we Scots hae our share of randy borderers, but last night this Englishman murdered a Scotswoman of good family. He did it deliberately, cruelly, and wi’ malice. We will find him, lad, for someone is certain to know the location of his lair, and they will talk. Either from their own outrage over this crime or from their own greed. I intend offering a reward for information that can lead us to the treacherous bastard. Gold is often a more powerful weapon than even the sword.”
The young laird thought a moment and then nodded his agreement at the earl’s words. An impatient tug upon his sleeve caught his sudden attention, and he looked down into the wizened features of a tiny woman who glowered balefully up at him.”What is it, Una?”
“What is it?”the old woman repeated irritably. “I’ll tell ye what it is, Master Robert. Mistress Meg is near collapse, and Mistress Mary and wee Geordie chilled to the bone and hungry. I’ve already lost one of my precious bairns.” Tears ran down her cheeks, though her voice remained strong. “Am I to lose another while ye two plot a vengeance that could just as easily be plotted before a warm fire and a plate of hot food?”
The barest hint of a smile touched the corners of Tavis Stewart’s stern mouth as Una loudly scolded the laird. She was a tiny bit of a wiry woman, but it was pointedly obvious she feared little. “Can yer bairns sit a horse, old woman?” he demanded of her.
“Aye,” she answered him. “I’ll ride pillion wi’ Mistress Mary. Mistress Meg can ride wi’ Master Robert, but someone will have to take our Geordie. I would wish for a cart if I could, for I dinna like the four-legged beasties myself. And where are we to go, I should like to know?”
“Ye’ll be coming to Dunmor, good dame, and I’ll take yer littlest bairn wi’ me. My mother, Lady Fleming, will advise me in the matter of these little ones, and ye’ll stay at Dunmor until Culcairn House is rebuilt,” the earl told her.
Dame Una nodded. “‘Tis right ye gie us shelter,” she said matter-of-factly. Then she moved off to where her charges waited, seated upon large stones that had once been a part of their home.
“She was one of our great-grandsire’s bastards,” the laird explained. “Her mam nursed his legitimate bairns.”
“I understand,” the earl replied. “She is kin, and that is a good thing, for kin are usually loyal.”
The laird flushed as if the words had been meant as a rebuke. “I did nae know what to do about Eufemia,” he explained helplessly, as if the explanation were required of him. “She was my elder by three years. After our mother died birthing Geordie, our father gave in to her every whim. She was his eldest and always his favorite, though he never said it. Then father was killed last year, and I could nae more control her than he could. She had a way wi’ her, my lord,” Robert Hamilton finished simply.
“Eufemia cast no spell over me, Rob, though I should have probably beaten her if she had been my sister and behaved so. I hardly knew her, though I did hope in time we would come to like and respect one another. Ye know why I asked for her. It is time for me to wed, as my mother is ever preaching at me. I like the idea of having kin whose lands abut mine. Then, too, Eufemia was a pretty creature, and a man likes a pretty woman in his bed, for it makes his bedsport pleasant.”
“Aye,” the laird agreed cheerfully, “and ‘tis nice when they smell good too. Eufemia always smelt like wild roses.” Then remembering himself, Robert Hamilton said, “I do thank ye for coming to our aid, my lord, and for the shelter ye offer my family and servants.” The earl’s reasons for marriage did not surprise Robert Hamilton, for they were sound and practical reasons. Love was generally something that came later in a marriage, if it came at all. Love, more often than not, had little to do with a good match. He was flattered that the Earl of Dunmor had asked for his elder sister’s hand in marriage, for indeed, as King James’ half brother, Tavis Stewart might have sought far higher. Until this possibility of an alliance between their families had arisen, he had not known the earl, for Dunmor was often at court in his brother’s service. His reputation, however, was that of a fair, though hard man.
