Pansy looked unhappy, and then she said, “Perhaps he is not coming, mistress.”
“Not coming!Why wouldn’t he come to my rescue?” She stamped her foot to emphasize her point.
“Mistress Velvet, you are betrothed to Lord Gordon, and your mama and papa did approve the match. Perhaps Lord Southwood feels that now that the earl has taken things into his own hands, it is better to have you marry and be done with it.”
Velvet’s face crumbled.“No!”she whispered. “I don’t want to be married now! I don’t want to be a mother yet! I am just barely past my own childhood, dammit! It isn’t fair! It just isn’t fair!”
Pansy sighed deeply. Life wasn’t always fair, she thought, but there it was. You took what was handed you and made the best of it. At least that’s what her mother had always said, and her mother knew. Pansy’s charming Irish father, one of Lady de Marisco’s captains, on the other hand, was more like Mistress Velvet. Always seeking the impossible, always anxious to see what was over the rainbow. He was a dreamer and a romantic, just like the young girl she served. Pansy couldn’t understand why Mistress Velvet was making such a fuss. If she had been given a handsome, wealthy, and kind man for a husband,shewould be on her knees thanking the blessed Mother!
“We will run away!” Velvet said dramatically.
“What?”Pansy was startled from her reverie.
“We’ll run away,” Velvet repeated. “Tonight, when Lord Gordon is snoring snugly in his bed, we will escape him and make our own way back to London. When I tell the queen that he kidnapped me, she’ll have his arrogant head!”
“Mistress Velvet! That’s the silliest idea I ever heard,” Pansy declared bravely, for she had no right to speak to her mistress in such a fashion. “Frankly, we have been lucky to get this far without being assaulted by robbers, traveling without an armed escort as we have been doing. Only the fact that Lord Gordon and Dugald are well armed, and look like the type of men that will not be trifled with, has saved us, I’ve not a doubt. Two women, however, are a totally different matter! We’ll not get five miles from York before we are set upon, murdered, robbed, and heaven only knows what!”
“There is no other way, Pansy. Perhaps we could dress as boys?”
Pansy looked down at her full bosom and shook her head ruefully. “I could never disguise these,” she said. “Mistress, listen to me. Let the earl bring you to Scotland. ’Tis true you’re his betrothed wife, but only a priest can unite you in the holy bonds of matrimony. If you refuse the marriage, there can be no marriage, can there? Lord Gordon will have to send you back to England and wait until your parents return next spring, won’t he?”
The smile that suddenly lit Velvet’s face was like the sun returning after a gray day. “Oh, Pansy! You’re right! You’re absolutely right! Why didn’t I think of it in the first place? The worst that can happen is that we’ll be stuck in Scotland for the winter. What matter as long as we return to England in the spring?” Impulsively Velvet hugged her tiring woman. “Oh, what would I do without you?”
Pansy sighed with relief. Her mother had always said she had a quick mind. If her mistress had persisted in attempting an escape from Lord Gordon, Pansy would have had to side with the earl for Velvet’s sake, but she knew that her mistress would never have forgiven her, and she would have been sent home in disgrace. What would she have said to her mother then? Pansy was certain that Lady de Marisco couldn’t have been like Velvet or else Daisy would not have been able to cope so well.
Two days later, the Earl of BrocCairn’s party crossed over the invisible line that separated England and Scotland and rode into the Cheviot Hills. It was a clear mid-October day, and the air was sharp and crisp. Alex had put aside the elegant garb of the gentleman that morning, and he now rode dressed as the Highlander he was in a belted plaid consisting of a piece of Gordon tartan, plaited in the middle and wrapped around his back, leaving as much at each end as would cover the front of the body, the ends overlapping each other. The plaid was held in place with a wide leather belt that had a silver buckle jeweled with a reddish agate. The lower part of the tartan fell to the middle of his knee joints while the upper part was fastened to his shoulder with a large silver brooch engraved with a badger and the BrocCairn motto,“Defend or Die.”
With the tartan he wore a white silk shirt, knitted green hose, a doeskin vest with horn buttons, and black leather brogues. On his head was a blue bonnet with a pheasant’s feather set at a jaunty angle. He was armed with his broadsword, a dirk, and a sgian-dubh in his right stocking.
Dugald was dressed similarly, and Pansy openly eyed him with approval, for he was a fine figure of a man in his plaid, she suddenly decided.
Velvet was now more uncomfortably aware of Alex than she had ever been. He was, she noted, extremely handsome in his tartan, and seeing his bare knees gave her a shiver. There was something almost savage about him that had not been there before. She began to wonder if perhaps she shouldn’t have fled him in York when she had the opportunity. Any softness he had shown was gone with his English clothes.
They stopped during the noon hour to rest the horses and to eat the lunch that the innkeeper’s wife had packed for them that morning. There were slabs of fresh bread with sharp cheese and sweet pink ham, a cold chicken, a skin of cider, and some pears. The day was quiet, the air warm and still. Velvet was taken by the beauty of the Border country. The hills stretched into the purple distance, seeming almost softly smudged in the clear autumn light.
“Where are we to stay tonight, my lord?” Velvet asked as they mounted up to ride again.
“I am heading towardHermitage, the Border home of my cousin, Francis Stewart-Hepburn. He is the Earl of Bothwell, and even if he is not in residence, they will offer us hospitality. I am hoping to stay a few days while I send Dugald on toDun Brocto bring back an escort. We have been lucky so far, but I will bring ye no farther without my men at my back.”
“Is it so dangerous then? We have had no difficulties, and we are closer toDun Brocnow than we are to London.”
“Are ye anxious then, Velvet, to see yer new home?”
She flushed at his reference toDun Brocas her home. “My lord, you have kidnapped me from the queen’s court, and though it is true that we are betrothed, you cannot compel me to marry you. I have told you that I will not marry you until my parents return home.”
He smiled. “I thought ye weren’t going to marry me at all,” he gently teased her.
She would not look at him, instead staring straight ahead, her hands clenching her reins. “It is not that you are not suitable, my lord, it is just that I am not yet ready to wed. Why can you not understand that? I am being neither coy nor coquettish.”
“Ye were correct when ye said that we are alike, Velvet, for if I do not understand yer attitude, ye do not understand mine. I have courted ye and tried to be patient.”
She snorted derisively, and he was forced to laugh in spite of himself.
“There is no way you can force me to the altar without my family about me,” she said firmly.
Before he could answer her, Dugald said urgently, “Riders, my lord! Up ahead, and they’ve already seen us.” His hand reached for his broadsword.
“Rein in!” Alex commanded sharply, and then he directed his words to the two women. “Even at this distance I can tell Borderers. Pray God they are Bothwell’s men, but, in any event, keep yer mouths shut! Velvet, I am deadly serious when I tell ye that this is a matter of life and death.”
