Blythe Gifford - His Border Bride

‘Then it seems your sister is as good a judge of bird flesh as she is of men.’

She glanced at him without turning her head, still puzzling him out. He’d displayed none of the courtly respect a knight should, yet he controlled his destrier with a warrior’s ease, confident of his strength.

He caught her studying him and she snapped her gaze away, gritting her teeth at his laugh. ‘It’s too late to flatter me, Fitzjohn.’

‘Oh, Mistress Clare,’ he began, his voice still edged with humour, ‘no man who was any judge of character would try flattery on you.’

‘But a true and noble knight would always speak sweetly to a lady,’ she countered. Alain always did. ‘That must mean you are not a true knight.’

‘Or that you are not a true lady.’

She stiffened. What gave her away? ‘I am certainly a truer lady than you are a noble knight.’

He cocked his head. ‘Perhaps, Mistress Clare, it may be too early to come to that conclusion.’

She gulped against his gentle rebuke. A lady would never have made such a statement. In this wild land, it was hard to cling to the courtly graces she had learned as a child in France.

In sight of the tower, she was relieved of the need to answer, and waved to the guard standing on the wall to open the gate. ‘Who’s with you, mistress?’

The man beside her called out without waiting for her answer. ‘A hungry, tired man looking for a warm bed and a hot meal.’

The guard waited for her sign. She nodded. ‘Open the gate.’

They rode into the barmkin and she handed the sack of game to the falconer, closing her ears to his complaints. She started to dismount, expecting young Angus to help her off her horse, but instead, she faced the stranger.

He appeared before she saw him move, fast as a falcon diving for its prey.

He reached to help her down. She hesitated. Somehow, his hand offered an invitation to touch more than fingers.

Without waiting for her to accept, he grabbed her waist, lifting her off the saddle. She had no choice but to slide down into his arms.

He held her too tightly. As she stretched her toes towards the ground, she felt her breasts press against his chest. Something like the stroke of a bird’s feather rippled across her skin. She held her face away from him, but his lips, sharp and chiselled, hovered too close to hers.

Her feet hit the earth.

Standing, he was a full head taller than she. Though journey dust clung to him, he carried his own scent, complex and dangerous, like a fire of oak and pine, smouldering at the end of a long night.

His smile didn’t waver. Nor did his eyes. Blue, startlingly so, and framed by strong brows, they held her gaze strongly as his arms held her body.

‘I’m ready to dismount.’ Euphemia’s pout was audible.

And just like that, he was gone.

Clare sagged against her horse, realising she had held her breath the entire time he touched her. This was no perfect knight, but a dangerous man. Anyone who trusted him would find herself abandoned and alone.

Or worse.

She forced herself to walk away, ignoring the tug of his eyes on her back. The cook and the steward approached, stern looks on their faces. She hoped fresh fowl would soothe their anger at her for avoiding her day’s duties.

‘Mistress Clare.’ The man’s words were a command.

She turned at her name, hating herself for doing it and him for making her. ‘If it is food you want, the evening meal will be served shortly.’

‘What I want is to see the Carr in charge.’

Now she was the one who smiled, long and slow and she watched his face, savouring the moment. ‘You’ve seen her.’

And when she turned to the steward, the smile lingered on her lips.

Gavin watched the woman turn her back on him, never losing her smile.

You’ve seen her.

And he had. With her fair hair pulled into an immovable braid, suspicious grey-green eyes and straight brows, hers was not a perfect face. But she had the air of a woman accustomed to being obeyed, and he could well believe she was the castle’s mistress while her father or her husband was at war.

He had made no friend of her yet, he was certain, but he must try to do so now. He strode over and interrupted her conversation. ‘Then you’re the one I want to see. I want to join your men.’

The quiver on her lips might have been irritation or fear. Should she discover who he was, it would certainly be fear. Eventually, there would be no way to hide it. She had not recognised his name, but even the smallest band of warriors seemed to know it now.

Yet he refused to cower behind a lie. Men would think what they would. He had learned not to care.

‘No. You cannot.’ Her tone brooked no opposition.

‘Why not?’ Most of the castle’s men were, no doubt, harrying Edward all the way back to England. ‘An extra man-at-arms should be welcome.’

‘Oh, we’ll have men enough, just as soon as they capture Edward and come home.’

He stamped on a pang of regret. He had known his decision would mean abandoning the man who had brought him to knighthood, but he had hoped not to care so much. ‘Well, until they do, I’ve a sword to offer in your service.’

‘Do you always march in, demand what you want, and expect to get it?’

What he wanted was an end to endless war. That, he did not expect. Or even hope for. ‘I only expect that, as a knight, my duty is to fight.’

She studied his face until he feared she would see the English blood in it. ‘So you truly are a knight?’ The wonder in her voice implied that a knight was a special soul instead of a man trained, like her hawk, to kill on command.

‘Aye,’ he answered, the Scottish accent of his childhood remembered on his tongue. ‘I’m as true a knight as you’ll see.’

He watched her turn over his answer before she spoke again.

‘My answer is still no. If you’re hungry, fill your belly at the evening table. If you’re weary, sleep in the hall tonight. But tomorrow, I want you out of the place.’

He bowed as she left him, grateful, at least, for one night under a roof.

Fuelled by anger and desperation, he’d spent the last few weeks hiding in these desolate hills, avoiding both the Scots and the English. Just to the south, near the peaks, lay the border that two kings had drawn more than one hundred years ago.

Now, he had chosen his side.

And lonely and bleak as it was, Mistress Clare, by all that was holy, was going to let him live on it.

Euphemia ran after her as Clare entered the hall. ‘No wonder you’re still unmarried. A braw man appears and you do nothing but insult him.’

‘Euphemia, you talk as if I should open my skirts to anything with a pillicock.’ Of course, the girl’s mother did, so she knew no better.

The girl shrugged. She knew who, and what, she was. Her mother might have been the baron’s companion for ten years, but she would never be his wife. ‘What’s the harm?’

‘He’s someone’s bastard son, attached to no lord. He may have been banished from his fellows. We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t murder us in our beds.’ And if he did, the fault would be hers.

‘Well, I’ll be friendly, if you won’t.’

‘No, you won’t. I don’t want to see his bastard in your belly after he’s gone. Now go and find out whether cook needs help with those fowl.’

The girl smiled and left, without answering yea or nae.

Clare gritted her teeth. She had tried to bring order to this place, but France and all she’d learned there was far away. The wildness of these untamed hills crept into everything and everyone. Even she had mornings, like this one, when nothing would soothe her but watching the falcon soar and taking pleasure in its kill.