Taken by the Border Rebel Read online

  ‘I hear,’ she said, her very voice signalling a new topic, ‘that you are a singing man.’

  He shrugged. ‘Aye.’

  ‘And that you are the only one who knows all the verses of the Ballad of the Brunsons.’

  ‘Bessie does, as well.’

  But Bessie no longer lived here. Who would sing the song when he was gone? Who was there for him to teach, as his father had taught him?

  She looked up at him. ‘It is beautiful. I can see why you love it so.’

  He opened his mouth to argue, but instead, he fell into her eyes, as green as the grass would be at midsummer. The cheekbones that had seemed too sharp now sculpted her face into a perfect shape.

  He turned away, but he could feel her, beside him, close enough that he could put an arm around her. Too close. Too tempting. Aye, it had been too long since he’d kissed a woman.

  He looked up and saw the first star of evening. Looked away, not wanting to be reminded of her, but she was beside him, she was everywhere …

  He stopped thinking and took her lips.

  And in that moment, it felt strong and hard and right and there was nothing beyond man and woman.

  Yet her lips did not yield. They coaxed him further, deeper. Some buried part of his brain wondered how many she had kissed before. Some unburied part wanted to make sure she’d remember his.

  He was not a cruel man, but he was a strong one, accustomed to action and battle, striking first and talking later. Her lips made him want to linger. Her mouth opened to him, her tongue tasted his mouth, he tasted hers, and then he forgot who she was, and who he was, and he did not try to remember.

  Stella let herself be held, be taken, be swept into his arms to forget everything. No place, no time, no Storwick or Brunson. Not even separate people …

  She didn’t know what brought her back to the truth. That she was being held by a man who was her mortal enemy. She must have stiffened. He nearly dropped her. She nearly fell.

  She stumbled. Stepped back. Touched her lips and looked up at him.

  And there was nothing but breath and the sound of her heart pounding in her ears and the heat that had begun with her lips and curled its way down to flicker like fire deep within her.

  Then there were footsteps at the end of the wall.

  He stepped between her and the sound, as if by hiding her, all they had done would disappear. It was one of the men, guarding the tower, looking out over the land. She did not raise her eyes to see which one. Nor to see if he had seen her.

  Rob’s hand circled her arm and they left the parapet, both still breathing as if they had run a long, long way. Somehow, something more than his body seemed to surround her. Even where he did not touch her, even though they did not look at each other, they moved as one.

  He near threw her into the room, as if by letting go, by putting distance between them, he could break it off, could rip the feelings apart.

  His chest rose and fell. And the hardness of his jaw clenched … ‘Ye’ll not get me to take you to your father that way. So don’t try it again.’

  The door closed.

  Her knees gave way and she sank on to the bed. Then, she clenched her fist, as strong and tight as a warrior’s, and pounded the mattress in fury. Whether her fury was for him or herself she wasn’t sure.

  If only that had been why. If only she had kissed him with calculation, hoping to spin his head, to make him let her go to see her father, to go home, to go anywhere. None of that had crossed her mind. It had been only him.

  Him. Him. Him.

  Each word pounded into the mattress with her fist.

  When had she last been kissed? She could not remember. Once, perhaps. Twice. But always with respect. As if she were some sort of glass treasure. Not like this. Not in a way that unleashed a wild beast inside her.

  Oh, she knew women enjoyed it, but she had never felt this … hunger. As if she wanted at once to devour and be devoured.

  It was wrong. All of it. For her to even touch such a man, touch the enemy like that.

  No doubt he was the calculating one. He must have wanted simply to confuse her. But still, still …

  Rob spoke less than usual the next day. His lips were numb, as if he had drunk too much ale, and every time he moved them, he feared they would shout aloud that he had kissed her.

  It would not happen again. She had lured him in and turned his head around. He had been too much with her, spent more hours in her company than with anyone but his family.

  Time to think of the future. A head man should marry. He needed someone to run the castle. Someone to bear his children.

  Someone not afraid to sit next to him at meals.

  A headman needed a wife. Someone appropriate. Someone who would keep his mind far away from Stella Storwick.

  If that were possible.

  Chapter Eight

  Rob rode with Johnnie the next day, waiting for the right time to speak of marriage. He had to talk to someone about how to find a bride. And there was no one else.

  ‘Sheep will be moving into the hills soon,’ Johnnie said, casting his eyes to those hills, looking, always, for riders. ‘Maybe it would be better to have the men shift them to new places.’

  There was Johnnie again. Always trying to change things. The man, the sheep, the dog, and the patch of ground were wedded. ‘Herder and his sheep know their place. To pull them away will put them all off their feed.’

  Johnnie sighed. And pushed no more.

  It was noontime when they stopped in the hills for a bwannock.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Rob began.

  Johnnie waited a moment. Rob waited for him to ask.

  ‘About what?’ Johnnie said, finally.

  ‘That it is time for me to wed.’

  Johnnie had been at court and that training must have been what kept him from spitting his oatcake across the grass. ‘Have you now?’

  ‘Head man. Should have a wife.’

  ‘Well, I highly recommend it.’ Johnnie’s tone was more restrained than he had expected. ‘May you be as happy as Cate and I.’

  Rob gave a grunt. Happy was not the point.

  Johnnie waited for him to speak. He did not.

  ‘You’ve found someone, then?’ Johnnie said, finally.

  He cleared his throat, but it sounded like a growl. ‘I thought you could help.’

  There was a grin. Johnnie was near laughing at him. ‘Usually, falling in love is something a man needs no help with.’

  ‘It’s not love I want!’ Love meant someone else could control him. ‘It’s a wife!’

  ‘Well, you can’t have mine,’ his brother retorted.

  ‘Johnnie, you are not the head man.’ Johnnie was the younger son. He could marry for love if he liked. ‘I need a wife the clan will accept. Respect. One who can manage things.’

  His mother had ridden their lands to visit all the families. She and Bessie both had known how to feed an army with a pound of mutton. That was the kind of woman he needed.

  Not someone who would spread flour all over the kitchen.

  ‘I thought …’ He cleared his throat. ‘I thought you could help me find someone … fitting.’

  Johnnie was silent for a while, glancing at Rob as if he’d grown an extra head.

  ‘Well?’ he said, finally.

  Johnnie eyed him, not like a brother. ‘This could be a path to reconcile with the King. Select a woman he’d approve of. Ask his permission—’

  ‘I don’t care whether the King approves.’

  ‘Then why do you care who’s appropriate? Just find someone you love.’

  Because no one I love will ever love me.

  ‘Can’t you just once do as I ask?’ It came out as a yell.

  He just needed to direct his seed at someone other than Stella Storwick. Fortunately, Johnnie would never suspect that weakness.

  Johnnie stared at him. ‘Aye, then. I’ll think on who would be a match for you.’

  Rob nodded, but
did not say thank you.

  Stella had not expected Cate Gilnock to seek her out again. They had a truce, you might say. Enough so that the woman would not kill her in her sleep.

  At least, she hoped not.

  But the next day, as she and Wat played by the stream, here came the woman and her huge beast of a dog. They stopped when they saw her and the dog came up to sniff her up and down and in some very private places.

  So that was the hound, she thought, standing rigid as he sniffed her. The one who, if the whispers she heard were right, had tracked Willie Storwick to his death.

  She patted his head. Good dog.

  ‘His name is Belde,’ Cate said.

  Stella nodded and the dog moved on to sniff Wat, but the dog knew him and they ran off to play together, leaving the two women to talk.

  Cate eyed her steadily. Stella lifted her head. She was not going to be cowed by this woman who dressed as a man.

  ‘They tell me,’ Cate began, looking at her with a wary eye, ‘that you are no better cook than I.’

  Criticism. But yet, aye. Cate’s no cook, Beggy had said. Something else they had in common.

  She shook her head. ‘Beggy won’t let me into the kitchen unless I’m bringing fresh fish.’ That, at least, she did not mangle. ‘It’s not home.’ More than she ought to reveal.

  ‘Are you all right, then?’

  Stella blinked. Concern was not what she had expected. A rush of tears nearly spilled over. She bit her lip. ‘Well enough.’ She would not be lulled. ‘Rob Brunson is a bit of a brute.’

  Cate shook her head and smiled. ‘But he’s not hurt you.’

  It was not a question.

  She had to smile back. ‘Nay. But he yells.’

  ‘When he speaks at all.’

  They both laughed, then. But after, there was only silence and Wat’s squeals and the gurgle of the water.

  ‘I saw him,’ Cate said, at last. ‘Your father.’

  Stella’s heart dropped to her stomach and she reached out to squeeze Cate’s hand. None of the rest mattered now. ‘Tell me.’

  Cate glanced up at her eyes, then lowered hers. A sign the news was bad. ‘He’s not well.’

  Now she gripped, hard. ‘They’ve not hurt him, have they?’

  Now Cate’s eyes were the ones angered. ‘He’s a sick man. You knew that. Don’t go accusing the Brunsons. Thomas and Bessie have done more for him than any Storwick would do for us.’

  She struggled against tears. Somehow, she knew Cate was right. ‘He’s dying, isn’t he?’

  ‘I’m no physic—’

  Stella let go of her hand and turned away, shaking her head. ‘I know. That was why I came.’ Running across the border with no more plan than a child, frightened without her father. ‘I wanted to see him, to bring him home to die. And Rob wouldn’t even tell me where he is. He won’t let me go …’

  She turned back, holding Cate’s brown eyes now. Maybe this woman, even though …

  ‘Would you …?’

  The words trailed off. Only dumb hope remained.

  But while sympathy lurked in Cate’s gaze, there had been too much pain before. She shook her head. ‘You ask me to forgive too much.’

  Again, this life seemed to throw back to her all the ills her family had done. But hers had not been the only one. ‘Do you think we’ve never been hurt? Brunsons have blood on their hands, too.’

  Something shifted in Cate’s brown eyes. ‘It will never end, will it?’

  Stella’s shoulders slumped. She looked down at her hands and shook her head.

  And she did not look up again until Cate, calling the dog to her side, had gone.

  With a wary eye, Rob watched Cate approach. She rarely talked to him alone now that she and Johnnie were well and truly married. He wondered what this was about. Had Johnnie told her he was thinking of marrying? Bah. Couldn’t trust your own brother to keep a secret, once he was married.

  Well, he needed no goading or advice from Cate on what he should do.

  ‘The Storwick woman,’ she began.

  He sighed. Not marriage, then. Something worse. ‘What of her?’

  ‘We saw her father at Carwell Castle.’

  ‘Aye. That I know.’ Unlike Cate to waste breath on unneeded words.

  ‘The man’s dying, Rob.’

  He steeled his heart. Stella had said the same, right before she begged to go to see him. ‘My father died. So did yours. At a Storwick’s hand.’

  She looked away. ‘Aye, and neither you nor I had a chance to say goodbye. But she might. You could give her that chance.’

  ‘Why should she have it if we didn’t?’

  ‘Is it the King, then? Are you wondering what he would think?’

  ‘I don’t know, or care, what the wee King thinks of anything I do.’ That was true, mostly, for good or ill. Johnnie and Thomas would be the ones to confer on that. ‘It’s my people and my valley I’m sworn to protect.’

  And showing a weakness for what a Storwick wanted was not the way to do it.

  ‘Can’t you spread peace, instead of misery?’

  Womanish question, for all it was Cate who asked him. He had never thought her a weakling. Mayhap marriage had changed her.

  Surely not so much that she would take the side of a Storwick against a Brunson. Nothing could change her that much.

  But what he could not tell her was how much he wanted to let the woman go. Hell, more than that. He wanted to throw her out of the door.

  No. No. And no. That would make him look weak, as if he pandered to her whims. That, he would not allow, no matter who pled the case.

  ‘No. I’ll listen to no more about it.’

  She must have recognised it as his last word, for she said no more, but her eyes seemed to look at him with pity as she left.

  Why? He was doing the right thing. Doing what he must.

  Doing what his father would have done.

  To Stella’s surprise, Cate knocked on her door late in the evening, crossing the threshold before she raised her eyes and spoke. ‘I asked him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I asked him,’ Cate said, again. ‘To let you see him.’

  She hugged Rob’s sister-in-law before logic could stop her. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’

  Cate shook her head, avoiding Stella’s hopeful gaze.

  Joy evaporated, leaving pain sharpened by her disappointed hope. ‘I should have known he would refuse.’

  ‘He’s a stubborn one.’

  Aye. She’d never met a man more so. ‘But you tried,’ she said, swallowing around a lump in her throat. ‘That means … thank you. I know that …’

  Cate stood silent, waiting.

  What had she meant to say? That she knew how terrible her kinsman had been? And how difficult it had been for Cate to help her?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, finally. Paltry words for horrid acts, but all she had.

  Cate’s head jerked in surprise. Then, she nodded. ‘You’re the only Storwick who ever said so.’

  And for a moment, Stella wanted to disown all her kin.

  Rob had said no in no uncertain terms. He was not going to let this woman journey to see her father.

  Then why did he feel guilty about it? Why did he keep thinking of her when he should have been thinking about the King or the other Storwicks or getting a new bride?

  A new bride.

  Some unknown, faceless woman who would know how to cook without spilling flour. Who would take the edge off his hunger for a woman.

  Who would make no demands.

  Instead, he kept looking at Stella Storwick.

  She kept looking at him, too. So much that he met her eyes when he had no intention of doing so. Thank goodness she could not see what he was thinking. Of kissing her again.

  Of more.

  He tried to stay out of her way. Keep her out of his reach, was more like it. He was a man who had not let lust rule him. Not since his father had warned him. But every time he looked at S
tella, or thought of Stella, something rumbled and twitched and put him in mind of beds and lips and skin as soft as flower petals.

  She continued to spend most of the days with Wat Gregor. Both she and the boy seemed content, doing simple things. He heard both of them laugh. And the boy seemed to have learned something of how to fish and maintain the weir, though she was ever hovering over him.

  But one morning, as he sat in the public hall at the edge of the courtyard growling at the account books, he heard again the boy’s howling and screaming that had disrupted the tower before she came. He looked out of the window. Wat ran through the courtyard and disappeared from Rob’s view.

  Then came Stella, running after. Her hair was flying, her cheeks were flushed, and if she had not looked so irritated, he would have thought more about kissing her.

  She paused in the middle of the courtyard, looking for the boy. Rob walked out.

  ‘Where is he?’ She grabbed Rob’s arm. ‘Did you see where he went?’ No, not irritated. Afraid.

  ‘I heard him right enough.’ He pointed to the tower. ‘He went that way.’ No. He was the one irritated by the feel of her hands on his arm. She had not touched him since … ‘Can you not deal with a screaming child?’

  He expected her usual air of disdain, but she seemed not even to notice him. ‘I hear no screaming now. Something might happen to him.’ She looked up now, with pleading eyes he had only seen before when she asked about her father. ‘Please. Help me find him.’

  ‘Where does he hide, when you play?’

  She shook her head. ‘Usually outside. Under a tree where he’s not really hidden. Or in the stables.’

  ‘We’ll start there.’

  Quickly, he saw Wat wasn’t there. Rob wasn’t worried, not really. Children, he was told, ran away all the time. Maybe it was because she wasn’t a mother herself. She obviously had little more experience with children than with cooking, though she was much better with the wee ones.

  Still, he felt his anxiety rise with hers.

  ‘Inside the tower, then,’ he said, when they had exhausted the courtyard.

  When they walked in, she immediately turned to go upstairs.

  ‘Wait,’ he said, touching her arm. ‘This level first.’

  She stiffened and swallowed, as if she had something new to fear.