His Border Bride. Blythe Gifford

He had learned long ago not to care and no longer wasted breath trying to change their minds. Now, this woman, like all the rest, seemed to believe the worst.

      Only this time, it mattered.

      ‘I would.’ He started to lower his arms.

      ‘Keep your hands up,’ she said. ‘Swear you won’t harm us?’

      Did she really think he’d set fire to the place? ‘I swear.’

      ‘And that you won’t open our doors to the Inglis,’ her father added.

      ‘I swear it.’

      ‘On a knight’s honour?’ she prodded, not trusting him even now.

      ‘On my knight’s honour.’ Words that meant much to her and nothing to him.

      Carr lowered his sword, though his suspicious stare didn’t ease. Gavin let his hands drop, slowly. ‘So I can stay?’

      ‘I’m still thinking on it,’ the man replied sharply. ‘What do you want and why are you here?’

      To find peace, he thought. Vain hope. There was no truce for the war within. ‘I’m just a poor knight between wars, seeking shelter and a lord to serve.’

      ‘A few weeks ago you served the King of the Inglis. Why should I trust you to fight with the Scots?’

      ‘Half my blood’s as Scottish as yours.’

      ‘And the other half is as Inglis as Edward’s.’

      Her voice came from beside him. ‘And which is the stronger?’

      He wished he knew. Sometimes, he felt as if blood was at war with blood, tainted by his father’s sins. ‘As long as I serve you, it’s my Scots blood that will be speaking.’

      ‘Be sure of it.’ The baron stepped closer and Gavin caught a whiff of a warm hearth and a welcome pint. Things he hadn’t seen for a long time.

      ‘Aye. You have my word.’

      ‘And why,’ she asked, ‘should we trust your word?’

      Silent, he gave no answer. Trust could only be earned, not promised.

      The baron squinted at him and motioned Clare to the stairs. ‘Leave us, daughter.’

      ‘But, Da—’

      ‘You asked for time alone. Give me the same.’

      He wondered, as she picked up her dagger and turned towards the stairs, what she’d wanted from those moments alone with him. And whether she’d got it.

      Carr leaned against the stone wall, his eyes searching the dark hillside. ‘Why are you here, Fitzjohn? The truth.’

      ‘I was born here. And now I’ve come home.’ Or at least, he’d come looking for home again. ‘England wasn’t …’ He let the word drift, then shrugged. ‘It wasn’t that.’

      An owl hooted and then was silent, giving its prey no more warning.

      ‘If I let you stay, Fitzjohn, you must know that if anything suspicious, anything at all, happens while you’re here, I won’t ask any questions. I’ll just kill you.’

      That was progress, Gavin decided. ‘Do I scare you that much?’

      ‘You don’t scare me at all.’

      ‘No?’ He scared the daughter, though she tried not to show it. ‘I’ve a dangerous reputation.’

      The old man gave a snort. ‘Well, so have I. And I’ve had longer to earn mine.’

      They both grinned then. And he felt a kinship with the man, something he’d never felt on either side of the border. He wondered what his life might have been like, if he’d had such a father.

      ‘Well, if you’re as clever as you are dangerous, you’ll put me to work doing something more than sweeping the mews and hooting at owls.’ He watched the man’s face for clues and saw none. ‘You could use a seasoned man.’

      ‘You think so?’ He looked as if he didn’t care what Fitzjohn thought.

      ‘Well, at least you could use one who understands that you don’t meet an army in the field when you can defeat them in the woods.’ The comte had spent the afternoon whining about Douglas’s tactics, as if how the war was fought was more important than whether it was won or lost.

      The old man’s grin split his face. ‘He’s a pompous, puffed-up idiot, the Frenchman. You said it sure.’ He studied Gavin’s face. ‘I’ll think on what you said.’

      ‘Dangerous men don’t need to think long.’

      ‘What’s the hurry?’

      He couldn’t escape war here. But maybe he could hide from it long enough to stitch up the worst of his wounds. The ones people couldn’t see. ‘I’ve been away ten years. It’s time I reclaimed my Scots side.’ When he had left this land, he had lost a piece of himself. Now, he hoped it was still here where he could find it.

      ‘Can you live up to it?’

      ‘Do I have to kill someone to prove it?’

      The man stared at Gavin a long time without a word.

      ‘Not yet,’ the old man said, finally. The determination in his eyes matched his daughter’s. Gavin hoped the old man would come to a better conclusion than she had. ‘But there’s six red cattle on the other side of the hill on Robson land that used to live in the pen leaning up against our wall. If they were to come home, you and I might have more to talk about. A lot more.’

      And their shared smile was as strong as a handshake.

      As the men in the corner of the Hall rolled their dice, Clare rearranged her patterns one more time, trying to fit a new hood, jesses, and bewits for Wee One’s bells on her last piece of Flanders leather. When she heard her father’s step, she abandoned the effort. ‘Did you send him away?’

      He looked at her, something like a smile tugging at the wrinkled corners of his mouth. ‘No.’

      ‘Why not?’ She fought her feeling of relief.

      ‘I don’t have to explain my decisions to you, me girl.’ He shook his head when the gamblers waved him over. ‘Pour me another brogat and come upstairs. There are things I need to tell you.’

      He said it in his most stubborn tone, so she did as he said, and followed him to the next floor.

      In his chamber, she perched on the small stool, leaving the chair for her father. He settled in with a comfort able sigh.

      ‘What did you want to talk about, Da?’ she asked the question, even though she knew what he would say.

      ‘How old are you, daughter?’

      ‘Can’t you even remember that about me?’

      ‘Are you tryin’ to avoid the question?’

      ‘You know I’m eighteen.’ Seven more years and she would have lived longer than her mother.

      ‘Your mother was sixteen when I married her. It’s time you married, daughter.’

      ‘I know, Da.’ Did he think she did not? She longed for Alain, children and their home in France a dozen times a day.

      ‘Without your mother …’ He sighed and took a sip. ‘I’m no good with these things. After you came back, I was content just to have you home.’ He put his gnarled hand on hers.

      She did not return his squeeze. When her mother had died, he had sent her away to be fostered in France with a family of Lord Douglas’s choosing. While she was gone, he had taken Murine to his bed and Euphemia to his knee. After, it seemed, he had taken no more interest in her until she had been trained to run his house and bear his grandchildren. By then, both he