The Raider (A Highland Guard Novel) Read online

  Rosalin felt a sharp stab in her chest but tried not to let her fear show. Cliff’s three-year-old son Andrew had always been frail. Though no one spoke of it, he was not expected to see beyond his childhood.

  Glad that the little girl was no longer close to tears, even if she couldn’t say the same, Rosalin asked, “So why don’t you tell me why you are wearing breeches and a lad’s surcoat?”

  Meg looked down as if she’d forgotten. “John said I’d get in the way.”

  Rosalin didn’t follow. “In the way…?”

  Meg gave her a little frown of impatience, as if she hadn’t been paying proper attention. “Of riding lessons. Father gave John a horse for his saint’s day last week, and today he begins his training with Roger and Simon. It isn’t fair. John is two years younger than I am. I want to train like a knight, too. He can barely pick up the wooden sword Father gave him. How’s he supposed to kill bloody Scots if he can’t lift a sword?” Rosalin coughed again and made a note to tell Cliff to have care of his language around Meg. “He shouldn’t have told Father when I borrowed it. No one likes a tale-teller.”

  Rosalin was having a hard time keeping up, so she just nodded.

  The little girl’s face crumpled. “Roger wouldn’t let me stay, even when you can see my skirts won’t get in the way. I don’t want to sew with Idonia and Mother. Why won’t they let me train with them?”

  Because you’re a girl. But as it didn’t seem the right time to explain the harsh truth of the sexes, Rosalin gathered the sobbing child in her arms and sighed. She understood her pain. She, too, had wanted to be with her brother—probably even more so, since he was all she had. Learning that she couldn’t simply because she was a girl had been a bitter draught to swallow.

  Riding, practicing swordplay, and running around outside had seemed vastly preferable to sitting inside with a needle and lute. Of course, that was much too simplistic a view of their respective roles, but at Meg’s age, she had seen it the same way.

  After a moment, the little girl looked up at her, her long, dark lashes framing big, blue eyes damp with tears. She might look like her pretty, dark-haired mother, but Rosalin saw Cliff’s stubbornness in the firm set of her chin. “Will you talk to him?”

  “Talk to whom?”

  “Father. He’ll listen to you. Everyone says he’s never refused you anything.”

  Rosalin laughed. “I assure you, he’s refused me plenty. I wanted to ride and practice with a sword, too.”

  Margaret’s eyes widened to almost comical proportions. “You did?”

  “Aye. And I thought it just as unfair as you when he told me no.”

  The smile that spread across the little girl’s face was almost blinding. “You did? He did?”

  Rosalin nodded, then paused for a moment to think. “What would you say if I took you on a ride tomorrow and let you practice by holding the reins?”

  It clearly wasn’t what Meg hoped to hear, but after a moment of disappointment, she decided to take what she could get and negotiate for better terms. Perhaps the little girl was like her aunt in that regard.

  “For how long?” Meg asked.

  “As long as you like.”

  “Where can we go?”

  Rosalin paused, considering. She didn’t want to venture far. “Your mother said there was a fair at Norham tomorrow. Would you like to go to that?”

  Meg nodded enthusiastically and a moment later, she was running from the room, eager to lord her upcoming adventure over her siblings.

  Rosalin called her back. “Meg!”

  The little girl turned around questioningly.

  “Wear a gown,” Rosalin said with a smile.

  Meg broke out in a wide grin, nodded, and skipped away.

  A few hours later, Rosalin tracked down her very busy brother to inform him of her plan. She stood outside the door of the solar while he finished with his men.

  As the newly appointed governor of Berwick Castle, Cliff had taken over the royal apartments and was using one of the receiving rooms as a council chamber.

  She was so proud of him. Not only had the king left him in charge of the war, making him Keeper of Scotland, he’d also appointed him governor to one of the most important castles in the Marches. The castles of Berwick in the east, Carlisle in the west, and Roxburgh in the middle formed a key defensive band across the border to prevent the Scots from invading England.

  She bit her lip. At least the castles had done so until last summer. Robert Bruce’s raids into Cumbria and Northumberland had devastated the countryside, striking terror in the hearts of the English, from which they were still clearly recovering. Fear hung in the air, and the names of his fierce raiders were bandied about in terrified whispers, as if saying them aloud would conjure up the devil himself.

  Douglas. Randolph. Boyd.

  A sickly feeling swam over her. Don’t think of it…

  “Two thousand pounds?” she heard Cliff say, clearly furious. “He must be mad. Send the man away. I’ll hear no more of their demands.”

  Rosalin waited until the men shuffled out, and then entered.

  Seeing who it was, Cliff looked up and smiled, lifting some of the weariness from his face. “Ah, Rosie, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

  “Is everything all right?” Clearly, it wasn’t. Her brother was much changed since she’d seen him last. The war had taken its toll. He was still handsome, but he looked older than his two and thirty years. And harder.

  He waved off her concern. “Nothing that can’t be handled.” He motioned for her to sit. “So what is it that you need?”

  She could see him trying not to smile as she explained. By the end, he was shaking his head. “I know you told her she was too young to ride, but really, Cliff, she’s seven years old. I don’t see any good reason why a seven-year-old girl is too young and a five-year-old boy is not.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Cliff studied her over the length of the big wooden table that he used as a desk. “You’ve been here two days, and she’s already found her champion? I wondered how long it would take her to find her kindred soul.”

  Rosalin’s brow furrowed, not understanding. “Kindred soul?”

  “You don’t see it?” He laughed. “For God’s sake, she’s just like you, Rosie-lin, always rushing to someone’s defense, always trying to right every wrong.”

  She frowned, taken aback. “I don’t do that.”

  That only made him laugh harder. “God, it’s good to have you here. I’ve missed you. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to visit you more in London.”

  “You’ve been busy.” It was an understatement. In the past five years, since Robert Bruce had returned from the grave to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of defeat, her brother had barely had a free moment. She’d seen him only twice in the six years since that one fateful trip to Scotland.

  “I wasn’t sure Sir Humphrey would ever give you leave to visit,” he said dryly.

  She hadn’t been sure either. The earl had insisted that it was too dangerous, and…

  Heat rose to her cheeks. “I think he was waiting for me to…ah…decide.”

  Cliff’s expression changed. “And you have decided? This is whom you wish to marry? I will not have Hereford force you. I don’t care if you are the ripe old age of thirty—I’ll not have you tied to a man you don’t care for.”

  “Two and twenty isn’t as ancient as all that.” She laughed. “Nay, you need not worry that Sir Humphrey has forced me into anything. He’s been very patient. Although between you and me, I think both he and the king despaired that I would ever pick anyone.”

  “And you’re sure Sir Henry is the one?”

  Something in his voice caught her attention. She studied his face, but her brother hid his thoughts well. “Do you not like him, Cliff?”

  “The question is not whether I like him, but whether you do, little one.”

  “I do,” she said with a soft smile. “Very much.”

  Though she’d