The Border Trilogy Read Online Free Page A

bumped hard against the wall. He paused then, his hand still held out toward her, and in the light from the fire, she saw his eyes narrow and experienced a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Since she knew she dared not make him angry while he loomed over her like that and since he didn’t seem open to reason, she blurted the first thought that came into her head. “Would you not like something to warm your insides first, sir? There is a flagon of my uncle’s excellent wine on that table next to the door.”
    “But I don’t—” He hesitated, watching her closely for a long moment. Then he smiled and, to her great relief, moved off the bed. “I see,” he said. “You are not quite so experienced as you have led me to believe. Well, that is no bad thing, lassie. Mayhap a taste of the wine will do us both good.”
    Picking up the candlestick again, Douglas turned toward the door, and with the merest rustle of rushes from beneath the feather bed, Mary Kate scrambled out at the far end the moment his back was turned. It was but a few steps from there to the wall by the open window. Snatching up the latchpole without a sound, she flew across the cold floor on silent bare feet, coming up behind him just as he set down the candlestick and reached for the flagon. Without thought for consequence and with a strength she would not have believed possible, she whipped the cumbersome five-foot pole through the air as though it had been no longer or heavier than a riding whip.
    Douglas sensed movement behind him at last, but too late. As he turned, the metal end of the pole caught him solidly on the side of his head, and with a look of blank astonishment, he collapsed like a tower of bairns’ blocks at her feet.
    Mary Kate stared at him for a long moment before the horrible thought that she might have killed him intruded upon her triumph. But once she had ascertained that he still breathed, she was conscious only of vexation that he had fallen across the doorway. Moving him proved to be no easy task, and by the time she had managed to drag him into the empty long gallery, he had begun to grumble and stir in a way that frightened her witless.
    Whisking herself back into her bedchamber, she bolted the door, flew to relatch and bolt the shutters, and then leaped back into bed. Not until she had yanked the covers over her head did she realize how violently she was shivering, and whether that was from cold or from reaction to her own daring, she had not the faintest idea. Moments later, feeling stifled, she lowered the quilt to her chin just as the stout door to the bedchamber shook to a thunderous kick. The measured sound of retreating footsteps followed. Then came blessed silence. Douglas had recovered sufficiently to take himself off to bed.

2
    M ARY KATE AWOKE THE next morning to the extremely welcome news that Sir Adam Douglas and his party had left Critchfield Manor soon after sunrise. She departed for home herself that day, expecting, indeed hoping fervently, never to set eyes upon the handsome borderer again. The thought that she might likewise never again see Kenneth Gillespie did not so much as cross her mind, nor would it have troubled her had it done so.
    In the months that followed, she stayed near Speyside House, although for a time there were still parties and other amusements to be enjoyed. Christmas came and went, followed by January and February with the worst of the heavy winter’s weather. Then, some weeks after the dreadful event itself, news of Queen Mary’s execution reached the highlands, reminding Mary Kate briefly of her last night at Critchfield Manor. The story was enhanced by such lurid details as that Mary had worn a scarlet petticoat, that she had been as beautiful as ever despite the surprising discovery that she had been completely bald beneath her wig, and that she had shown no fear when she knelt at the block. Although such minutiae fascinated her, Mary Kate spoke not one word of the matter