The Virgin's War (Tudor Legacy #3)(67)
Maisie stepped back hastily and let him enter. He shut the door on the two of them and, clearly grasping her surprise, led her to a seat. He sat across from her, his hand resting lightly in his lap as he leaned forward and studied her. “Welcome to the Courtenay family,” he said, kindly enough.
“Thank you, my lord.”
His faint smile was so like his son’s it tugged at her heart. “I have never warmed to titles. Please, call me Dominic.” He hesitated, then added, “Perhaps, someday, Father?”
“That is very generous. I know how we must have pained you. I swear, it was not done with the intention of causing pain. It seemed—”
“Necessary. I understand that. Better than you know. I did not come here for apologies. My wife is scolding Stephen—if there is any blame here, we consider it to be entirely his—but we are both very glad he has chosen so well.”
“That is kind of you.” She had to forcibly stop herself from adding “my lord” to every phrase. “I can hardly be what you had in mind for your son.”
“What I have always had in mind was a woman he loved.”
How was she supposed to respond to that? Surely Stephen didn’t want her telling his father that their marriage was primarily a matter of convenience. Why was she so damned uncomfortable? She could coolly manage any number of businessmen and merchants and even mercenaries…but this man was entirely different. He looked at her as though he could see right to the heart of the secrets she was keeping from his son.
“Well,” Dominic said, with a gentleness she had not anticipated, “no doubt Stephen is beside himself wondering what I’m saying to you. Why don’t we go put him out of his misery? My wife has arranged for a private meal, just the four of us.”
And that was hardly likely to ease her nerves.
14 March 1586
Carlisle Castle
I expected to be quite sharp with Stephen in our first conversation, but he disarmed me almost instantly with the light in his eyes. Oh, he apologized well enough. And I am sure he meant it. But the happiness is too deeply rooted to override even his guilt.
Mariota Sinclair is quite an enchanting daughter-in-law. I used to worry about the sorts of women who would wish to marry the sons of a duke. I do not think I would have much patience for vapidity or coquetry. I should have trusted my sons. Stephen always appreciated beauty, and a casual observer might suppose Maisie to be an exception to that rule. I am not a casual observer, nor is Dominic. I could tell at once how taken my husband was with her.
And Stephen? I have never seen my son both so certain and so vulnerable at the same time. After dinner, when we had bid them good-night, I asked Dominic, “Is it only me?”
He shook his head. “You could cut the tension between them with a dagger.” Then he laid his hand on the curve of my neck and kissed me lingeringly. “A tension that we both remember well.”
Yes, indeed. The tension of unfulfilled desire. The question is—why? They are married. And clearly they are each of them desperately in love with the other. So why are they also so clearly keeping out of each other’s way? It can only be that they do not know how the other feels. As a mother—perhaps simply as a woman—the temptation to force the issue is extreme. Which my husband recognized at once.
“Leave them be,” he warned me, at some point between kisses and the shedding of clothes. “They will come to it themselves, and it will be all the sweeter.”
All these years of marriage—and still I hate it when Dominic is right!
In mid-March, Kit was back in the West March helping to police a hot trod. Having had nearly a thousand cattle lifted by a band of Maxwells, the English Grahams sent a hundred armed men into the Annan Valley to trace and reclaim their property in the six days allowed them by border law. Such trods were meant to be reported to—and policed by—the local wardens, though most families managed to forget that step. But this time Lord Scrope had been alerted, and he sent his captain to ride with Kit and enough of the garrison to keep order. The men rode with the Grahams through the many folds of Scottish hills and valleys where reivers had been hiding stolen herds for generations.
As an exercise it had much to recommend it in preparing for war. If the Spanish tried to take England from the North, their disciplined troops would be at a severe disadvantage against borderers who knew how to fight in highly mobile, smaller groups that could come at them in ambushes through a landscape foreign to the invaders. It also had a great deal to recommend it as a way to relieve stress, and allowed Kit to simply do what he was good at rather than fret about all the things he couldn’t control.
They managed to find both Maxwells and cattle on the fifth day. Though Kit didn’t have major experience on the border, the Captain of Carlisle did. Kit watched Captain Bell, listened to his questioning of both Maxwells and Grahams, and knew that something was not right. He instinctively kept his mouth shut and let Bell organize the return across the border. They stayed with the Grahams until the family was safely back into Cumberland, then led the garrison back to the castle.
When he and Captain Bell were alone, Kit asked abruptly, “What is it?”
The man was experienced enough not to waste time in pleasantries or false protestations of humility. “I doubt it was Maxwells alone who planned this raid.”
“Why?”