Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy 2] by Border Wedding Page A

not need to cough,” she said. “He suffers only from impatience.”
    “I’d happily put him out of his misery.”
    “I don’t doubt it, sir, but just now, perhaps you might be so kind as to shift your weight so that I may breathe more easily.”
    He obliged her but felt so limp and sated that he wanted only to sleep.
    “We might also think about getting up,” she said a moment later. “I’m all sticky, and I’d like to clean myself. Also, if we are going to reach Rankilburn . . .”
    He sighed when she paused. “I hope you are not going to be one of those wives always threaping at a man to do this and do that,” he said.
    “No, sir, it shall be as you please. If you prefer to stay here another night . . .”
    Her ready submission irritated him, and for no reason that he could fathom. But he could hardly say so without sounding daft, so he exerted himself to get up.
    “My mother put some washcloths yonder on the stand,” she said. “And there is water in the ewer, although I doubt it can still be warm.”
    “Shall I fetch you a cloth?” he asked, uncertain what the rules were for this part of the business. “Do you need assistance?”
    “No, thank you,” she said. “If you will tend to your own needs and then grant me some privacy to attend to mine, I shall be most grateful.”
    “Aye, sure,” he said, relieved. He took care of himself swiftly and competently, and when he was dressed, he went to the door and jerked it open.
    Murray stood facing him expectantly. “Are ye done?” he asked cheerfully.
    “Aye, we are, no thanks to you,” Wat said grimly.
    “Well, then, I’ll just be going inside now to—”
    “No, sir, you will not,” Wat said, gripping him by a shoulder and pushing him toward the stairway. “The evidence is there for you to see, but you will have the goodness now to allow my wife the privacy to look after herself. Indeed, if you would be of real use, send a maidservant up to help her dress. I want to be away from this place as soon as I can.”
    Murray glowered at him for a long, blessedly silent moment. But then, with a sharp nod, he headed down the winding stairs.
    Satisfied, Wat glanced at the closed door to the bedchamber.
    Everything had gone well enough in the end, he decided, so perhaps this unintended bride of his would not trouble him overmuch after all.
    His father-in-law reinforced that belief by being so pleased with himself and the success of the forced marriage that he returned Wat’s two sleuthhounds, declaring them to be his wedding present to the bride and groom.
    Thus reassured, Wat spent much of the long journey to Scott’s Hall imagining conversational gambits that might persuade Buccleuch that this marriage could prove useful to them.
    His bride spoke little, but she sat her horse well and made no complaint. Her sister, too, was well behaved, and both seemed to take interest in the passing countryside. They followed a track through Wauchope Forest, skirting the fells, then passed through Liddesdale north of Hermitage Castle and into Ewesdale.
    The weather was fine and springlike with the sun shining so brightly that entering the deep shade of Ettrick Forest came as a relief. They still had an hour more to ride, and by the time they reached the Hall, the Forest was growing dusky.
    Sym Elliot had chosen to walk or run with the dogs more than he rode, and Wat did not blame him. He doubted the lad found sitting a saddle at all comfortable.
    The reality of his own situation evaded his notice right up to the moment that he and his lady and the rest of their party rode through the gates of the Hall and into the graveled courtyard.
    “What a lot of horses your father keeps in his yard,” Margaret said then.
    There certainly were a lot of them, too many. One was a splendid bay with a lightning-shaped blaze on its face. Wat recognized it instantly, for the beast was as well known in the Borders as its master was.
    The Earl of Douglas had come to Scott’s