The Border Hostage Read Free

enveloped in a brilliant white light and he experienced a feeling of joy.
So this is Death, then
, he thought with wonder, and then there was nothing.
    When the five Borderers finally released their victim, his body rose to the surface. Another body bobbed up beside him, and the two floaters were taken by the current. The murderers splashed after them and hauled them up onto the riverbank. The leader removed the thong from Heath Kennedy's bound wrists, then turned him face up with his boot. He shook his head in disbelief, “Christ, they said Black Ram Douglas was tougher than boiled owl an' they were bloody well right.” He cast a baleful glanceover the other drowned body and cursed, “Another firkin' corpse tae carry home.”
    Raven Carleton entered the stables silently in the predawn darkness, yet the hunting birds in the mews above immediately sensed her presence and set up their raucous welcome.
    “Peste,” she muttered, trying her best to ignore them as she stroked the nose of her pony, Sully, and led him from the stable without a saddle. She felt a stab of guilt as she pictured the hawks moving restlessly on their perches, some wearing their little hoods. Raven, however, resolutely cast away the guilt, knowing she must ride away her feelings of resentment that had banished sleep, before she attended her birds. Training raptors required patience, coupled with an inner calm, and Raven hoped that a ride along the shore at sunrise would restore her tranquility.
    Because Raven preferred the freedom of comfortable clothes for riding, she wore a divided skirt, topped by a loose shirt that belonged to her brother. The moment she mounted her sturdy Border pony he began to run. Sully needed little guidance to the River Eden, which emptied into Solway Firth. Raven never tired of riding along the shore of the Solway, for it divided England from Scotland and offered magnificent open vistas of the sea and the purple mountains beyond. When the constraints of Rockcliffe Manor and the strictures of her parents closed in to make her feel trapped, Raven's need for freedom was almost always restored by a gallop along the seacoast.
    It had been the usual bone of contention that precipitated the argument between Raven and her mother. Breeding hunting birds, in Katherine Carleton's opinion, was downright unladylike. “In fact, it borders on scandalous!” she had told Raven last night.
    “Then what would you like me to breed?” Raven challenged.
    “That is precisely the problem—a lady should not be involved in
breeding
anything whatsoever.”
    “Then how did you manage to have three children, Mother?” Raven asked with wide-eyed innocence.
    “That is enough, young lady. Lancelot! Can you not hear the defiance and mockery in your daughter's voice? Mark my words, she will end up a spinster if she persists in her odd behavior.”
    “But my brother Heron breeds hunting dogs, and you never find fault with him,” Raven pointed out.
    “We have been over this a thousand times, Raven. If you had been born a male, you could breed whatever you wished.”
    A passel of bastards?
Raven thought wickedly. “My gender should have nothing to do with it. If I did it badly, I could understand your objection, but I do it well.”
    “In theory, she is right, Katherine,” Lance Carleton remarked.
    “Lancelot, how can you continually undermine me? Raven should not be spending her days in Rockcliffe Marsh, flying those wretched hawks; she should be polishing her social skills and learning how to run a household. Why, she is like some wild creature!”
    Sir Lance Carleton winked at his daughter. “In theory, she is right, Raven. Your mother wants me to clip your wings. When you go to Carlisle and visit the Dacres, you will have to
pretend
to be a lady, at least until we get you safely betrothed.”
    “Christopher Dacre likes me the way I am!” Raven declared.
    I'll just bet he does
, thought Carleton as he observed his beautiful, black-haired