The Heather Moon Read Free Page A

collapsed at her feet. Large, blond, bearded, and considerably older than the girl, he seemed barely conscious, blood seeping from a wound on his brow. She stood over him, William realized, like a fierce guardian.
    William advanced steadily, his palm held out. "Be calm, lass, we only want to talk to you."
    She shuffled backward, keeping her balance even with bound ankles. Long tendrils of dark, curling hair spilled over her eyes. She shook the silken veil back, glaring.
    "Take care, man. If you go closer, she will attack," Jasper Musgrave, his host and her captor, warned behind him. "I know her. A savage—half Border Scot, half gypsy. A wild girl, that one. 'Tis said no man will wed her, no matter how her Scottish father bribes and begs them."
    William noted the understanding, and a flash of hurt, in her eyes. "She's no savage," he murmured over his shoulder. "She defends herself and her companion. She thinks we mean harm."
    Musgrave laughed harshly, shifting his great bulk a step or two closer. "And so we do! She and her father, and the rest of their comrades, took four of my horses."
    "The man is her father?" William frowned. He had first seen the prisoners only moments ago, after his host had led him down to the dungeon. The hour was past midnight, but he and Jasper Musgrave had sat late by the fire, drinking Spanish sherry and negotiating a complex matter of couched bribery and cautious acceptance. But the mellow flavor of good sherry had not disguised the sour taste of the discussion.
    Jasper Musgrave's men had come into the great hall to inform their lord that they had captured two Scottish reivers who had stolen some horses. The rest of the thieves had fled, but they had imprisoned the two in the dungeon. Musgrave had asked William, as his Scottish guest and a member of a reiving surname himself, to witness their interrogation.
    "Aye, they are father and daughter," Musgrave said now. "Border scum from the Scottish side. They and their kin have plagued me for years. My land lies just south of his land, and but six miles separate our towers. I might see them hanged for this, now that I have them in my keeping at last." Musgrave gestured toward the man on the floor. "'Tis our good fortune that he took a sore hurt. We would have had a struggle indeed, had Archie Armstrong kept hearty this night."
    "Armstrong!" William glanced at him. "Of what place?"
    "Merton Rigg," Musgrave said. "Half Merton, some call it, because the tower sits directly on the—"
    "Directly on the Border line, in the area called the Debatable Land," William supplied, remembering. "Merton sits half in Scotland and half in England, since the house was built before the current border was shifted."
    "Aye," Musgrave muttered. "And the English part of that land is mine. The case has been in the Session courts since our fathers' time. No judge will settle the boundaries of our portions, since that would entail a change in the national borders." He looked closely at William. "You know Armstrong of Merton Rigg?"
    "My father knew him long ago. They rode together."
    "Your father was a notorious scoundrel. You had the favor of your Scottish King James once, but he's dead now, and a mere infant girl the heiress of his kingdom. You do not have your king's favor any longer, William Scott. You're naught but a rogue yourself now." He smiled and folded his hands over his belly. "And just the sort of rogue we need—a canny Scot who still has ties to the crown, and yet has sense enough to join our cause."
    "Aye, I've sense enough," William muttered bitterly. He saw that the girl listened, her eyes keen, her breath heaving beneath the old frayed leather doublet. He glanced down at her father, a brawny heap on the earthen floor, blood smeared over the man's face and blond head.
    Despite the wound, and the whitening of the man's once-reddish whiskers, William recognized those strong, handsome features. Archie had been a close comrade of his father. William remembered the