And in a battle, he had no doubt, they would have fought with one mind, finishing each other’s thrusts without needing to confer.
And now, Rob sat alone.
Well, that hadn’t sent him to Johnnie’s side, but it explained why he seemed frozen between John and Cate’s tug of war.
A sudden vision stunned him. ‘Does Rob plan to marry?’
A sigh. ‘Marry who?’
‘Cate Gilnock.’ Did every conversation lead to her? He paced abruptly, bumped his head against a hanging pot, then swatted it in irritation. That would explain Rob’s loyalty to her, even beyond that of kin. ‘They seem well matched.’
A slight smile touched Bessie’s lips, as if she were enjoying a joke he did not understand. ‘Too well. There’s no spark there, not the one that a man and woman feel.’
He ignored his relief. Then another thought nagged. ‘Is there someone for you?’ His little sister, grown now. Past time for her to find a husband. ‘Is that how you know about men and women?’
She finished shaping another loaf and lined it up beside the first. ‘I know,’ she said, stopping to face him, ‘because there is no one for me.’
He tried to remember the men who shook his hand yesterday. Fingerless Joe, Odd Jack, the rest. No, none of them would be good enough for her.
He faced Bessie’s future for the first time. What would happen to her? As her older brother, he had protected a shy, delicate, pliable sister. That was not the woman who faced him now. This woman had strength any man would be lucky to have beside him. Strength he had never seen in the women inside Stirling’s walls.
Strength like Cate Gilnock’s.
Unwelcome thought. ‘You could come back to court with me.’
‘Could I now?’ She put her hands on her hips and then presented her plain wool skirt as if to curtsy. ‘And wouldn’t I look so lovely meeting the king?’
‘We could find you something … else.’ What did he know of women’s clothes? How to take them off.
She dropped her skirts and returned to her bread. ‘You’ve a good heart, Johnnie Brunson. Don’t ever think you don’t.’
No. She was right. Court would welcome her no more than his family had welcomed him. The women in Stirling, perfumed and curled and expecting to be waited upon, would barely nod to her. Even the wench carrying the king’s bastard would mock Bessie Brunson, he feared.
‘And so does your brother,’ she said, bringing the talk back to a subject he’d hoped to avoid. ‘If you would give him a chance to show it.’
‘More than he’s given me.’ There seemed no truce between what he wanted and what Rob did.
But he had to find one—a truce with Cate and then with Rob—or he might never see Stirling again.
‘Why don’t you stay with us?’ she said, turning to face him. ‘Come home, Johnnie.’
‘My place is with the king.’ This was not his life. Hadn’t been for years.
‘He wants you to stay, you know.’
He searched her eyes, then shook his head. Only a sister’s foolish hopes. ‘No, he doesn’t.’
He started pacing, ducking the pots this time. He had not come home. And he had not come to the kitchen to talk to Bessie about Black Rob Brunson.
‘Cate says she wants to avenge her father. Is that all?’
‘Storwicks are no friends of ours,’ she said, sounding like the Borderer she was.
‘I mean to Cate. Is there something more?’
Bessie didn’t look up from the dough. ‘Why do you ask?’
Because of the fear she carries with her. Fear she seemed to be able to hide from the rest of them. Was it his to reveal? ‘Her eyes are … haunted.’
‘I thought you said she was bloodthirsty.’
‘Aye. That, as well.’ A contradiction. ‘That’s why I wonder—’
‘Don’t be asking me these questions,’ she said, and he saw a reflection of his mother’s expressions in her raised eyebrows. ‘Cate’s the one you must be asking.’
He sighed. He’d rather confront his surly brother than brave Cate’s knee again.
As he climbed the tower stairs, he heard raised voices in the hall.
‘Now! A raid in his honour. He would want it.’ One of the men. He could not tell which.
John hurried his steps. So soon, they returned to reiving. He heard a murmur, his brother’s steady voice, though he could not make out the words. Would Rob say yes or no?
‘There’s enough of us,’ someone else said. ‘We could go.’
‘The moon’s half-full.’ He could hear Rob clearly now. ‘The night still short.’
‘And our horses swift.’ Cate’s voice. ‘We could get to their tower and back before the dawn. And if Scarred Willie is there—’
As John reached the top of the stairs and entered the hall, he saw Rob surrounded. His brother’s face of strength had few differences from his face of grief, but John could see them. If Rob carried his grief into battle, the enemy would have an advantage.
‘Red Geordie is barely in the ground,’ John called out. ‘Can you not give him a moment’s peace?’
Rob, Cate and half a dozen of his men turned to look at him. Even the dog tilted his head, quizzically.
Cate scowled. ‘It was not peace your father wanted.’
Rob’s face of strength returned. John waited for a scathing rebuke, for he was arguing for the very respect for the dead he’d ignored yesterday, when Rob wanted the same.
‘Johnnie’s right. Return to your homes.’ He looked at John with an expression that might have been warning or thanks. ‘The time for riding will come soon enough.’
Cate’s look said she blamed John, but the men had cattle still in the hills and homes to return to. One by one, they took leave, giving a hand to both brothers, the grip of John’s hand less hearty this time.
Cate’s men, seeing her look, did not shake at all.
No matter. Rob had resisted a call for revenge. Perhaps he was ready to listen to reason instead of vengeance.
‘I would speak to you, Rob,’ he said, when only the three of them remained.
Rob nodded towards the table, and Cate started to follow him.
‘Alone,’ John said.
She looked to Rob. He nodded, a signal for her to leave them.
She glared at John before she did. The woman who had trembled in his arms less than an hour ago had disappeared. Only the defiant warrioress remained.
He searched her narrowed eyes, wondering which Cate was the real one.
She leaned closer. ‘Are you walking straight again, Johnnie Blunkit?’ Her growled whisper was soft, meant only to reach his ears.
Angry heat rushed to his cheeks as she passed him on her way to the stairs.
Johnnie Blunkit. The blue-eyed baby.
Words he had tried to forget ever since he’d left home. Not ones he wanted to remember as he faced his brother.
Although there were only three years between them, Rob, older, had been the favoured one. Tall, strong, taciturn, with their mother’s dark, straight hair and the Brunson brown eyes, he had wielded weapons, but never words.