Free The Border Vixen by Bertrice Small Page A

impatiently.
    “Fourteen mounted men ride through the village and up the hill to the keep, and ye think it will go unnoticed? Get in the tub before the water cools. A hall full of servants, and ye think no one is listening? This is the most exciting thing that has happened at Brae Aisir in years, lassie.”
    Maggie climbed into her tub. Taking up the washing rag, she soaped it and began to scrub herself vigorously. “The contract is to be signed tomorrow, and that’s an end to it,” she said. “I will have obeyed the king’s command. There will be no bedding until he can prove himself worthy of me and earn my respect.”
    Grizel shook her head. “Yer the most stubborn lass in the Borders,” she said.
    “Aye, I am,” Maggie agreed. “But if after proclaiming I should wed no man who could not outrun, outride, and outfight me, it would be Lord Stewart who would suffer if he did not rise to my challenge. There would be some like that boob Ewan Hay who would challenge his right to the Aisir nam Breug and cause a feud between the Kerrs and half a dozen clan families in the region. Let this husband the king has sent me prove to them all that he is worthy to take on this responsibility and me .”
    “He’s a big bonnie man,” Grizel said. “He’ll beat ye and show the others he can be the true master of Brae Aisir after yer grandfather relinquishes his authority.”
    “We’ll see,” Maggie replied to her tiring woman.
    “Have ye decided when ye will issue the challenge?” Grizel asked her mistress.
    “What? Has that information not been spread from the gossips in the hall yet?” Maggie teased her companion.
    Grizel laughed. “Nay,” she said.
    “After the gleaning,” Maggie told her, but she was already considering other ways to avoid doing what was really her duty. She would do this in her own time, not another’s. She finished bathing, and after drying herself thoroughly, she dressed in the garments that Grizel had laid out for her—a plain gown of medium blue velvet brocade with a low square neckline, tight-fitting bodice, and tight sleeves. She wore her clan badge as a pendant on a gold chain. It showed the sun in its splendor with the motto Sero sed servio , meaning Late, but in earnest .
    Grizel brushed out her mistress’s beautiful warm brown hair. Then she set a French hood with a short trailing veil that fell just as far as Maggie’s shoulders. The hood had a carefully pleated linen edge. “Put on yer slippers and yer ready to go down,” Grizel said. “Ye look respectable and like a young lady should now.”
    “He wouldn’t care what I looked like,” Maggie said. “The Stewarts of Torra do their duty by the king, he told me. He’s marrying me because the king said so and for no other reason, Grizel. He was insulting.”
    “It’s yer own fault,” Grizel told her bluntly. “Ye refused to get to know any of the marriageable men in the vicinity. Yer heart is nae engaged, lassie, so what does it matter whom ye wed now? Yer grandfather is sixty-three. He could wait no longer for ye to settle on a husband, especially as ye had no intention of doing so.”
    “But I can take care of the Aisir nam Breug, Grizel,” Maggie said. “I don’t need a husband to do it for me. Why do ye think I learned to ride, to run, to fight, to do accounts? It was so I could take over for Grandsire one day.”
    “ And after ye? ” Grizel said. “Who would care for the Aisir nam Breug after ye? Do ye think ye’ll live forever, lassie? Ye need a husband, and bairns to follow ye.”
    Maggie sighed. “I know,” she admitted. “I had just hoped to have more time.”
    “Yer seventeen, lassie,” Grizel reminded her.
    “Only last April,” Maggie said.
    “Yer mother birthed ye when she was sixteen,” Grizel replied.
    “And died in the process,” Maggie answered.
    “She was a sweet lass, but English, and weak,” Grizel remarked. “Now get ye down to the hall, lassie. Ye know how yer grandsire dislikes