The Spitfire Read online

  “And for how long will I be yer leman, my lord? Will our union last forever?”

  He grinned back at her. “You are a practical woman, Eufemia,” he said. “You will be my mistress as long as it pleases me you be.”

  “And afterward, Jasper?”

  “If you still retain your beauty,” he said bluntly, “I expect you can find another protector.”

  She pulled from his embrace, and raising clenched fists, began to beat him about the head and chest, all the while shrieking her outrage. “Yer a bastard, Jasper Keane! An English bastard! Am I some peasant wench that ye would dare to offer me such a life? I am a woman of a reputable family, a member of the lower nobility! I am meant to be wedded, not just bedded! I will nae go wi’ ye! Ye canna make me!” She slapped him as hard as she could.

  Laughing, he caught her hand and placed a burning kiss upon the palm. “I do not doubt your family’s repute, my pet, nor even your nobility, but you are a whore nonetheless, Eufemia. Some women are born to it, and you are one of them.”

  They continued to argue back and forth, and suspecting that they would be at it for a while longer, Robert Hamilton hurried back to his bedchamber. Undoing the bolt, he slipped into the upper hall and, moving swiftly, checked all the rooms to be certain that they were empty of their inhabitants. He was relieved to find that he, Eufemia, and Sir Jasper were undoubtedly the only ones left in the house. The servants and his younger siblings were safely away. Returning to his hiding place in the wall, he discovered that his sister’s anger had not abated even in the slightest.

  “For God’s sake, Eufemia,” he heard Sir Jasper say, “you are the only woman for whom I’ve ever felt such passion! Is that not enough for you?”

  “Passion?” Eufemia Hamilton laughed almost hysterically. “Ye know nothing of passion, Jasper. Yer naught but a rutting boar compared to the Earl of Dunmor!” She laughed again at the look of surprise upon Sir Jasper Keane’s face. “Aye,” she said, confirming his suspicions. “He’s already bedded me, and his stallion’s rod makes yer own tool look like the puny worm it is!” she lied boldly, attempting to rouse his jealousy.

  The Englishman’s visage darkened and, his mouth drawing back into a snarl of rage that overflowed with his rising anger, he slapped Eufemia so hard that her teeth rattled. “You claim you are meant to be a wife, you border bitch, but I tell you that you have the cold, black heart of a born whore!” he shouted.

  “Yer a jealous fool, Jasper Keane,” Eufemia mocked him. “Ye hae nae ever really pleased me. Ye hae the manhood of a feeble bairn, and so I’ll tell the whole world if ye steal me away and dinna make me yer wife!”

  “If I displease you so, my pet, why would you want to wed me instead of your fine earl?” he demanded cleverly.

  “Because I love ye, God help me!” Eufemia admitted.

  “Then you will come away with me this night!” he said, his anger softened by her declaration, and the belief that he had the upper hand over her. If she continued to resist him, she would regret it.

  “Nay, I will not,” she replied stubbornly.

  “Aye, you will, my pet,” he replied firmly, and if Eufemia Hamilton did not see the determination in her lover’s eyes, her brother in his hiding place did. “You are mine, Eufemia, and I will allow no one, even King Jamie’s bastard brother of Dunmor to have what is mine until I am finished with it.” His eyes narrowed dangerously, and with a sudden viciousness, he knocked her to the floor, and falling upon her, pushed her skirts up to her waist with one hand while loosing his cock from his breeches with the other. “’Tis past time, my pet, that you re-acquainted yourself with my puny worm!”

  Eufemia screeched like a scalded cat with the unexpectedness of his attack. She pummeled him with her knotted fists even as he thrust into her, but then her protests began to fade, her passions blossoming as the Englishman rode her. She began to moan with her own pleasure in the union, her fingers tearing open his shirt, her sharp nails raking down his back. He pleasured her thrice as he indulged his own lusts, which did not seem to be easily sated.

  Robert Hamilton saw fear begin to enter his sister’s countenance, and silently he opened the hidden door to step into the library. She saw him, and her frantic eyes warned him away. The young laird hesitated. This was his sister for all her wickedness. The Englishman’s buttocks tightened and contracted with his efforts, and he began to roar loudly as he approached his own peak. Eufemia thrust her own hips up firmly to meet his violent downward motions.

  “Save the bairns!” she cried out but a single time, and waved him away, praying her lover lost in his lusts would not comprehend her words.

  Robert Hamilton hesitated, once again torn with his love for his elder sister despite everything.

  “Quickly! Quickly!” she urged him.

  “Not yet, my border bitch,” Sir Jasper Keane growled, thinking that she spoke to him. “‘Tis the last time I intend fucking you, and by God, I’ll have my fill of you!” Redoubling his efforts, he began to shout once again, pumping her hard as he approached his crisis.

  Hearing the Englishman’s words, Robert Hamilton withdrew as silently as he had entered. It would appear that SirJasper had finally accepted Eufemia’s decision, and when he had finished taking his pleasure of her, would withdraw with his men, leaving them in peace. Still, it would be better to remain hidden until the English had gone. He knew instinctively where his younger siblings would be concealed. The land about the house offered little cover to an escaping party of people, but there was a large, thick bramble of a hedge that encircled the building. They would be secluded in the ditch that paralleled that hedge, and sure enough, there he found them.

  Old Una was clutching little Geordie to her shriveled bosom in an effort to keep him from crying and betraying their presence. Meg and Mary clung to each other for solace, their eyes wide with their fright.

  “It will be all right, bairns,” he told them as he joined them, crouching low in the hidey-hole. “The English will soon be gone, but ye must remain as quiet as wee mousies hiding from the cat.”

  “Will they kill us if they find us, Robbie?” little Mary quavered.

  “Aye,” he said honestly. It was best to be direct in a situation like this. Their very lives depended upon it.

  At the sound of Eufemia’s voice, he turned his gaze back to the front of the house, which he could see quite clearly from his vantage point just at one of its corners. Sir Jasper Keane was half dragging her from the house while she struggled and cursed him with all the pent-up violence in her soul. As they passed over the threshold, the laird saw flames leaping behind the two figures. He groaned softly with despair. The damned bastard had fired Culcairn House!

  “Jasper! Jasper! Don’t do this to me!” Eufemia was desperately endeavoring to escape her lover’s grasp.

  The Englishman laughed, and his hand wrapped itself even more tightly in her dark red hair, forcing her face to his. He kissed her hard, and then said loudly, “I told you, Eufemia, that you would be mine only as long as you pleased me. You no longer please me, my border bitch.”

  “Then let me go,” she pleaded, and Robert Hamilton could see the terror in his sister’s face. Her dark blue eyes were almost rolling in her head like some panicked animal.

  “Let you go? To the Earl of Dunmor? Nay! If you will not be mine, then by God, you will not be his either! I don’t want you as my whore any longer, Eufemia, but it is my right to decide your fate.” He yanked her about so that she faced his troop of men, and using his other hand, he tore her clothes from her, rendering her naked.

  “Dinna look,” Robert Hamilton commanded his younger sisters, knowing what was about to transpire, and feeling a deep dread in the pit of his stomach.

  “Tis poor pickings we’ll have this night, my lads,” Sir Jasper Keane told his followers, “but you may want this pretty piece of goods for your amusement. She’s hot and juicy, and I’ve already primed her well, so that she’s ready for the taking. Have her!” And he brutally s
hoved Eufemia forward.

  She stumbled, but somehow managed to keep her balance. The ring of English borderers about her closed even as she looked wildly about for a chance to elude them. Belatedly her hands moved to cover her bosom and the triangle between her thighs. The flames from the burning house threw dappled shadows over her fair, white body, and but for the crackle of the fire, the night was suddenly, for a brief moment, deathly silent. Then a large borderer moved forward from the circle of men, loosening his engorged male organ free of his breeches as he came toward her. Eufemia shrieked and whirled wildly about, seeking an avenue of escape, but there was none.

  “Come on, lassie,” the man crooned, moving stealthily onward. “Johnny will fuck you nicely.” He reached out his hand to her. Eufemia screamed again and made to bolt, but two other men jumped forward, wrestling her to the ground even as the one who called himself Johnny stepped to stand over Eufemia and then smilingly fell to his knees to straddle her.

  Robert Hamilton shuddered with the violence of the memory. Now haunted and hollow-eyed he looked up at the Earl of Dunmor. “In a moment’s time all discipline was gone, and they violently savaged her. Before my very eyes, and those of my sisters, they ravished her again, and again, and again. Like Meg, I shall hear Eufemia’s screams until my dying day! I shall never forgive myself, my lord! I might have saved her earlier, but I did not. I crouched helplessly in a ditch while my elder sister was murdered before me. I could not help her. It was all I could do to soothe Meg and Mary, and to keep little Geordie from crying out, for he was terribly frightened.

  “I was one. The English were many. The girls and old Una clung to me, begging me not to leave them. What was I to do? I could not sacrifice my younger sisters and brother to the brutality of those devils! I could not! And when they had finished with Eufemia, they threw her naked body into the flames of our home. She was long dead by then, I am certain, for she had made no sound for several minutes before.

  “Then the English took my horses and my cattle, and drove them off across the border. Despite my love for Eufemia—and I did love her for all her wild ways, my lord—none of this would have happened had my sister not been the whore that she was. Now ye know the truth of this matter. The whole truth!” the young laird concluded defiantly, looking up at the earl.

  A deep silence prevailed for a long minute between the older and the younger man. Then Tavis Stewart put a comforting hand upon the laird’s shoulder. “‘Tis done then,” he said quietly. “Yer family and servants will come back wi’ me to Dunmor Castle, and there ye will stay until yer home can be rebuilt.” His voice was devoid of emotion. “Whatever else she was, Eufemia Hamilton was to have been my wife. I’ll nae let her family suffer. The English, in murdering yer sister, have besmirched the honor of the Stewarts of Dunmor, as well as the Hamiltons of Culcairn. As the Earl of Dunmor it is my right to wreak my vengeance upon this little English lordling. We’ll hae our revenge, laddie, that I promise ye!”

  “What will we do, my lord?” Robert Hamilton asked.

  “Och, Rob, we must first find where this English fox has his den, and then we’ll burn it to the ground, even as he burned yer home. We’ll take back yer horses and cattle, and of course we’ll hae his horses and cattle as well in forfeit. That done, I expect the Englishman will think us finished wi’ him, but we will nae be, Rob. We will wait, and we will watch. Sir Jasper bragged to yer sister that King Richard would make him a fine match.”

  “Perhaps ‘twas all it was,” the laird said, “idle boasting and nothing more. Why would the English king be bothered with a petty vassal? I dinna know a great deal about the man other than what Eufemia told me. I dinna even know if he has a house, but my sister never spoke of any important connections that this man might have.”

  “Patience, lad,” the earl counseled. “In time we will learn everything we need to learn about Sir Jasper Keane. If indeed King Richard makes an advantageous match for this man, we will know it, and it may be we will make this unknown heiress a widow before she is a bride. The English will pay a heavy forfeit for this night’s work at Culcairn.”

  “But how will we find Sir Jasper’s home?” the laird persisted.

  “Think, Rob! The man canna keep his cock to himself, and has lasses, ye’ve said, on both sides of the border. God only knows we Scots hae our share of randy borderers, but last night this Englishman murdered a Scotswoman of good family. He did it deliberately, cruelly, and wi’ malice. We will find him, lad, for someone is certain to know the location of his lair, and they will talk. Either from their own outrage over this crime or from their own greed. I intend offering a reward for information that can lead us to the treacherous bastard. Gold is often a more powerful weapon than even the sword.”

  The young laird thought a moment and then nodded his agreement at the earl’s words. An impatient tug upon his sleeve caught his sudden attention, and he looked down into the wizened features of a tiny woman who glowered balefully up at him.”What is it, Una?”

  “What is it?” the old woman repeated irritably. “I’ll tell ye what it is, Master Robert. Mistress Meg is near collapse, and Mistress Mary and wee Geordie chilled to the bone and hungry. I’ve already lost one of my precious bairns.” Tears ran down her cheeks, though her voice remained strong. “Am I to lose another while ye two plot a vengeance that could just as easily be plotted before a warm fire and a plate of hot food?”

  The barest hint of a smile touched the corners of Tavis Stewart’s stern mouth as Una loudly scolded the laird. She was a tiny bit of a wiry woman, but it was pointedly obvious she feared little. “Can yer bairns sit a horse, old woman?” he demanded of her.

  “Aye,” she answered him. “I’ll ride pillion wi’ Mistress Mary. Mistress Meg can ride wi’ Master Robert, but someone will have to take our Geordie. I would wish for a cart if I could, for I dinna like the four-legged beasties myself. And where are we to go, I should like to know?”

  “Ye’ll be coming to Dunmor, good dame, and I’ll take yer littlest bairn wi’ me. My mother, Lady Fleming, will advise me in the matter of these little ones, and ye’ll stay at Dunmor until Culcairn House is rebuilt,” the earl told her.

  Dame Una nodded. “‘Tis right ye gie us shelter,” she said matter-of-factly. Then she moved off to where her charges waited, seated upon large stones that had once been a part of their home.

  “She was one of our great-grandsire’s bastards,” the laird explained. “Her mam nursed his legitimate bairns.”

  “I understand,” the earl replied. “She is kin, and that is a good thing, for kin are usually loyal.”

  The laird flushed as if the words had been meant as a rebuke. “I did nae know what to do about Eufemia,” he explained helplessly, as if the explanation were required of him. “She was my elder by three years. After our mother died birthing Geordie, our father gave in to her every whim. She was his eldest and always his favorite, though he never said it. Then father was killed last year, and I could nae more control her than he could. She had a way wi’ her, my lord,” Robert Hamilton finished simply.

  “Eufemia cast no spell over me, Rob, though I should have probably beaten her if she had been my sister and behaved so. I hardly knew her, though I did hope in time we would come to like and respect one another. Ye know why I asked for her. It is time for me to wed, as my mother is ever preaching at me. I like the idea of having kin whose lands abut mine. Then, too, Eufemia was a pretty creature, and a man likes a pretty woman in his bed, for it makes his bedsport pleasant.”

  “Aye,” the laird agreed cheerfully, “and ‘tis nice when they smell good too. Eufemia always smelt like wild roses.” Then remembering himself, Robert Hamilton said, “I do thank ye for coming to our aid, my lord, and for the shelter ye offer my family and servants.” The earl’s reasons for marriage did not surprise Robert Hamilton, for they were sound and practical reasons. Love was generally something that came later in a marriage, if it came at all. Love, more often than not, had little to do with a goo
d match. He was flattered that the Earl of Dunmor had asked for his elder sister’s hand in marriage, for indeed, as King James’ half brother, Tavis Stewart might have sought far higher. Until this possibility of an alliance between their families had arisen, he had not known the earl, for Dunmor was often at court in his brother’s service. His reputation, however, was that of a fair, though hard man.

  “There’s serious rain threatening, Rob,” the Earl said, breaking into his thoughts. “Spring is early this year. Yer sisters and little brother dinna look to me as if they’ll last much longer. We hae best be going.”

  The laird cast a worried glance at his younger siblings.”Aye,” he said, and suddenly he felt exhausted again.

  The earl saw the look upon the young man’s face, and he said, “The sooner we get to Dunmor, laddie, the sooner we may begin to plan a fine revenge upon Sir Jasper Keane and his ilk. Neither my honor nor yers will be satisfied until the Englishman has paid for Eufemia’s life wi’ his own, but first we’ll hae a bit of fun wi’ him.” He waved his hand and the horses were brought. Mounting his stallion, he took little George Hamilton from old Una and placed the sniveling child on the saddle before him. “Dinna greet, Geordie,” he warned the boy sternly, “else ye frighten the horses. Yer a Hamilton, and Hamiltons are nae afeared of anything save God himself, eh?”

  The little lad turned large blue eyes upon the earl and nodded solemnly at the fierce-browed man who held him and whose words were strangely comforting. Then he looked about him for a brief moment and felt proud. No one else had so fine a horse as this one. Old Una and his sister Mary were pillion upon a small gelding, and Rob was forced to ride wi’ Meg. “I’ll nae greet,” he lisped up at the earl.

  “Good lad!” came the reply as their party began to move off.