LORD OF DUNKEATHE by Margaret Moore

to Glencleith?"
    "Not a bit of it. Just the opposite. I'll not let a Norman think he can sneer me out of a place. Besides, they only make themselves look foolish and petty with those antics, and I'm sure a man like Sir Nicholas isn't impressed."
    "No, he—" She fell silent, lest she have to explain how she happened to know how Sir Nicholas felt about scornful, derisive Norman nobles.
    "Now cheer up, Riona," Uncle Fergus said with a merry grin as he lowered his fatherly arm and got to his feet. "Don't fuss about the Normans and their haughty ways. Any Scot's worth a hundred of them any day, as Sir Nicholas has to know. I'll wager he's sorry he wasn't born a Scot himself."
    Riona wondered if Sir Nicholas was ever sorry, about anything.
    "Now come along, my beauty. We mustn't be late for mass. Then we'll see what sort of things these Normans eat to break the fast."
    Although she wasn't in any great hurry to be anywhere near the dark, devilishly attractive and seductive lord of Dunkeathe, Riona
    could think of no reason she couldn't go to mass, short of feigning illness, and it was too late for that.
    AT NEARLY the same time , Lord Chesleigh's daughter sat in front of her dressing table, finishing her toilette in no calm and placid frame of mind.
    "I don't know why we bothered to come here," she declared to her father, her voice crisp and shrill.
    Lord Chesleigh frowned as he came farther into the large chamber full of chests and opened boxes, their contents spilling onto the floor. "What's the matter now?"
    "Don't you know? We've been made to look like fools!"
    "When have I ever looked like a fool?"
    "When we arrived!" she cried, smacking her palm down on her dressing table, rattling and shaking the small jars of costly perfumes and unguents and secret little concoctions to add whatever bloom might be missing from her cheeks and lips. "When our host tricked us into thinking he was nothing but a servant. When he didn't immediately reveal himself, and apologize."
    Her father regarded her coldly. "There's no need for this display of temper, Joscelind, and certainly not to me. Sir Nicholas is well aware of who we are and that we're not fools. Why else do you think he did as you asked? Why else do you think he
    apologized? We are most certainly going to stay here and you're going to marry Sir Nicholas."
    "He's just a minor knight in Scotland ," she protested, rising to face her father. "You always promised me I would marry a courtier."
    "Use the mind God gave you, Joscelind," her father replied with a hint of pique as he crossed his arms over his long moss- green tunic and the thick gold chain that dangled around his neck. "Sir Nicholas will never be a minor anything tot long. He proved himself far more than a minor mercenary. Are you blind to this fortress and the men he commands? With his experience in battle and his wealth, Sir Nicholas is going to be important wherever he happens to live."
    "Surely there has to be somebody in London I could marry instead, in Henry's court."
    "I don't know what cause you have to complain. Isn't he young and handsome? I saw the way you looked at him."
    "But what about that Scot?" Joscelind flung the last word at him like a curse. "I think he actually preferred her to me. Me!" She stamped her delicate foot. "I won't stay here to be humiliated!"
    Her father shrugged. "You could find them in bed together, and it wouldn't mean a thing except that he's a man and she's a whore —which wouldn't surprise me in the least, considering the breed she comes from."
    Joscelind raised her chin. "If she's the sort of woman to appeal to Sir Nicholas, I don't want him. I do have my pride, Father."
    Anger flaring on his face, Lord Chesleigh covered the distance between them in two long strides. He grabbed her arms and held her in a viselike grip. "Listen to me, girl. You're going to stay here and you're going to do everything you can to get that man to marry you. I haven't hired the finest teachers, and given you all