Tamed by a Laird by Amanda Scott Page B

Lochmaben Castle.”
    “Aye, sure,” Lucas said. “Tha think t’ lassies we seek be with them, then.”
    Hugh nodded. “No one with the voice of an angel sang at Annan House,” he said. “If they’d had such a singer, can you doubt
     they’d have produced her? Also, Lady Easdale’s given name is Janet, but members of the family call her ‘Jenny.’ ”
    “By, sir, ye’re no expecting me to believe a young baroness in ’er own right be pretending to be them minstrels’ gleemaiden!”
    “I don’t
know
that,” Hugh said. “But I’ll wager half your year’s pay that the singer is either the lady Janet or the maidservant Peg
calling
herself Jenny in a hope that someone will hear the name and come to collect her mistress.”
    “Tha canna expect a man to bargain with half his year’s pay,” Lucas said scornfully. “I’ll put up a groat against ten of yours
     on such a bet, but no more.”
    “Done,” Hugh said. “Easy gelt, that is, and I’ll not turn down a silver groat.”
    “Aye, well, I canna think what will get ye into Lochmaben without ye spin them one of your grand tales of why they should
     admit ye. ’Tis true that I’ve heard ye spin dunamany such tales in days gone by. But if ye think ye can spin one, snatch up
     the lady, and carry ’er off without raising a fearsome dust—”
    “I do not think I can do that,” Hugh said. Although he would never be such a dunce as that, he did realize that he had not
     yet thought the whole thing through.
    “And just as ye canna snatch her from Lochmaben, ye canna march up to yon minstrels and demand they hand her over to ye neither,”
     Lucas said sagely.
    “True,” Hugh said. “We’ll have to be gey cautious in our approach to them, so let us discuss the matter as we ride.”

    “We should ha’ gone home when we could, mistress,” Peg said as they prepared their sleeping places at Lochmaben Castle. “I
     dinna like it here.”
    “But think of what we’re seeing, Peg,” Jenny urged. “No one we know has seen the inside of this castle other than the people
     with whom we’re traveling, and this is the castle that produced King Robert the Bruce. He was born here, I believe, and it
     was the seat of Bruce power for years, even centuries.”
    “Aye, but the Bruce could go outside its walls when he wanted to,” Peg said.
    “We’ll be out again by noon tomorrow—by midafter-noon at the latest,” Jenny said, correcting herself when she recalled that
     the commander of the castle had said he would provide their midday meal for them after their performance.
    Peg remained noticeably nervous, however, and Jenny had to admit, if only to herself, that she had felt safer in the laird’s
     woods at Castle Moss than she felt inside the walls of Lochmaben Castle. She did not know if the walls were fourteen feet
     thick, but they were certainly thick enough for two men to lie end to end.
    Situated, as it was, on a flat peninsula jutting into Loch Maben, with most of the loch’s surrounding land bog-ridden, the
     castle’s famed impregnability seemed most intimidating when one was inside its walls, surrounded by enemies.
    Bad enough that four water-filled ditches stretched across the narrow neck of the peninsula, all but the last one boasting
     temporary, easily removed drawbridges.
    Worse was that the last ditch lacked
any
bridge, forcing them to go in boats through a main gate that opened right over the water into a well-guarded forecourt.
    After disembarking, as they passed through the equally well-guarded inner gate and under a fanged iron portcullis into the
     castle’s main courtyard, Jenny had looked back to watch the boats depart. That sight made her wonder if she had been dafter
     than even Peg had thought she was to insist on coming to Lochmaben.
    She wondered, too, if she could trust Bryan to keep her full identity secret. He and the others—even the women—behaved as
     if they had no concern for their safety. But most of the other