Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy Two 02] by Border Lass Page A

doing so could benefit the woman or her family.
    Amalie had taken that comment to heart, knowing that her own mother would want her to pass on any tidbits that could serve the Murrays. That Isabel trusted her despite also knowing Lady Murray just made her trust a more precious gift, and one Amalie would never betray.
    The princess had discussed many things with her, including her belief that her husband James had been murdered. At first Isabel had shared that opinion with all who would listen, but she had soon come to realize that few people agreed with her. Most dismissed what she said or even feared for her sanity.
    Amalie listened sympathetically and had trouble stifling anger when others spoke pityingly of Isabel and her “insistence on perpetrating such a falsehood.” But she understood other people’s need to remember James simply as a great hero.
    Neither she nor the princess had been at Otterburn, of course. Nor had she been with Isabel to receive the tragic news of James’s death. But she had heard how lovingly Isabel always spoke of him and could easily imagine how devastating the news had been for her and how much Isabel needed to know the truth.
    Grown men all over Scotland had wept, for James had been a popular leader as well as their finest warrior. Even his greatest English rival had called him a hero.
    Glancing at the princess, sitting now between the new Queen and another princess, Amalie saw that despite Isabel’s smiles and cheerful comments, in moments of repose, her continuing sorrow revealed itself.
    Isabel saw her and smiled, reminding her that it was not just sanctuary that the princess had offered her when she had needed it but also real friendship.
    Having acquired no facts of her own about James’s death, Amalie knew only what Isabel had told her and what little she had gleaned by listening when others spoke of the tragedy. But she knew the princess was not a fool or a madwoman.
    If Isabel said it was murder, she had good reason, just as she had reason to think the most likely one to have ordered . . .
    A chill shot through her before the thought completed itself: If Sir Garth Napier was right about who had been speaking in that room at Abbots’ House, that same person had just ordered another murder.
    She wished she could hear Fife’s voice again under like circumstances. The few sentences he had spoken on Moot Hill had just not been enough for her to be certain.
    Still, she ought to tell someone what she’d heard. But who would believe her, and how much about her own actions would she have to reveal before anyone would?
    Garth watched until she bent to speak with Isabel. Then, telling himself he had no good reason to go on watching her, and calling himself a fool for concerning himself with her at all, he decided to eat before keeping his appointment.
    He scanned the numerous trestle tables, letting his gaze rest briefly on that occupied by the Douglas lords before he located the table he sought. Moving then to one of the fires, he thanked those men who noted his knightly girdle, nodded respectfully, and stood aside for him. Accepting a trencher piled high with sliced beef, he found bread and a mug of ale, then made his way to the table in question.
    “Room for one more?” he asked the man at its head.
    Sir Walter Scott, Laird of Buccleuch, looked up with a grin and gestured to a space beside him on his bench. “Sit yourself down, cousin. I saw you waiting earlier to swear fealty to his grace and wondered where you’d got to since.”
    At twenty-six, Wat was two years older, and of a slimmer, lankier build. He also had hazel eyes rather than blue ones, but they shared a look of near kinsmen.
    To the other nobles gathered there, three or four of whom were with their lady wives, Buccleuch said, “Some of you may not know my cousin, Garth Napier, who won his spurs at Otterburn. He has been out of the country for some months, so you will forgive us if we speak privately for a short