Page 128 of The Spitfire

He smiled at her. “I understood that as well, lovey. Are ye nae fortunate to hae so perceptive a man who loves ye?” he teased her.

“Aye, Tavis Stewart, I am,” she said with complete sincerity. Then her brow furrowed. “My lord! I cannot leave the few souls who have remained here at Greyfaire to fend for themselves. What can I do? They have been loyal to the Greys to the bitter end. I cannot desert them!”

“Nay,” he agreed with her. “Ye canna, but I think I know what ye might do, lovey, to help them. The border is safe for now, wi’ Sir Jasper Keane having taken up his residence in Hell. Though I expect there’ll be plenty of border clashes between England and Scotland in times to come, for ‘tis our nature, I fear, to go roving, it will nae ever again be like it was. Let us divide your lands in several portions. We will set upon these lands good tenants to farm them. We will have built stout stone cottages to house them, and the revenues from their rents and kind will be set aside for our next daughter as her dowry. When she marries, the income from the estate will be passed on to her.”

“Aye,” she agreed, “‘tis a good plan, and the stones for the cottages, Tavis, will come from the keep itself,” she told him.

“You would destroy Greyfaire Keep, lovey?” He was astounded.

“The keep was built by the Greys, my lord. Only Greys have resided here all these centuries, but for Sir Jasper’s unfortunate and brief tenure. I am the last of the Greys. It is only fitting that I determine the keep’s fate. It has outlived its strategic usefulness now, I fear. If I leave it standing, it will become a haven for every outlaw roaming the border. What an ignominious end to a house whose honor has always been paramount. That must not be, Tavis. Is it not better that I dismantle the keep in order to put it to better use? Besides, it is half destroyed as it is, thanks to Sir Jasper.”

Arabella Grey did not leave her lands until the keep had begun to be dismantled. She had, as the earl suggested, divided her estate into portions. She awarded those portions to the few young men who had so loyally remained by her side, giving them the first year rent-free. FitzWalter had been awarded the largest portion rent-free for his lifetime, to be passed on to his male descendants thereafter at a nominal rental.

The first stones removed from the keep were used to rebuild Greyfaire church, much to the delight of old Father Anselm. And while the clansmen called from Dunmor worked to tear the small castle down, the new tenant farmers and their families tilled their fields, planted their orchards, and cared for the sheep and cattle, as well as the geese and the laying hens that their lady had so generously supplied.

One condition of tenancy, however, had been that all the men take wives. Those without them had chosen to marry the widows amongst them, thus providing homes for the women, their children, and the few remaining elders. When the keep was finally dismantled, the clansmen would remain on to help the Greyfaire folk build their houses before the winter returned. There might have been some who thought the alliance between the Greyfaire folk and the clansmen from Dunmor odd, but the two groups quickly found that they had much in common.

Content that her people were now safe, Arabella Grey, the heiress of Greyfaire, remarried Tavis Stewart, the Earl of Dunmor, on the tenth of June, in the year of our Lord, 1491.

“Would you not prefer that we be wed at Dunmor?” she asked him when she had decided that she might at last leave Greyfaire.

“Nay,” he shook his head. “I married ye at Dunmor the last time, lovey, and we hae nothing but trouble. This time I will wed ye where I should hae wed the heiress of Greyfaire in the first place. We will wed here at Greyfaire. Yer own Father Anselm shall conduct the ceremony, and yer people will be about ye, lassie.”

“And this time, my lord, I shall even wear a wedding gown,” Arabella teased him mischievously.

“I’ll hae ye wi’ one or wi’ out one, lovey,” he told her with a grin. “And afterward—”

“And afterward,” she interrupted him, “we’ll go home, Tavis Stewart!” She stood upon her toes and kissed his mouth.

“Home?”he said. His arms slipped about her, pulling her close, his dark green eyes smoldering with promises of passion to come.

“Aye, my lord,” Arabella Grey said, her own eyes bright with unshed tears, and filled to overflowing with her love for him. “Home.Home to Dunmor!”