“
He’s friends with devious Bothwell,
who, for all his other faults, is also devoted to his royal aunt.”
Sorcha had spoken more to herself than to Rob, as if she were
trying to support her argument.
Rob got up from the armchair in which he’d been
lounging. “Well, Moray could hardly procrastinate any longer than
you have,” he said dryly. Seeing the spark in Sorcha’s eyes, he
held up his hands as if to ward off potential blows. “Nay, nay, I
tease. Go to Moray. But for the love of Saint Joseph, mind what you
say. Especially about Father Napier.”
Sorcha gave Rob an enigmatic look. “Don’t fret, my
brother. I already know what I’m going to say. Especially about
Father Napier.”
Warmer winds had blown in from the sea to melt most
of the snow. The Canongate was full of puddles and slush as Sorcha
made the brief trek to the Earl of Moray’s handsome town house.
Ailis had offered to accompany her, but as the maid was engaged in
a chess game with Doles, Sorcha was reluctant to disrupt the match.
She was still smiling inwardly at the sight of the two intent,
somber faces poised over the chessboard when she pulled on the
heavy brass ring which adorned Moray’s front door.
A pockmarked servant with hair the color of corn silk
admitted her. He indicated the drawing room, where Sorcha found
Moray, Bothwell, and a sulky youth she didn't recognize practicing
putts on the Persian carpet.
“
Cousin!” greeted Moray warmly,
setting down his golf club and coming to take her hand. “Welcome.
Bothwell and Caithness are helping me keep up with my game during
this cold weather.”
Bothwell gave Sorcha a sniggering smile; Caithness
made a vague, clumsy bow. He was half a foot taller than Bothwell,
but fair haired and lanky. All three men were in their
shirtsleeves, and tankards of ale sat on a tiny tiered table near
the fireplace.
“
So you really are Iain Fraser’s
bairn,” Bothwell remarked after the formal introductions had been
made. “Did you ever convince Patrick Gray?”
“
Did I ever need to?” Sorcha snapped
and promptly flushed. “Forgive me, but that wild ride from Doune
still rankles.” Caithness was looking puzzled. He was not much
older than she and, if memory served her, had a most unsavory
reputation for mayhem. Moray appeared to take all manner of men
under his good-natured wing.
“
Braw Caithness here is half brother
to Bothwell,” Moray explained, quite unruffled by his guests’
disparate emotions. “Here, mistress, join us,” he urged, picking up
one of the tankards. “Or would you prefer wine?”
Sorcha shook her head. “Nothing, thank you. I must
keep my visit short.” She gave Bothwell and Caithness a questioning
glance. “It concerns a family matter.”
“
Ah.” Moray nodded at the other men.
“Be good fellows and see if you can find that club with the new
shaft. It may solve my pesky problem of veering to the
left.”
Bothwell smirked. “Don’t veer too far with the lass.
I’m told she’s kin to me.” He gave Sorcha an oblique look and all
but shoved Caithness out of the room.
Moray laughed ruefully as he offered Sorcha a chair.
“Neither Bothwell nor Caithness has had much formal upbringing.
Both their sires died young, you know, and their mother let them
run roughshod. Caithness is still a lad, but Bothwell can be an
amusing rogue.”
“
Oh?” murmured Sorcha, having second
thoughts about the wine as Moray sat down opposite her. “Bothwell
is a friend of Gray’s as well as yours? It’s all very
confusing.”
“
So it is,” Moray allowed, rolling a
golf ball out of the way with his foot. “Now—what troubles you?” he
inquired with kindly concern. “Are you and Rob suffering from a
plethora of Presbyterianism?”
Sorcha laughed. “Oh, no—well, from time to time.” She
paused, growing more serious. “In a sense, the problem does pertain
to religion—and politics. It’s Rob, you see.” She saw Moray’s
straight brows lift and hurried on. “My brother has a silly notion
about serving Queen Mary in her English captivity. He’s quite a
dreamer, and has long fancied himself her champion. I would
hope—indeed, I beg—that you would ask His Grace to let Rob join the
Queen’s household.”
Moray had grown quite solemn while listening to
Sorcha’s request. “It’s very difficult,” he said slowly, fingering
his chin. “King Jamie has little influence over his mother’s
imprisonment. Queen Elizabeth makes those decisions.”
Sorcha sniffed with disdain. “It seems to me a king
ought to have some say when it concerns his own mother. I can’t
imagine Jamie is so helpless. Or devoid of spirit.”
Taking a deep swig from his tankard, Moray
acknowledged Sorcha’s allegation with a nod. “Our King plays a
canny game, knuckling under to the English queen at one moment,
flirting with the Catholic powers the next. But he knows that if
he’s to succeed Elizabeth, he must ultimately play by her rules.
Just last month, he signed a bond with England to solidify
relations between the two countries.”
Sorcha stood up abruptly. “By the Virgin, I’d no idea
how weak-willed we Scots really are until I came to Edinburgh! You
would think Elizabeth was Queen of both England and Scotland.
Perhaps it’s well I’ve never thought of myself as a Stewart but as
a Fraser. Highlanders have more pride than to let a foreign hussy
lead them around on a leash.”
Moray set his tankard down and also got to his feet.
He put a gentle hand on Sorcha’s arm and gave her his
self-deprecating look. “You make me ashamed of my heritage. As
perhaps I should be. See here,” he said, tapping her nose with his
finger, “I’d like to make amends for what happened at Doune. I’ll
go to Jamie, if you insist. But you must come with me.”
It was Sorcha’s turn to prove she had the courage of
her convictions. She shifted from one foot to the other, as Moray’s
hand moved down to cup her chin. “Very well. But you—we—must also
ask permission for Gavin Napier to join Rob. My father has refused
to let my brother go to England alone.”
Moray’s hand fell to his side. “Napier? Very well.
You mentioned they would travel together. So be it, mistress.”
Sorcha felt flushed with triumph, though the idea of
going to Linlithgow was not appealing. Still, it was a small price
to pay for Moray’s cooperation. She offered him what she hoped was
a fetchingly grateful smile, but he waved her thanks aside.
“
Never mind; we’re even now. I’ve
been all but moping since the Master carried you off from Doune.”
Moray picked up his golf club and proffered it to Sorcha. “Do you
play?”
“
A little.” Sorcha felt the club
with experimental fingers. “My father and my brother, Magnus, are
quite good. They have a makeshift links near our house, though the
sheep get in the way.”
“
We’ll play when the weather is
better,” Moray said. “Winter is a trying time for me. I grow bored
indoors.”
“
So do I.” Sorcha set the club down
and gathered her cloak around her. “The city pens me in. I miss the
Highlands.”
Moray eyed Sorcha thoughtfully. “I see that. You
possess remarkable energies. A child of nature, perhaps?” He saw
Sorcha’s blank expression and frowned. “Nay, you are no longer a
child,” Moray asserted and uttered his self-deprecating laugh. “I’m
reminded more of Diana, or Artemis. I’ve seen a most wonderful
sculpture of Artemis with a magnificent stag. It’s a perfect
rendering of the Goddess of the Hunt.”
The words nettled Sorcha. No bronze or marble figures
came to mind, but rather herself, angry and rain soaked, mourning
the Master of Ness. And looming over them both in her mind’s eye
was Gavin Napier. She had tried not to think of him in the past few
days, and now she resented Moray for unwittingly bringing him to
mind.
Nor could Moray be blamed for misreading her
reaction. “It seems you find me too forward, mistress,” he
declared, wearing a shamefaced expression. “I intended no
dishonor.”
“
What?” Sorcha snatched her cloak
even closer to her body. “Oh, no, I suppose not.” In her attempt to
exorcise Gavin Napier’s image, she had forgotten what Moray had
said to evoke it. She looked sheepishly at her host. “I was
thinking of my … my pet. He was a stag, in the Highlands, and
was killed this past autumn by a … hunter.” Sorcha forced
herself to smile. “I miss him too,” she added rather lamely, and
didn’t know if she spoke of the great stag—or of Gavin
Napier.
It had just started to drizzle when she got outside,
a fretful rain mixed with a few flakes of snow. The clouds hung
close in over the city, casting a gray gloom on the Canongate and
the Girth Cross. Nevertheless, Sorcha was relieved to be gone from
the Earl of Moray’s company. As charming and kind as he was, his
presence had a peculiar effect on her. Perhaps Moray was a born
womanizer, skilled in the arts of enchanting ladies, capable of
flattery designed to provoke flirtatious banter. It was an art
practiced by many, and often quite harmless. Certainly Moray’s name
had never been tainted by scandal. But, Sorcha thought as she
waited for a coach and four horses to labor by, she didn’t wish to
offer him any encouragement.
Looking across the street through the drizzle, Sorcha
sucked in her breath. Gavin Napier was directly opposite her,
wrapped in a long black cloak, bareheaded and staring straight
toward her. He didn’t move, but waited for Sorcha to join him.
“
You come from Moray’s.” It was a
statement of fact, not a question.
Sorcha rearranged her hood to keep the rain off her
face. “Aye, for Rob’s sake and yours.” She misliked his stern tone
and willed him to smile at her as easily as Moray did. “Moray will
intercede. Aren’t you pleased?”
Napier started walking quite fast, forcing Sorcha to
fall into step beside him. “I ought to be,” he replied, his voice
very deep. Napier gave Sorcha a sidelong glance. “What wiles did
you use to convince him?”
Sorcha started to balk but shrugged instead.
“ ’Twas simple enough—I offered him my body. It rarely fails
when dealing with men.”
They were passing the Canongate Tolbooth, where a
half dozen beggars huddled by a brazier next to the edifice’s gray
walls. Napier all but stepped on one of the men as he whirled
around to confront Sorcha. “Christ! You did no such thing!”
It never occurred to Sorcha that Napier would take
her seriously. The blazing brown eyes told her otherwise, however.
She backed off a pace, one heel splashing into a puddle. “And if I
did? Wouldn’t it please you if it meant gaining your objective?”
Her chin shot up, the hood falling from her hair.
In the folds of his black cloak, Sorcha could see
Napier’s hand tighten into a fist. His face was grim. “Don’t talk
drivel,” he growled, lowering his voice as the beggars looked on
with interest. “Whatever you did was for Rob, not for me.” He
glanced over his shoulder, started to tell his ragged audience to
mind their manners, but instead, dug inside his cloak and tossed
out a few coins. The beggars scrambled among themselves amid a
mingling of vile curses aimed at each other and grateful cries
directed at their benefactor. Napier, however, had grabbed Sorcha
by the arm and was steering her along the Canongate.
“
Let go; I can walk,” Sorcha rasped,
using her free hand to struggle with her hood. “God’s teeth, did
you truly think I’d give myself to Moray—or any other man?” She
darted Napier an angry look. “What must you think of
me!”
“
What I think of most women,” Napier
snapped back as a scruffy mongrel scampered close to his feet and
shook himself, water flying from his fur. The animal yapped
noisily, but Napier paid no heed. “Why should you be
different?”
The mongrel had raced away after a rooster that had
strayed from a nearby close. Napier’s response had further nettled
Sorcha. “It sounds as if you’ve heard too many lewd women in
confession.”
Napier’s profile was stony, though his grip remained
firm on Sorcha’s arm. They passed the Canongate Kirk, where an
angry woman scolded two young boys who had been taunting a tearful
little girl. “You comment on matters of which you know little,”
Napier finally said in a harsh note of reproach. “At the very
least, your notion of humor is perverted.”
“
At least I have a notion of humor,”
Sorcha retorted, and yanked her arm free. “Whatever became of fat,
jolly priests with rosy cheeks and rotund bellies?”
“
They went the way of Chaucer,”
Napier replied, but his voice had lost its edge. He glanced to his
right, toward a deserted close that was sheltered from the rain by
an archway. Abruptly, he pushed Sorcha over the cobbles until they
both stood under the protected entrance. Beyond, a fallow garden
lay at the front of a house with closed shutters and dormant
chimneys. “Tell me,” he implored, more solemn than stern, “do you
find me disagreeable?”
Sorcha gave the query the consideration it deserved.
“I find you strange,” she answered after a moment’s reflection.
Pausing, she searched the long, wolflike face. “There are tiny
lines of laughter around your eyes—I think you were happy once. But
there’s sadness, too, and somehow, I sense a contradiction, as
if ….” Fretting her upper lip with her finger, she made a
frustrated face. “I don’t know. I think perhaps you find faith and
charity easy to come by. But not hope.” She shook her head slowly
as she saw Napier retreat behind the familiar mask. “As for being
disagreeable, you
do
tend to disagree.” She shrugged. “But I
don’t mind arguing. Just don’t be unreasonable as well.”
The glimmer of a smile tugged at the corners of
Napier’s mouth. “For such a young lass, you speak freely to your
betters, mistress.”