Sorcha wrenched her attention back to her brothers.
Rob explained that their father knew one of Her Grace’s chaplains
and that the Queen had grown obsessively devout during her long
years of captivity. Not only would Rob be able to observe the
clergy at close hand in an isolated setting not unlike a religious
community, but at the same time he would fulfill Iain Fraser’s own
wish to demonstrate family support for the half sister he’d once
abandoned. As for serving Mary Stuart, Rob rather unconvincingly
averred that his interest was strictly impersonal.
Magnus plunged his quill into the inkwell, heard the
tip break off, and frowned. “Oh, by the Mass, Rob, half the lads in
Scotland and England dream of rescuing the poor Queen. As for our
sire, he has been guilt laden for years because he didn’t bear arms
to support her at Carberry Hill. The older he grows, the more he
regrets it. As if he or his small band of Frasers could have saved
the Queen and Bothwell from defeat.”
“
Mother says he’d have ended up as
dead as Bothwell did eventually,” Sorcha put in, rejoining the
discussion to stifle the persistent image of Gavin Napier that
seemed to bedevil her in the shadowy library.
Rob nodded. “Father felt Queen Mary was no longer
capable of ruling Scotland. That was really what mattered most to
him.”
“
What matters most to me is supper,”
Sorcha declared, getting up and stretching. “How long does it take
our parents to decide your future, Rob?”
Rob looked up at his sister out of twinkling hazel
eyes. “Making the decision was probably done with some time ago.
It’s the making up between them that takes much longer.”
No decision about Rob’s future was announced
immediately. Yet Sorcha knew he would somehow prevail. Frowning as
she made her way down the central stairway, she paused in midstep,
her hand on the balustrade as she saw Iain Fraser and Magnus come
through the doorway with several other men. One was George Gordon,
the ambitious young Earl of Huntly; another was Father Gavin
Napier.
Sorcha started to turn around, but her father called
out, “We have visitors, lassie. Go tell your lady mother that
George Gordon is here with his followers and a clutch of holy
men.”
Sorcha glanced over her shoulder when she reached the
landing. She could have sworn that Gavin Napier, attired in his
long black robes, was watching her with his hunter’s eyes.
Quickening her step, she caught sight of Rosmairi peering around a
corner at the top of the stairs. “Is it George?” she asked eagerly,
her cheeks pink as peonies.
Sorcha grasped the gilded knob at the head of the
balustrade. “Aye. And others.”
Rosmairi’s fine, fair brows drew together at the
vexed note in her sister’s voice. “Is aught wrong?”
“
Is aught right?” snapped Sorcha,
and was immediately repentant when she saw the hurt on Rosmairi’s
face. “I’m out of sorts, that’s all. Go bedeck yourself for George
and his party. I must tell Mother they’re here.”
Dallas was not pleased that Gordon and his men were
in the house. “Rosmairi’s swooning admiration to the contrary,
George isn’t half the man his sire was,” she asserted, urging her
maid, Flora, to work more swiftly at pressing a gown of lavender
silk. “Not that his father was much of a man, either, which makes
young George about one-quarter baked around the edges and all dough
in the middle.”
“
Yet my father welcomes him,” Sorcha
put in as her mother stood still long enough to let Flora slip the
gown over her head.
“
Your father always was weak in the
head where the Gordons were concerned. Mark my words, not one of
them has ever been trustworthy though they vow they’re as Catholic
as the Pope. Ambition, not religion, rules their house.” Dallas
made a face in the tall mirror that stood on dragon’s feet in a
corner of the bedchamber. “This dress looks worn. Oh, fie, it’s
good enough for a Gordon.” She whirled on Sorcha, a strand of
gleaming pearls in one hand. “Muslin! Go change, child, you look
like a ragamuffin!”
“
But you yourself aren’t wearing
your finest ….” Sorcha began to protest but caught the warning
light in her mother’s eyes.
“
One needn’t dress up like that
overblown hussy, Queen Elizabeth! She doesn’t put on her clothes;
she gets encrusted! Vile creature, all jewels and wigs and paint so
thick if she itches, she can’t dig deep enough to scratch!” Dallas
wound the pearls around her head, clipping a matching earring on
each ear, and stuck a pearl-edged comb into her dark hair. Flora
stood stoically by, her twenty years of service having inured her
to Lady Fraser’s flamboyant tongue. “Mind you,” Dallas went on,
wagging a finger at Sorcha, “it’s because of that wretched old
harridan that your sire allies himself with the likes of young
Gordon, who is no friend to Elizabeth and her minion, Jamie the
Jejune. Now hurry, Sorcha, put on a presentable dress and comb your
hair.”
Sorcha quickened her step until she was out of her
mother’s sight. In truth, Sorcha found George Gordon a jovial,
handsome sort, a bit too taken with his wealth and title, but at
least capable of speaking about hunting and fishing and sports. If
he was ambitious, as her mother insisted, he came from a powerful
family, the most influential—and feared—clan in the Highlands. They
were, she reflected with a touch of spite, often pitted against the
Grants. For that reason alone, Sorcha would change into a more
comely gown.
In the main dining hall, Cummings had the servants
rushing about in a flurry of activity. A huge fire crackled on the
wide hearth at one end of the room. The wall sconces had been
lighted, for it was a gloomy October day. The long table was
already set for at least two dozen people. Sorcha scanned the room:
Her father, Gordon, Magnus, and Rob were clustered near the
fireplace, drinking malmsey. Closer to the table stood several
monks and men wearing the Gordon plaid. Directly under the great
arched window with its perpendicular panes, Dallas and Rosmairi
conversed with Father Napier. Dallas and the priest were laughing
as Rosmairi demurely eyed her folded hands. Sorcha looked the other
way and went to join the monks and Gordon clansmen.
Inevitably, the conversation was of politics. It
always seemed as if the Gordons—and Frasers and Stewarts and
Sinclairs and Grays—talked nothing but politics. At least George
could speak of catching trout and playing golf. Sorcha put a hand
to her mouth to stifle an indiscreet yawn as one of the Gordons
eyed her with a mixture of admiration and amusement.
“
Are ye not caught up with how King
Jamie mistreats his royal mother, or whether he’ll remain
Protestant?” he asked with a twinkle in his slate-gray
eyes.
“
The King will do as he’s told,”
Sorcha replied in a bored tone. Her gaze wandered to Father Napier,
who had managed to convulse Dallas. “He’ll agree with any proposal
that will make him sovereign of both Scotland and England after
Elizabeth is dead.”
“
Ah,” remarked one of the other
Gordons, a slight, elfin man of uncertain years, “you consider our
monarch a puppet of ambition, Mistress Fraser?”
Sorcha shrugged. “I seldom consider the King at all,
sir.” She had intended the reply to sound polite. But the stiff
ruff of her gown pricked her chin, making her nose wrinkle in
apparent disdain. The elfin man mistook her expression and suddenly
grew somber.
“
Even a Highlander should profess
courtesy for his—or her—sovereign,” the man asserted as the others
leaned closer in to the little circle. “We may not always agree,
but we must show respect.”
Sorcha drew back, put off by so many keen stares.
“Such peculiar words from a Gordon! By the Cross, is this the same
clan that rose against Queen Mary twenty years ago and had to be
hacked down like so many saplings in a stiff breeze?”
The elfinlike man whistled in shock; the Gordon with
the slate-gray eyes froze in place; the monks exchanged glances of
shock and annoyance. The ancient rite of hospitality was as
ingrained in the Highlander as the love of the land itself; rude
behavior toward a guest could be grounds for violence. Sorcha
shifted from one foot to the other, feeling hemmed in by the circle
of Gordons. She had overstepped her bounds, yet these men had
baited her, and even the two monks in their midst appeared
malevolent.
“
At whose knee have you studied
history, mistress?” queried the elfin man between curling lips.
“Your Lady Mother’s?”
Sorcha tossed her head, the black hair flying about
her shoulders. “Aye. And my father’s, since he was at Corrichie
Moor when the battle took place between clan and Queen. He loved
the Gordons, but he prized loyalty more highly.”
There was a pause on the part of her listeners.
Before any of them spoke again, lain Fraser’s affable, yet incisive
voice cut into the group: “So I was and damned near died for my
trueheartedness. The late Earl of Moray cared less for his half
sister’s victory than he did to send me to an early grave.”
The tale of Iain Fraser’s attack by an assassin after
the battle of Corrichie Moor was a legend in the Highlands. Though
he had fought for the Queen, her villainous half brother James had
been determined to rid himself of any competitors for his role as
Mary Stuart’s favorite counselor.
George Gordon had ambled over to Fraser’s side. “That
was a confusing occasion, My Lord.” He grinned. “God knows my sire
never held it against you for fighting with the Queen. He often
spoke of that sad day.”
Fraser put a light hand on George’s wide shoulder.
“Indeed, I urged him to flee, lest your entire family be destroyed.
Had he not agreed, I doubt that you would have ever been born.” He
gave George a kindly pat. “Show my eldest daughter how gallant a
Gordon can be, George. I must attend to Father Napier.”
George’s perpetual, faintly lopsided grin remained
fixed in place as the others melted away in Iain Fraser’s wake.
“Don’t tell me my kinsmen were being unpleasant?” inquired George
in a voice that always seemed just a bit too soft for his burly
frame.
Sorcha’s green eyes followed her father as he joined
Father Napier. Though the priest stood almost the full length of
the hall from Sorcha, she could have sworn his gaze locked with
hers for just an instant. “Unpleasant?” Hastily, she turned to
George, vexedly reminding herself it was he, not Napier, upon whom
she should be concentrating. “Oh, nay, merely tedious. Are the
salmon running at Strathbogie?”
The bland blue eyes sparked with interest. “They
were, a fortnight ago. I took six within an hour just after first
light. ’Twas wondrous sport.”
Sorcha brightened visibly. “How large?”
George spread his hands a good twenty inches. “Mayhap
more, at least two of them.” He sighed and shook his head. “The
next day, they started to turn color.”
“
A pity.” Deliberately, she moved
closer to George and put her hand through his arm. “I don’t think
we’re ever going to eat,” she grumbled, noting with vague chagrin
that her hem had become unraveled just where it met the ivory
underskirt. “I could devour at least one of those salmon you caught
all by myself about now.”
Somewhat to Sorcha’s surprise, George placed his hand
over hers where it lay in the crook of his arm. “Shall we walk,
then?”
“
Walk?” She wrinkled her nose up at
him, catching a glimpse of Father Napier over her shoulder. He was
moving toward her, with Rob at his heels. “Yes,” she replied. “It’s
overbright in here. And too warm.”
A moment later, they were in the entrance hall of the
manor house, the sounds of the guests muffled behind them. Sorcha
gazed at the whitewashed walls, the graceful stairway, the Fraser
coat of arms cast in silver and etched with gold leaf above the
door. Now that she had escaped, she was uncertain what to do with
her companion. “Would you like to see Father’s antlers?” she
inquired.
George’s silky blond eyebrows lifted curiously.
“Antlers? Nay, I thought perhaps we could speak of more …
intimate matters.”
Caught off guard, Sorcha took a deep breath and
regained her composure. Whatever did the braw laddie have on his
not-so-agile mind? “Well, George?” Her smile offered encouragement.
“Feel free to speak your piece.”
He shifted his burly frame. “ ’Tis Rosmairi.” He
swallowed once, but seemed relieved to have spoken her name. “She’s
so bonnie, yet timid as a doe when I try to speak with her alone. I
was wondering if … you might … remind her what a good
fellow I truly am.”
So, thought Sorcha with a surprising sense of
irritation, it was Rosmairi who had captured his fancy. She should
have known it would be. “You mean to sue for Rosmairi’s hand?”
Sorcha asked, trying to keep the chagrin from her voice.
“
Hand?” A puzzled expression crossed
George’s florid face. “I hadn’t thought so far into the future.
Rather, I felt we should each learn more of the other
first.”
Pushing aside the tinge of unreasonable jealousy his
words had evoked, Sorcha considered. “Rosmairi’s only fifteen. And
while she may not find your attentions unwelcome, my parents may
feel differently.” With a beguiling smile, she patted George’s arm.
“A year or more, then seek Ros out. The wait will do neither of you
any harm and may prove beneficial.”
George’s thick lower lip protruded stubbornly. “I’d
no mind to wait that long!”
His obvious impatience nettled Sorcha. She didn’t
give a fig about George Gordon as a potential match for herself,
but having just been jilted by another, it seemed unfair that
Rosmairi should acquire a suitor before she did. However, that was
scarcely an explanation that would carry much weight with the
determined young clan chieftain. Sorcha was trying to extricate
herself as gracefully as possible when the sound of heavy knocking
and barking dogs erupted outside the carved main entrance.
Ordinarily, servants would have rushed to admit visitors, but this
evening all the Fraser retainers were attending the guests in the
dining hall.