This Heart of Mine (75 page)

Velvet felt quick tears prick her eyes, and she blinked them away. “Thank you, Francis,” she said, and for the first time in days Alex saw a small smile touch the corners of her mouth. “I am told the king is most put out with you, my lord. I would have thought you had outgrown your bad habit of teasing His Majesty by now.”

Bothwell chuckled. “Jamie is too tempting a target, lass,” he replied. Then he moved his horse just slightly so that the rider next to him was visible to them, and both Alex and Velvet were surprised to see that it was a woman. “This is Cat Leslie,” Bothwell said simply. “She is to be my wife one day.”

“Oh, Francis!” Velvet burst out, “you are finally happy! I am so glad! So very glad!”

Bothwell flushed, pleased by her words, but the beautiful
Lady Leslie gave a soft, husky laugh. “Were she not yer cousin’s wife, Francis, I think I should be jealous,” she teased him.

“Velvet is the sweetest of lasses,” Bothwell said, “but there is only one woman in the world for me, Cat, and ’tis ye, my darling.”

Now Lady Leslie flushed becomingly, and Velvet thought that, next to her mother, she was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Tall, slender, and full-bosomed, Cat Leslie had fair skin like Velvet’s, leaf-green eyes, and dark, honey-colored hair. Her face was truly heart-shaped, with a stubborn little chin. She was dressed in doeskin riding breeches, a creamy, open-necked silk shirt, and a leather jerkin with silver-rimmed horn buttons. Her boots came to her knees, and her long, heavy hair fell about her shoulders.

“It’s not safe for us to remain outside the castle walls, Francis,” reminded the earl’s bastard brother, Hercules Stewart.

Bothwell nodded and, turning his horse, led them safely into
Hermitage Castle.
As they dismounted, he said, “Cat, take Lady Gordon to the apartments ye prepared for her. She looks fair worn.”

“I am,” Velvet admitted. “It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden like this.”

“Almost three years?” he ventured.

For a moment Velvet thought, and then another smile lit her features. “Aye, Francis, ’tis almost three years, isn’t it?”

He chuckled. “Ye’re a lot more docile now than ye were then, lass.”

“I have but to regain my strength, my lord,” Velvet answered mischievously, realizing as she spoke that she was suddenly feeling better than she had in weeks.

Cat Leslie slipped her arm through Velvet’s. “Come, Lady Gordon, I will wager that ye want a bath, and if I don’t get the water brought now, ye’ll be out of luck, for ’twill soon be time for dinner.”

The two women departed, and Francis ushered his cousin Alex into the Great Hall, signaling a servant as they went to bring them wine. When he had settled his guest comfortably, Bothwell said, “Ye take a great risk coming to
Hermitage
, Alex. I am put to the horn and outlawed. If our cousin Jamie should learn of your visit, it could go hard wi’ ye.”

“I must risk it, Francis. Velvet was simply not strong enough to go any farther today. Actually, I should like to bide wi’ ye for a few days before going on north.”

“Will ye stop in Edinburgh?”

“I must.”

“Tell Jamie then that ye were here and why ye came. Then no one, Maitland in particular, can accuse ye of duplicity. He means to bring all the earls down, Alex. He begins wi’ me, but beware, for I suspect he will turn on Huntley next. He is an ambitious man, Master Maitland. If he can break the power of the earls, then he can rule James himself without interference.”

“Is it true what I heard as I came south? That James stopped Lady Leslie’s divorce from Glenkirk?”

“Aye! The bastard! He forced her to his bed, and when she finally fled him she came to me. I have loved her for some time now, but she knew it not until she sought refuge wi’ me. The queen had managed to keep James from stopping the divorce, to hold him off until Maitland found out and told him that Cat was wi’ me. The queen, of course, has no idea that her lord and king desires Cat. She would be most hurt if she knew, and Cat loves the queen, which Jamie well knows.”

“What will happen to ye, Francis?”

“I know not, Alex, but perhaps someday I shall seek refuge at
Dun Broc.”
He smiled. “Will ye gie it me?”

“Aye!”

The servant arrived with the wine, and the two men stood by one of the large fireplaces drinking together, while in another part of the castle Cat had brought Velvet to a comfortable, airy apartment.

Pansy and Dugald were already there, and, seeing them, Cat said, “I will give instructions to have a bath brought to ye, Lady Gordon. I shall see ye at dinner.”

“Please, won’t you call me Velvet?”

“If ye will call me Cat,” came the other woman’s reply, and then she was gone.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Velvet said to Pansy.

“She’s caused a great scandal here in Scotland, Dugald says. She ran away from her husband to be with Lord Bothwell!” Pansy told her mistress.

“I can understand a woman falling in love with Francis,” said Velvet. “He’s devilishly attractive, but ’tis not just his looks.”

“Aye,” agreed Pansy. “He’s got a way about him. They say there ain’t a woman alive who can resist him.”

“Fine talk for a couple of seemingly respectable married women,” grumbled Dugald, and Velvet and Pansy giggled. “Laugh if ye will, but ’tis said the Earl of Bothwell is a warlock, a wizard.”

“He can cast a spell on me anytime,” Pansy laughed.

“Hush yer mouth, woman, or I’ll take a stick to ye!” threatened her husband. “Such talk, and from my own wife!”

“Lay a hand on me, Dugald Geddes, and I’ll turn right around and go home to England—and I’ll take me son with me, too!” Pansy snapped at her spouse. “I birthed him without you, and I’ve raised him for two years without you.”

“Now, lassie,” wheedled Dugald, “ ’tis just jealous I am, hearing ye talk about Lord Bothwell. I dinna mean it.”

Pansy sniffed, but said nothing more, and Velvet hid a smile. Her tiring woman certainly had the upper hand where her new husband was concerned. Dugald adored his wife and son, and Pansy knew it and used her advantage to great effect.

Within a few minutes the oaken tub was set up before the fireplace in the bedchamber, and a line of kilted Borderers brought buckets and buckets of hot water to fill it fully. Velvet bathed gratefully, hearing Alex come in and, attended by Dugald, bathe as well in the outer chamber before its fireplace. He entered the bedchamber, a towel wrapped around his loins, before she had climbed from her own tub. Pansy blushed, and he chuckled.

“Run along, lass, and see to yer bairn, who I’ve heard is wailing for both his mam and his supper. I’ll attend yer mistress until ye return.” He gently shooed Pansy from the room, closing the door behind her. Then taking the large towel that had been warmed on its rack before the fire, he opened it out and, holding it up, said, “Come on, Velvet, and let me dry ye. Ye’ll get a chill.”

She rose and stepped from the tub into his arms, which closed about her, enfolding her in the warmed bath sheet. For a moment they both stood very still, and then Alex began to rub her down briskly. She knew that he wanted to kiss her, and had he done so she would not have minded. Yet he kept his promise not to force her.

When he dried her, he threw the towel aside and, picking her up, walked over to the bed where he tucked her beneath the sheets. “ ’Tis several hours before dinner, Velvet. Rest while ye can. We are going to stay several days here at
Hermitage
before we move on to Edinburgh.”

“Are we going to court, my lord?”

“Nay, but I must pay my respects to Jamie. We may not even stay overnight before pushing on to
Dun Broc.”

“Good,” she said. “I don’t want to go to court, Alex. I want to get to
Dun Broc.
I grow more and more anxious to see my new home. I remember you once told me that the castle
stood on cliffs above the glen; that it soared with the eagles! I have never forgotten that. You made it sound so beautiful.”

“It is beautiful, Velvet, and ye will see it first at the prettiest time of the year to my mind. The birches will make the mountainside appear to be covered in molten gold, and the mountain ash and rowan trees will be heavy with their red and orange berries. Ye will be happy there, Velvet, I promise ye.”

She took his hand in hers, and, raising it to her lips, she gently kissed it. He looked startled, and she smiled. “ ’Tis just my way of thanking you, Alex, for your kindness and your patience.” Then she closed her green eyes and seemed to fall asleep, yet she did not release his hand.

Gingerly he shifted himself onto the bed next to her, but lay on the outside of the coverlet. With a sigh Velvet put her auburn head upon his shoulder. He did not sleep. Indeed he lay by her side, awake, his mind boiling with a thousand thoughts. In the few days that they had been together again he had come to realize once and for all that he loved her. It pained him yet that she had given herself to another man, but he understood it even as he understood her difficulty in resuming their full married relationship. In her mind Akbar was yet her husband, and he the interloper. He wasn’t sure how to overcome such a hurdle, but then he realized it was Velvet’s battle to fight, and not his. She must be clear in her mind. He was ready. He understood how hard it must be for her.

Still, it was uncomfortable for him to face the plain fact that she had only lived with him as his wife for three months whereas she had lived as Akbar’s wife for sixteen months. God’s bones! Could she ever love him again? He found himself silently praying that she could.

The fine dinner that was served at the Earl of Bothwell’s board that night caused his cousin to remark, “For a condemned man, Francis, ye eat well.”

“Ye know my love of good living, Alex,” came Bothwell’s laughing reply.

“Aye,” said Cat Leslie, “I worried myself sick when he was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle, only to learn that he was living better than the castle warden himself, the rogue!”

One of the men in the hall now took up his pipe and began to play while several others raised their voices in song. Alex and Lady Leslie began to explore their degree of kinship, for his mother had been a Leslie. Bothwell stood up, pulling Velvet with him.

“Come and walk about the hall wi’ me, lass,” he said, seeing her beginning to grow sad from the music, an ancient
Border tune that dealt with unrequited love. He led her away from the high board and slowly moved down the room, her hand tucked securely in his arm. “I will listen, Velvet lass, if ye want to talk,” he said quietly.

“There is little to say, Francis. I have come home to Alex.”

“Yet yer heart isna wi’ him. Why?”

“Oh, Francis, I am so confused! I believed him dead. I loved again, but then I learned he was not dead and I had to come home. I love Alex even now, but I cannot, it seems, stop loving Akbar. To give myself to another man when I was a widow is far different than the position in which I now find myself. I want to begin anew with Alex. I must! Yet I cannot stop thinking of Akbar, of India, of.… ” She stopped, looking stricken when he finished the sentence for her.

“Yer bairn.”

“Oh, God,” she whispered. “How did you know?” Her eyes were filled with tears.

“It is the only thing that could possibly bind ye so tightly to another man, Velvet.”

“Alex must not know! It would hurt him so to learn that I had given another man a child, and yet not borne him one.”

“Then gie him one, Velvet.” Stopping, he drew her into a little alcove, and, taking out a silk handkerchief from his doublet, he gently wiped her tears away. “Did the bairn die?”

“Nay. She is in India with her father. He would not let me take her. He said she was all he had left of our love. I didn’t want to leave her, Francis! She wasn’t even a year old, my Yasaman!” Then she began to weep.

“Velvet!” The urgency in his voice penetrated her sorrow. “Velvet lass, ye mustna grieve so. Alex will see yer face and know that something is wrong. What will ye tell him?” Frantically he mopped her cheeks.

In the midst of her grief Velvet suddenly found humor. “I could tell him you spurned my overtures, Francis,” she said, starting to giggle through her tears.

He grinned at her, both delighted and relieved. “Ye’re a bad lass!” he teased her, and Velvet began to laugh. Pleased, he stuffed the dampened silk back into his doublet, and then he turned serious once again. “Yer secret is safe wi’ me, Velvet, but heed my advice and get yerself with bairn as soon as possible. Ye’ll nae forget the other, but ye’ll be so busy with the new bairn ye’ll nae have time for too much remembering.”

“Alex has been so very patient, Francis. He has promised not to force me, and he has kept that promise.”

“Are ye telling me, lass, that ye’ve nae made love since yer
reunion? Christ, Velvet! Ye’ll nae get yerself wi’ a bairn that way!”

“I couldn’t,” she quavered, her lower lip beginning to quiver again.

“Ye damn well can, and tonight ye will! The longer ye wait, the worse it will be for ye, and my poor cousin has been patient long enough!”

“He consoled himself quite nicely while I was away!” snapped Velvet. “So did ye!” Bothwell shot back.

“I did, didn’t I?” Velvet considered. “Dear God, Francis, I’ve been wallowing so much in my grief over Yasaman that I’ve never stopped to consider that life goes on. Alex and I have chosen to remain together after all our difficulties. No one forced us. Oh, Francis! I have been so unfair to him, haven’t I?”

“Nay, Velvet, ye haven’t been unfair to Alex. Ye simply needed time to come to terms wi’ yerself. Now, I think, ye have.”

“Thanks to you, my lord. If I have a son, one of his names will be Francis!”

“God’s nightshirt, lass, dinna go sentimental on me now! Ye know I can’t abide milk-and-water lasses!”

She flung her arms about him and kissed him full on the mouth, much to Bothwell’s surprise. It was a lovely kiss, and her mouth tasted of sweet wine. Standing back, she looked up at him and said boldly, “Take me back to my husband, my lord. ’Tis time for us to retire for the night.”

Bothwell grinned. “I suspect Alex will never know the great debt he owes me, Velvet.” Then he escorted her from the alcove back through the Great Hall to the high board where Cat and Alex were still talking, never having really missed them.