The Knight's Temptress (Lairds of the Loch) Read online

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  To Sally Spangler

  with gratitude for her many, many intelligent

  observations, her love of history, and especially for

  Fordun, the two Roberts, et al.!

  Author’s Note

  For readers’ convenience, the author offers the following guide:

  Clachan = village

  Fain = eager, eagerly

  Forbye = besides, in addition, furthermore, however

  Garron = small Highland horse, very strong, agile enough for the landscape

  Lachina = Lock EEN a

  Lassock = young girl

  Lippin (as in Lippin Geordie) = trust, trusted

  Muir = moor (a boggy wasteland, peaty, dominated by grasses and sedges)

  Plaid (great kilt) = Pronounced “Played,” an all-purpose garment from length of wool kilted up with a belt. Excess length flung over the wearer’s shoulder.

  Tarbet = isthmus, an arm of land connecting two bodies of water

  Thrang = busy

  Tùr Meiloach = Toor MIL ock

  Prologue

  Stirling, Scotland, late May 1425

  Riding into the cobblestone court of Cambuskenneth Abbey and reining in between the long abbey kirk and its tall stone tower, the weary knight flung himself from his lathered horse, brushed off his dusty leather jack and breeks, and smoothed his dark brown hair away from his face. It was dusk. He was hungry.

  A lay brother in a black cassock hurried to meet him. The knight handed him the horse’s reins, saying, “His grace is here, aye? With Sir William Fletcher?”

  “They are both here, sir. But his grace is receiving nae one.”

  “He will receive me. Prithee, tell Sir William it is urgent that I speak with his grace as soon as possible. I will wait.”

  “Your name, sir?”

  “Ian Colquhoun… Sir Ian Colquhoun,” he added, remembering.

  The lay brother summoned a second layman to look after Ian’s horse and then entered the abbey through the tower door.

  Sir William Fletcher, a man some six or seven years older than the twenty-four-year-old Sir Ian, came out to get him shortly afterward. Sir William said, “His grace will see you at once, sir. Come with me.”

  “My news is not for sharing,” Ian said. “Is anyone else with his grace?”

  “Nay, he meets his nobles across the river at the castle but sleeps here. Since his English captivity, he prefers to avoid fortresses, so he has been here for several days. Hanging four of his close kinsmen much affected him, however greatly they deserved it. So he will be alone,” Fletcher added, “although I will stay with you.”

  “Aye, sure,” Ian said, knowing that Jamie Stewart, King of Scots, rarely went anywhere without his childhood friend, Will Fletcher. Jamie and Will had become friends shortly before Jamie’s capture by the English and his subsequent nineteen-year captivity. Will had been one of the first to welcome Jamie home a year ago and had received his knighthood shortly thereafter.

  Ian had won his own silver spurs more recently.

  “This way,” Will said, opening the abbey tower door onto a stairway landing. Leading the way up a few stairs to the first landing, he opened another door and preceded Ian into a small, austere room, saying, “Sir Ian is here, your grace.”

  The King beckoned Ian forward. Although Ian had seen him less than a fortnight before, his grace looked older than his thirty-one years and very tired.

  Jamie said, “Be sure that latch catches, Sir Ian. It often fails. One good thing that my duplicitous uncle did before he died was to begin restoring the abbey kirk here and some of this tower. More requires to be done. But tell me your news. By the look of you, and your urgency, I ken fine it cannot be good.”

  “James Mòr and the rebels have seized Dumbarton,” Ian said flatly.

  “The castle?”

  “Aye, your grace, but also the royal burgh and harbor.”

  “My uncle John Stewart of Burleigh is the Governor there.”

  Ian’s throat tightened. “The rebels murdered Lord Burleigh, your grace. They also murdered his captain of the guard, my cousin, Gregor Colquhoun.”

  “Fiend seize them!” his grace exclaimed. “We must have that castle back.”

  “Dumbarton Castle is impregnable,” Will Fletcher said.

  “Nevertheless…” Jamie looked at Ian, his eyes narrowing speculatively. “Your Colquhoun seat of Dunglass is gey close to Dumbarton, as I recall.”

  “Less than three miles up the river Clyde,” Ian agreed. “The castle sits midway between Dumbarton and Glasgow.”

  “Then you are ably placed to recover the castle for me, are you not?”

  “We are likewise well-placed to suffer mischief perpetrated by the rebels at Dumbarton,” Ian replied with a wry smile.

  He saw Will Fletcher’s bushy eyebrows shoot upward, but Jamie said, “I recall that you also enjoy a reputation for mischief, Sir Ian. So I would like you to put that devious mind of yours to work and devise a way to recover my castle. You are, after all, a knight of my realm, sir. Now, what do you say?”

  Without hesitation, Ian said, “If I can do it, your grace, I will.”

  “I shall prepare a royal warrant for you straightaway,” Jamie said. “I’ll also give you names of powerful nobles who will help if you need them. They will want to besiege the place, but I’d liefer you find means to avoid that and keep the town and harbor safe. Feed him now, Will. He must be hungry.”

  As Ian followed Will Fletcher to the abbey refectory, he felt rather numb.

  Was he daft to have agreed? His family would surely say he was, aye.

  Glen Fruin, near Loch Lomond, end of July

  “We’ve stared down at that tower now for a good half-hour,” the big, dark-haired Highlander said with a grim frown. “Ye’re sure they’re here?”

  “Aye, master,” his much smaller companion replied, eyeing him warily.

  “And ye’re sure ye saw Lady Aubrey MacFarlan and her daughters?”

  “I canna be as sure o’ that,” the lad said. “I followed the Laird o’ Galbraith and five females what crossed the loch wi’ him from Inch Galbraith tae the wee clachan ashore. Then they all rode here wi’ him. Likely, one or two o’ them women be maidservants. But I dinna ken nowt o’ them. I only just ken the laird.”

  The two stood on a wooded hilltop looking down at a large, square, gray-stone tower just above the wide, swift-flowing burn known as Fruin Water.

  “If they’re here, ye’ve done well, lad. If they are not—”

  The Highlander broke off when a door in the tower opened. As he watched, a young woman wearing a plain gray kirtle and white veil stepped outside. Another, younger lass with flaxen hair in two long plaits and wearing a pink kirtle followed, then another even younger one in yellow. The third lass boasted a thick, unruly mass of long, light-red curls, kept back from her face by a white ribbon that ran under the mass and up behind each ear to tie in a bow atop her head.

  A slender woman came next. Recognizing Lady Aubrey, the Highlander relaxed. One more lass followed, also garbed in g
ray with a plain white veil. She had a basket over one arm and shifted it slightly as she shut the door behind her.

  “Where are they going?” he wondered aloud.

  “I… I dinna ken, master. Belike they’ll walk up the glen.”

  “We’ll follow them and see,” the big man said, already moving through the woods to avoid losing sight of the women.

  He soon saw that the winding path they took up the glen followed the course of Fruin Water as it tumbled down to join Loch Lomond, a mile and a half behind him. Confident that the swift burn would prevent the women from leaving the path, he realized his error a short time later when the red-headed chit suddenly kilted up her skirts and splashed across the burn to the other side.

  When his man turned quickly to head downhill, the Highlander stopped him. “Go softly, and do not show yourself. They must not see either of us.”

  “They will if we cross yon burn, though. D’ye mean we should turn back?”

  “Nay, nay. I want to see where they go. But we’ll wait until they get into the woods above that meadow they’re crossing. Then we’ll follow them.”

  Sakes, he thought when he and his companion reached the woods and could hear the women’s voices ahead, it was almost too easy. If they had been his mother or sisters, they would take armed men along whenever they left home.

  The women stopped at last in a small clearing, still talking quietly. The gray-clad maidservant with the basket put it down and opened it. The other one took a cloth from it and shook it out to spread on the ground.

  A bird tweeted nearby. Another answered it, and a squirrel chattered.

  It was a beautiful and peaceful place, where aught could happen and nae one would be any the wiser.

  “Ye’ve done well, lad,” Dougal MacPharlain murmured.

  Chapter 1

  Glen Fruin, near Loch Lomond, August 1

  Lizzie, no! Come back!”

  Dismayed to see her young companion spur the bay gelding she rode to a gallop and disappear around a turn shortly before the steep, downhill Glen Fruin path met the one along Loch Lomond’s southwestern shore, eighteen-year-old Lachina MacFarlan gritted her teeth, warned herself to keep calm, and urged her dun-colored horse to a faster pace.

  A voice above and behind her on the glen path shouted, “Lady Lina, wait!”

  Glancing back at the gillie who followed her, Lina did not reply or slow her mount. Nor did she spare more than a fleeting thought for the reaction her good-brother, Sir Magnus Galbraith-MacFarlan, would have when he heard—as he would—that his little sister had broken her word… again.

  Although Sir Magnus was the largest man Lina knew—or had ever seen, for that matter—she did not fear his wrath. For one thing, he and his wife—her elder sister, Andrena—were visiting Magnus’s eldest sister and her husband in Ayrshire. For another, she knew that Magnus would easily deduce that the blame for this mischief lay entirely with the irrepressible Lizzie.

  Reaching the shore path, Lina scarcely noted the sparkling blue loch spread before her. Deftly turning the dun gelding southward, she felt relief mixed with exasperation when she saw Lizzie again.

  The slim, fourteen-year-old scapegrace rode as if she were part of the horse.

  Lina was a competent horsewoman, but Lizzie was spectacular, especially riding astride in her mossy-green cloak with the mass of her long, curly red hair billowing behind her in a cloud of light red and sunny highlights—confined only by a narrow white ribbon at her nape.

  Lina’s honey-gold hair lay smoothly coiled against the back of her head under a white veil held in place with an inch-wide band that she had embroidered with pink roses. Her hooded cloak was of soft gray wool that her sister Muriella had spun from their own lambs’ wool. Lina had woven the spun yarn into fabric herself.

  It was a fine summer morning. Clouds drifted above and the air was cool, thanks to a breeze blowing off of Ben Lomond. The mountain loomed northeast of them, still wearing its snowcap. The breeze rippled the water of the loch.

  Earlier, in the glen, had Lizzie not been ahead of her and eager to reach the loch, Lina might have paused to remove her cloak. Now, in the chilly breeze, she was glad she had not.

  Lizzie had agreed that they would ride from Bannachra Tower, an ancient Galbraith holding half a mile behind them, only as far as the loch. That she had turned south told Lina that she had intended to do so all along.

  The ever-present, self-critical voice in Lina’s head suggested that she ought to have known Lizzie was up to mischief. She had seen enough in past days to know the lengths to which the younger girl would go to get her way. She knew, too, that Lizzie must have heard her shout, but Lizzie neither paused nor looked back.

  Hoping no one else would hear her, Lina shouted, “Lizzie, stop now!”

  Lizzie pounded on, making Lina wish Mag were with them. He would…

  But it was useless to speculate about what anyone who was miles away might do. Moreover, had Mag or the Laird of Galbraith been with them, Lizzie would never have dared to break her agreement.

  Lina pressed her lips together. No use to repine about that, either. Repining would not stop Lizzie. Had she been Lina’s younger sister, Muriella, Lina would have reined in and waited for her to come to her senses.

  But the only traits Lizzie and Murie shared were occasional lapses of judgment and an oft-spoken desire, common to many people of their age, to enjoy more freedom than they had and to make their own decisions.

  Murie could also take the bit between her teeth, but she would not dash into unknown territory as Lizzie was doing—territory unknown to Lina, at all events. Lizzie was a mystery to her in other ways, too. Although Mag and Andrena had been married for nearly six months, Lachina had known Lizzie for only six days.

  “Lady Lina, dinna ride any farther! Ye mun turn back!”

  Realizing that while she had been lost in thought, the gillie had caught up with her, she looked over her shoulder and said, “I think Lady Elizabeth wants to see if Duchess Isabella has returned to Inchmurrin, Peter. Galbraith told us that the King had given her permission to come home.”

  “We’d ha’ heard summat more if the duchess was there, m’lady.”

  “Aye, perhaps. But we cannot turn back and just abandon her ladyship.”

  “But the pair o’ ye mustna ride south!” Peter exclaimed. “There be danger there. The rebels! The laird gave strict orders, too. Ye ken fine that he did.”

  She did know about the Laird of Galbraith’s orders. She had heard him issue them, and so had Lizzie. But he had issued many orders before his departure the previous day in response to a summons from the Colquhouns of Dunglass.

  That stronghold, Lina knew, lay ten miles south of Loch Lomond on the river Clyde, not far from Dumbarton, the royal castle that the rebels had seized.

  She knew the Colquhouns, because their lands along the Loch of the Long Boats abutted the southern boundary of Tùr Meiloach, her father’s estate.

  Suppressing a sigh, she said, “We must catch up with her, Peter.” Leaning forward, she urged her horse to a faster pace. Thickets of shrubbery and scattered copses of trees dotted the loch shore and the hillside above it. The track they followed disappeared into dense woodland ahead.

  Surely, Lizzie would not…

  “That hibbertie-skippertie lass be a-heading right into them woods, m’lady!”

  “I see her, Peter,” Lina shouted back. “Just ride! And mind your tongue when you speak of the lady Elizabeth!”

  “ ’Tis what Sir Mag calls her,” Peter said. “I ken fine that I should not. But—”

  Evidently realizing he had said more than was wise, he fell silent.

  Lina saw then that Lizzie was slowing her horse. Perhaps she had come to her senses. Even as the thought presented itself, Lina felt a strong sense of unease.

  The woods ahead seemed ominously to darken.

  “Was that not a grand gallop, Lina?” Lizzie called out as Lina and Peter drew near and slowed their mounts.
r />   “What you want, my sweet, is a taste of your brother Mag’s temper,” Lina said, reining in but keeping her eyes on the woods. Her unease was increasing. “Whatever were you thinking to ride off ahead of us like that?”

  Lizzie shot a glance at Peter. Then she looked back at Lina with one eyebrow raised before saying, “Even Mag would not scold me in front of a gillie.”

  “You chose the setting,” Lina said. “You might have considered the fact that, since I’m four years older than you, your lord father will likely blame me for this.”

  “He will not. Nor will Mag. If they were here, they would scold, to be sure. But they are not here. And, by the time they come home, anyone else who may learn of it will have forgotten. So, you need not fratch with me, Lina. I want only to see if the Duchess of Albany is in residence yet.”

  “We can see Inchmurrin’s towers from here, Liz. No banner flies there, let alone a ducal one. Forbye, we are defying your father’s orders. Do you think he will not hear about that?”

  Lizzie shrugged. “Peter is your gillie. He won’t carry tales about me to my father. Will you, Peter?” she added, flashing her lovely smile at him.

  “It won’t matter who tells him,” Lina said.

  “No one will. And we are nearing Balloch now. Since the duchess inherited all of her late father’s properties and Balloch Castle is one of them…”

  “The King is unlikely to let her keep all of Lennox’s properties,” Lina said, trying to ignore her growing sense of urgency and at least sound patient. “Recall that Balloch was a royal estate before the first Duke of Albany gave it to Lennox when Isabella married Albany’s son, Murdoch. We must turn back, Lizzie,” she added.

  “But I’ve never seen a duchess,” Lizzie protested. “Nor have I—”

  “Listen, m’lady!” Peter interjected.

  Lina heard then what he had heard and wished that she had her sister Andrena’s keen ability to sense when others were near her.

  “Horsemen,” she said, looking at Peter.

  He nodded. “Armed ones,” he added. “Ye can hear weapons clanking.”