The Border Trilogy Read online

  “Sir Anthony Babington,” replied a second, more gravelly voice, “though his heart was true, was a young fool, but more important than that is the fact that he was no more than a pawn for that devil Walsingham.”

  A murmur of protest greeted the remark, and Mary Kate searched her memory. The name Babington was unknown to her, but Francis Walsingham she knew to be Queen Elizabeth’s Secretary of State, a man renowned for his devious nature.

  The gravelly voice was speaking again in reply to the protests. “Nay, lads, ’tis true enough. My sources are infallible. ’Twas a wicked plot devised by Walsingham himself to entrap our unfortunate queen, and Babington walked into it just as tidily as you please. In point of fact, Mary’s own courier was Walsingham’s man, and Elizabeth was never in danger from anyone, least of all Babington. Walsingham intercepted all his letters to Mary and hers to him from the outset.”

  Outraged voices demanded to know whether Douglas thought the king would act upon such information, and after he had replied somewhat vaguely, Mary Kate soon learned from the lively conversation that followed that a commission had recently been formed in England to try the Scottish queen for treason as a result of her part in Sir Anthony Babington’s assassination plot against Queen Elizabeth.

  “They meet in the Star Chamber almost as we speak,” said the gravelly voice, “and ’tis certain I am that they will demand her death.”

  Mary Kate froze. Rather than bringing news of the Scottish queen’s imminent release, as she had so naively suggested to Kenneth Gillespie, she realized with horror that Sir William MacGaurie had brought warning of Mary’s imminent danger of execution instead.

  A new voice, louder than the others, demanded just then to know whether perhaps James VI liked being King of Scotland too well to intercede on his mother’s behalf.

  Douglas’s tone was grave. “I do not know what Jamie will do. He treasures his throne but will not want to anger the Scottish people, many of whom, as you all know, are still pressing him to demand Mary’s release. However, you must also recognize the difficulties encountered whenever one attempts to make him comprehend the power he holds against Elizabeth. As we all know, he could create a deal of trouble for her should he decide to cast his lot with France or Spain against her, but he sets great store by the alliance he signed only months ago and fears to annoy her lest she leave her precious crown elsewhere and not to him. Nonetheless, I agree that MacGaurie’s news is ominous. Jamie must be told at once so that whatever can be done may be done quickly. I warn you, however, that I doubt even this news will convince him that Elizabeth is capable of signing Mary’s death warrant or that of any other monarch. For her to do so would be to set a most undesirable precedent.”

  The gravelly voice said bleakly, “It is impossible now that both Mary and Elizabeth shall continue to live.”

  The tangle of voices rose again as Mary Kate leaned weakly against the door, amazed by what she had heard and trembling to think that she had listened in upon such a conversation—or upon any conversation, for that matter, for she had been strictly taught to regard eavesdropping as an unthinkably disreputable action. A highland servant caught with an ear to his master’s door was assumed to be a traitor attempting to gain information to be used against the clan. For such an act, she had heard of people being summarily executed without question or trial. Though she had reason to believe that listening at doors was not everywhere so violently disapproved, such behavior was, according to her Aunt Aberfoyle, consistently regarded as an unforgivable social solecism. Surely, she thought, she must have greatly overindulged herself in her uncle’s mulled claret to have been guilty of such a contemptible act.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Douglas’s voice. “There is little else we can accomplish tonight, though my own lads would do well to forgo the festivities below in favor of sleep, for we leave for Edinburgh at dawn.” When someone suggested that more haste than that was in order, he laughed. “We will make greater speed by waiting for this storm to lift. Besides, there is a wee, winsome armful waiting to offer me the comforts of her bed and ’twould be ungentlemanly to disappoint her.”

  Furious to realize that he must be speaking of her, Mary Kate snapped upright and nearly pushed open the door to contradict him on the spot. But then, cheeks burning, she came to her senses, flipped her skirts around, and hurried back to her own chamber, sped along the length of the gallery by mortifying echoes of appreciative male laughter.

  “How dare he!” she demanded of the ambient air as she snapped the door shut behind her and slammed the stout iron bolt into place. Pacing wrathfully, she kicked off her satin shoes, letting them fall where they would, and told herself bitterly that she ought to have expected nothing less from such a man. Boast how he might of maternal relations in the highlands, Douglas himself was naught but a lowly, uncivilized borderer.

  Had she not heard all her life that such men held women cheap? Had it not been recommended on more than one occasion that she ought to thank the good Lord for having granted her the privilege of being born in the highlands, where women were properly respected, where they could own property in their own names, where they might even become clan chieftains? Border women, like Englishwomen, were said to be regarded by their men as inferior beings, as mere chattel, in fact. Even among the upper classes the women were expected to bow before their men or to follow several paces after them, to obey them unquestioningly, and to have no intelligent thoughts or opinions of their own. Was it any wonder then that Douglas, clearly a power among borderers, should arrogantly assume that he might command any woman to his bed merely because he wanted her? She had been foolish to be swayed by his charm, to think he might be different. Clearly, he was just the sort of man she ought to have expected him to be. But he would learn a lesson tonight. He would not trifle successfully with Mary Kate MacPherson.

  A fire crackled in the stone fireplace set into the north wall of her high-ceilinged bedchamber, and candles in pewter holders stood ready to be lit upon a table by the door as well as on the candle table near the cupboardlike bed opposite the fire. No chambermaid awaited her pleasure, for the young maidservant who had accompanied her from home had succumbed to a feverish cold and Mary Kate had sent her to sleep in the servants’ hall so as not to contract it from her. She had intended to send for one of her aunt’s maids, but now, with Douglas on his way at any moment, she had no wish to do so.

  Beside the candle on the table near the door, there was also a ewer of water, a basin, and a flagon of wine, but Mary Kate had use for none of these items at present. Lighting the candles, then hastily pulling off her gown and flinging it onto a back stool in a black-edged, saffron-colored heap, she snatched the pins from her hair and let the red-gold tresses fall in a cloud of ringlets over her bare shoulders to her waist. Next she removed her petticoats and underbodice and reached for her night rail. Slipping the flimsy lawn garment over her head and flipping her hair free, she strode to the court cupboard and took out her fur-lined cloak, sheepskin mules, and her hairbrush, muttering unflattering descriptions of the Douglas character to herself as she wrapped the cloak about her slender body, shoved her bare feet into the mules, and sat down at the dressing table to yank the brush in hasty, rhythmic strokes through her curls.

  Moments later she stepped to the tall, oak-shuttered window near the northwest corner of the room and, using the nearby latchpole, unhooked the shutters’ high, upper latches. Leaning the unwieldy pole against the wall again, she dealt manually with the bottom hooks and pulled the heavy shutters wide, letting in the night’s chill but also revealing the spectacular scene beyond the stone balcony’s snow-frosted parapet.

  Large, puffy black clouds still raced across the night sky, but the snow had stopped, and whenever the moon appeared through a break in the clouds, it bathed the white landscape below with a magical, silvery light. The temperature remained extremely cold, however, and with the brief thought that her relatives’ money might better have been spent on thick, leaded glass
than on balconies for every window, Mary Kate blew out her candles, flung off her cloak, and dived beneath the thick quilts piled atop the high, curtained, cupboardlike bed. Wriggling to get warm, she listened carefully for sounds of approach from the long gallery.

  Several persons passed, but nearly ten full minutes elapsed before the door latch rattled and Douglas called to her in a low, seductive voice. She held her breath, a tiny smile playing upon her lips. He called again, more loudly, and rapped upon the door. Silently, she waited until, with an oath and a hefty blow of his fist upon the offending portal, he moved away down the gallery. Then, with a final wriggle, she turned onto her stomach and prepared to sleep the sleep of the innocent.

  Fifteen minutes later she had reached that drowsy state which is neither sleep nor wakefulness when a muffled scraping sound and a heavy thump from the balcony brought her fully alert. Surely, she thought without moving a muscle, that had been a human sound, perhaps even a step; and, as fear raced through her body, the light in the chamber dimmed. Something or someone standing in the tall, arched window had blocked the moonlight.

  Though her eyes were open, she dared not move her head to look directly at the intruder lest her movement startle him, for her first conjecture was that a thief had decided to take advantage of her slumber to search for booty among her belongings. But even as the thought stirred, she wondered what thief would dare attempt to enter a window fully thirty feet and more above the ground by way of a snow-crusted balcony.

  Just then the intruder moved past the bed, and through quickly lowered lashes she saw his outline clearly against the glow of the dying fire. She could not mistake that tall figure, those broad, muscular shoulders, that easy stride. Indeed, he moved toward her now as though he were in his own chamber rather than hers. When he paused beside her, she shut her eyes more tightly, then had all she could do to keep from holding her breath. She breathed slowly and deeply, hoping that if he thought she was asleep he would go away again.

  She sensed that he had moved nearer, then heard a rattling sound from the candle table near the head of the bed. He moved away again, and opening her eyes to slits, she saw him kneel before the dying fire. He gave it a stir with a kindling stick from the basket on the hearth, then tossed the stick onto the leaping flames and lit the candle he had taken from the table. Standing again, he turned more quickly than she had anticipated, and when she saw that he was grinning at her, she turned onto her back and sat up, clutching the bedclothes to her chin.

  “Get out,” she said, pleased that the words came clearly, even calmly, from her tightening throat.

  His grin widened. “Ah, lassie, you mustn’t be angry. You ought to have had more faith in me. I’ll grant I was a long time coming, but you knew my business was urgent. ’Twas right cruel to lock your door against me.”

  “I don’t want you here,” she said carefully. “I never did. You merely thought to take advantage of my innocence.”

  He chuckled. “There was no mistaking your invitation, sweetheart. And as for believing you had really gone to sleep, I am not such a fool. I’d have been angrier had I not chanced to recall both your uncle’s fancy for underscoring his windows with balconies and the highlander’s unnatural love of night air. To leave one’s shutters ajar is a dangerous and unhealthy practice, as all civilized persons are aware, but I was right glad to recall that misguided highland habit this night.”

  “There is nothing misguided about it,” she informed him tartly. “’Tis merely that men who learn to make do with naught but a plaid betwixt themselves and the elements are a hardier lot than you weak-kneed borderers.” Nevertheless, she told herself, the habit could indeed prove dangerous, as she had just discovered. When Douglas moved nearer the bed, she wriggled back away from him. “What are you doing?”

  “What I came to do,” he said. When she squirmed to the back of the bed, he set the candlestick on the candle table, placed both hands on his slim hips, and looked down at her with a frown. “This game becomes wearisome, lass. I’ve proved my desire for you by risking my hide in a leap of at least a dozen feet from one damned balcony to another—”

  “They are not so far apart as that,” she said, in a voice that was beginning to fail her at last. “Not more than four feet, maybe six at the most.”

  “I am persuaded they are twelve feet apart at the very least,” he said firmly. “And the parapets are blanketed with icy snow. Therefore, I have risked life and limb. Moreover, I have apologized for tarrying, though it was not my fault and it is not my habit to apologize. So, come now, sweetheart, comfort me.” With these words, he put one knee upon the bed and leaned toward her, his right hand outstretched.

  “No!” Shrinking away from him, she bumped hard against the wall. He paused then, his hand still held out toward her, and in the light from the fire, she saw his eyes narrow and experienced a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Since she knew she dared not make him angry while he loomed over her like that and since he didn’t seem open to reason, she blurted the first thought that came into her head. “Would you not like something to warm your insides first, sir? There is a flagon of my uncle’s excellent wine on that table next to the door.”

  “But I don’t—” He hesitated, watching her closely for a long moment. Then he smiled and, to her great relief, moved off the bed. “I see,” he said. “You are not quite so experienced as you have led me to believe. Well, that is no bad thing, lassie. Mayhap a taste of the wine will do us both good.”

  Picking up the candlestick again, Douglas turned toward the door, and with the merest rustle of rushes from beneath the feather bed, Mary Kate scrambled out at the far end the moment his back was turned. It was but a few steps from there to the wall by the open window. Snatching up the latchpole without a sound, she flew across the cold floor on silent bare feet, coming up behind him just as he set down the candlestick and reached for the flagon. Without thought for consequence and with a strength she would not have believed possible, she whipped the cumbersome five-foot pole through the air as though it had been no longer or heavier than a riding whip.

  Douglas sensed movement behind him at last, but too late. As he turned, the metal end of the pole caught him solidly on the side of his head, and with a look of blank astonishment, he collapsed like a tower of bairns’ blocks at her feet.

  Mary Kate stared at him for a long moment before the horrible thought that she might have killed him intruded upon her triumph. But once she had ascertained that he still breathed, she was conscious only of vexation that he had fallen across the doorway. Moving him proved to be no easy task, and by the time she had managed to drag him into the empty long gallery, he had begun to grumble and stir in a way that frightened her witless.

  Whisking herself back into her bedchamber, she bolted the door, flew to relatch and bolt the shutters, and then leaped back into bed. Not until she had yanked the covers over her head did she realize how violently she was shivering, and whether that was from cold or from reaction to her own daring, she had not the faintest idea. Moments later, feeling stifled, she lowered the quilt to her chin just as the stout door to the bedchamber shook to a thunderous kick. The measured sound of retreating footsteps followed. Then came blessed silence. Douglas had recovered sufficiently to take himself off to bed.

  2

  MARY KATE AWOKE THE next morning to the extremely welcome news that Sir Adam Douglas and his party had left Critchfield Manor soon after sunrise. She departed for home herself that day, expecting, indeed hoping fervently, never to set eyes upon the handsome borderer again. The thought that she might likewise never again see Kenneth Gillespie did not so much as cross her mind, nor would it have troubled her had it done so.

  In the months that followed, she stayed near Speyside House, although for a time there were still parties and other amusements to be enjoyed. Christmas came and went, followed by January and February with the worst of the heavy winter’s weather. Then, some weeks after the dreadful event itself, news of Queen Mary’s
execution reached the highlands, reminding Mary Kate briefly of her last night at Critchfield Manor. The story was enhanced by such lurid details as that Mary had worn a scarlet petticoat, that she had been as beautiful as ever despite the surprising discovery that she had been completely bald beneath her wig, and that she had shown no fear when she knelt at the block. Although such minutiae fascinated her, Mary Kate spoke not one word of the matter to her father or to anyone else. Douglas and the others having obviously failed in their efforts to save the Scottish queen, the incidents at Critchfield now seemed remote and her knowledge, in view of the manner by which it had been obtained, somehow a thing better left unmentioned.

  Her social life dimmed during the fierce winter months and was slow to improve even when it began to look as though spring had not forgotten the highlands, because her father continued to insist that the roads were too treacherous for travel. Though Mary Kate found many pastimes to amuse her at home, she longed for the gaiety and excitement of the house parties; however, such treats were denied her until the latter end of April when a misunderstanding involving herself and the son of one of her father’s tenants finally caused big, gray-bearded Duncan MacPherson to change his mind about keeping his daughter close to home. Angrily he packed her off to visit her Murdoch cousins ten miles to the north, and since he sent her on her way with the ominous warning that she was not only to behave herself but also to put the thought of marrying anyone straight out of her head for the present time, it came as a profound shock to Mary Kate to be greeted upon her return with the news that Duncan himself had found her a husband.

  Being neither a tactful nor a diplomatic man, he blurted out his announcement less than half an hour after she entered the house. Though Mary Kate had changed from her traveling dress into a simple light-green woolen gown before joining him in the little parlor that had been her mother’s favorite room, she had not yet taken a seat, and upon hearing his words she went perfectly still, staring blankly at him, her hands tightly gripping each other at her waist. Although the room was lit by only two branches of candles and the dancing orange-gold flames in the small hooded fireplace, her pallor would have been noted by a more observant man.