by Paula Quinn
“Then why did ye spend the morning with Oxford? Do ye care fer him, truly?”
She could tell him she did and he would ask her to leave. Part of her told her she should do it. She couldn’t bear falling in love with him again, dreaming of her life with him in the Highlands, and his choosing England over her yet again. She should listen to her head and walk away from him before he hurt her again, but her heart told her to stay.
“Nae, I dinna’ care fer him. I went with him because he had information about the Camer—” She stopped as something she’d missed while speaking to Elizabeth dawned on her.
“He knew what to say.” She hadn’t realized she spoke aloud and looked up at Connor to find him waiting to hear the rest. Och, he wasn’t going to like it.
“About the Cameronians,” he said before she did.
She nodded and watched as the same conclusion, along with a sickened look, settled over him.
“His sister wanted time with ye, Connor, and she used him to keep me away. He found me on my way to ye and he knew what to say to make me go with him instead.”
“But, Mairi”—he leaned up in the bed and looked at her gravely—“how could he know who yer enemies are? What have ye told him?”
“Nothing. I have never even mentioned the Cameronians to him.”
“Are ye certain?”
“Aye. I have only spoken of them to ye.” She thought about it for a moment. Then, “He may have overheard us. Or he may have taken notice of my interest in them when I spoke with the Duke of Queensberry.”
He was about to say something when a soft knock came at the door. They both looked up at Claire as she stepped into the room.
“Is all well?” She smiled at her son, and then at Mairi. She waited while they nodded before she regained her seat. “Good. Now, I have something to confess to the both of you.” She sat up straighter and folded her hands in front of her. “I am guilty of doing something quite wicked, and the queen has been my accomplice.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Mairi left the Huntleys’ lodgings an hour later feeling a bit bewildered and not all that pleased with Claire, or her confession.
She knew Claire loved her and had wanted her to reunite with Connor, but to plot with the queen of England to see it done? It was devious! Why, they had even gone so far as to involve Captain Sedley in their schemes to make them jealous of each other. Ridiculous. Mairi didn’t posses a shred of jealousy in her body. Well, mayhap, she did if wanting to take a dagger to Elizabeth de Vere counted for anything. She thought of Connor, propped up in bed, looking rather slighted when he asked his mother if all her scheming meant that Lady Elizabeth was not as taken with him as he thought, and then his bemused smile when he caught Mairi glaring at him. He was, though, genuinely pleased with the news that she wasn’t truly going to be promised to Lord Oxford.
And what of that wee worm of a man? How did Henry know to distract her from visiting Connor by using the Cameronians? Had he heard her interest when she was speaking to Queensberry? If so, why had he not said something sooner? She paused in her steps as another thought occurred to her. Did Henry somehow suspect her of fighting against Richard Cameron’s Lowland followers? How could he? She hadn’t put a single question to him concerning them or the Covenanters.
Nae, he didn’t know about her belonging to the militia. No one did save for Colin, Claire, and, now, Connor.
Och, Connor. Mairi was happy that he lived—so happy, in fact, that she felt giddy. A disgusting trait and one she hadn’t felt in seven years. She had learned to guard her heart well. Never again would she allow a man to make her so happy that she would be completely miserable without him. But nothing could have prepared her for seeing Connor again, hearing his slow, thick drawl when he told her that she had meant everything to him, for being kissed by him again, and now to discover him jealous after so many years. Damnation, how could she let him dissolve all her defenses with nothing but a smile cast her way? She needed her defenses, had relied on them to see her through the long days and even longer nights alone in her bed when other lasses her age were already wed with a bairn under each arm.
She didn’t want to love Connor Grant again, but she no longer wanted to hate him either. So what if he loved England? They could somehow find a way to remain friends. Couldn’t they? Then again, did friends want to spring from their chairs and kiss the other’s dimples, his chin, his lips while thanking God over and over for sparing his life? Did friends take such absolute pleasure in the other’s jealousy?
She sighed on her way down the stairs, unsure if it was joy or dread making her heart crash within her. If Connor thought to win her again, should she let him? Could she ever trust his promises again?
“Miss MacGregor?”
She turned and reached for the banister when she saw Prince William behind her. Would he push her down the stairs in front of the king’s guests?
“Yer Grace?”
“How is Captain Grant faring?” He offered her a cordial smile beneath his nose. “Any better today?”
“Quite.”
“That is good news,” he said, reaching her and extending his arm. “Where are you off to?”
She looked at his arm warily. He didn’t like her, but he wasn’t so foolish as to cause her injury out in the open. And she sure as hell didn’t want him to think her afraid of him. She accepted with a polite smile.
“Just off fer a wee bit of fresh air. ’Tis overly warm in Captain Grant’s sick room.”
“Ah, to the garden then?” Before she had time to accept or decline, he picked up his steps, taking her with him. “Allow me to escort you. I could use a bit of air myself.”
Now, why would he want her company? Did he think she knew something that would aid him in his quest? Did he think her fool enough to tell him? She went along, deciding his queries could be quite telling. Besides, there were more pairs of eyes in the Privy Garden than anywhere else in the palace. If the prince meant to harm her, he would likely send someone else to do it for him, the same way he had likely sent Admiral Gilles to kill the king’s daughter. Coward. If he meant to sit on the throne, she meant to stop him.
“I would be honored by yer company, Yer Grace.” And mayhap learn a thing or two more about ye.
“What think you of London?” he asked her as they stepped outside together.
“Everything here is verra structured and proper. Even the trees grow in tall orderly rows.” They shared a chuckle looking at the trees on either side of the path. “ ’Tis warm and there are not verra many hills.” She could think of a dozen more things, but refrained, preferring him to do the talking.
“I daresay, my homeland is not as balmy. You though,” he added in a softer tone, bending his lips to her ear, “are like a refreshing spring.”
So surprised was she by his intimacy, she nearly stepped back. What in blazes was he about? “Yer Grace, ye flatter.” She angled her head up to look him in his eyes and curled one tip of her mouth.
Aye, she’d learned over the years that being a woman had its advantages, even if they were a bit demeaning. Still, they served in gaining her information from men who had reason to be tight-lipped. She almost hated herself for wielding her wiles so well.
“I speak true.” The prince grinned, thinking he had her as easily as the English trollops sneering at her with her arm coiled around royalty. “It is not every day that I find someone who will give me an honest opinion on matters of the church—and never one so lovely as yourself.”
She turned back to the path before them, unable to gaze at him one more moment than she had to. “Perhaps I can offer ye more forthright opinions then. Ye have but to ask.”
“Indeed.” He stopped when they came to a brook that ran into the Thames, partially shielded from the sun by a stand of tall oak. “Tell me, what do you think of the French?”
She blinked her eyes at him. “The French, my lord?”
“Yes. You spoke of God at the king’s table a few nights ago and I
was curious what you might have to say about King Louis’s Declaration of the Clergy of France? Surely, you have heard of it? In which royal authority is increased at the expense of papal power?”
“I am afraid I know nothing of it,” Mairi admitted, having no idea where this talk was headed, but guarded and certain that it was headed somewhere.
“I assumed that with you living with Admiral Stuart’s sister, Lady Huntley, you might be familiar. Of course you are aware that he has been living in France for some time now.”
Was this what he was after? Information that might aid him in his fight with the French? It was clever of him she had to admit. If anyone could supply him with what he wanted to know about his enemy, it was Claire’s brother. But, she reasoned, why did he not simply question Graham, or even Claire? She remembered why a moment later. He thought her rash and foolish, easily won over by pretty words.
“Sadly, we havena’ seen the high admiral in many years.”
“Lady Huntley receives no letters in… where is that your family lives in the Highlands?” he inquired innocently.
Now why would he want to know that? No one in England, save for Connor Grant, knew of Camlochlin or its whereabouts on Skye, and since she had arrived, no one seemed the slightest bit interested in where they might find the MacGregors. She tilted her head, assessing William before she answered. Could he have somehow found out that his schemes to kill the king’s firstborn daughter had failed and that she was now in the MacGregors’ care? She felt the urge to look around her. Had any of these people arrived at Whitehall recently? Had they heard rumor that not all had perished in the flames of St. Christopher’s?
“Alas, my lord,” she said placidly, “my kin have little or no land. During the proscription we lost ownership of our territories in Glen Orchy.
“In truth, we are nomads and have never settled in one particular place. Admiral Stuart doesna’ send letters because there is no place to send them.”
William stared at her archly. “Lady Huntley does not strike me as the type of woman who would be satisfied without a roof over her head.”
“Lady Huntley, as I am certain ye already know, spent many of her earlier years living in the forest.”
“Yes.” The prince crinkled his enormous nose as if a sudden and unpleasant odor just wafted across it. “I had heard that about her.” He folded one arm behind his back and with the other twirled the fringes of his lace lapel. He picked up his steps again, seeming to be mulling things over in his mind, weighing different possibilities… or strategies on how best to proceed with his next question.
Mairi walked beside him and waited patiently. She watched the swans glide across the surface of the lake, then looked up at a bright red bird fluttering from one tree to the other. She had to admit, partly because she was friends with Connor again and her heart felt light enough to fly, that parts of England were rather pretty.
“Miss MacGregor.”
She stopped walking and then realized that the prince had stopped before her.
“I wonder,” he said, moving toward her, “if you know why King James took your brother with him to meet secretly with Parliament?”
She caught her smile before it faded. Here’s what he was after. Of course! Then he was involved with the massacre at the abbey! “I wasna’ aware that the meeting was a secret.”
“Yes, they were to meet next month.”
“Well, that I canna’ answer, my lord, but I suspect that the king took my brother with him because he recognized that Colin could likely beat any one of his men in the lists.”
“Hmmm,” the prince agreed. “I’ve seen the young man in the tiltyard. His skills are impressive, if not a bit brutal. But I wonder…”
Whatever else he meant to ask her was halted by the sky opening and spewing its torrent down on their heads as suddenly as the cool breeze that preceded it.
Mairi gasped and smiled as the cold droplets soaked her and the guests around her ran for cover. It was the same rain that fell at home, just as abrupt, just as hard. She inhaled the fresh fragrances of the earth coming awake. Finally, it rained in England in the spring.
“I daresay, Miss MacGregor,” the prince said, looking around for one of his men to cover him and finding none, “perhaps we might finish our speech another time?”
She smiled at the raindrops dripping off the tip of his nose and nodded an instant before he fled back to the palace.
Chapter Twenty-three
Mairi spent most of the dark, dreary day with the Grants, visiting Connor, and no matter how gloomy the weather, his laughter brightened the room.
She watched him when his men visited his bed and teased him about being clopped over the head and rendered helpless like that night’s supper. She watched the way he lifted his brow with a flash of unexpected humor. How he opened his mouth and tossed back his head when he laughed. She loved his face and the speed at which it changed with a dozen different emotions, all while his smile and his voice remained as languid as a summer day. She realized, quite happily and with a bit of astonishment, that he was not nearly as open and charming with the women who visited him. Och, the dimples were there—they always were—but his smiles were tempered with… boredom.
Even the queen saw in him only what he wanted her to see—a dutiful, loyal captain. Still, it did not stop Mary of Modena from innocently flirting with him. Mairi did not mind. He was growing stronger each day, more vibrant in his bed. No woman with blood in her veins could ignore even his slightest, most casual glance. Lady Elizabeth certainly could not, in spite of her seething anger over Mairi’s presence when she visited—which was often. Lady Hollingsworth practically had to be hauled out the door two long hours after she had arrived. Connor did not tease or seduce either of them but kept his smiles polite and his words brief.
“They hate that I am here with ye,” Mairi told him on the second night of the downpour. They were finally alone and now that they were, she was having a hard time remembering what she had been waiting two days to tell him. She walked around the room, touching this thing and that, trying not to look at him.
“So?” He lay there, his bedsheet riding down his bare, hard torso, one arm tossed casually behind his head like a sinful angel come to tempt her to his bed.
“So.” She picked up one of his medicinal bottles and held it to her nose. “They are angry that ye dinna’ show them more interest because I am here.”
“Mairi,” he said, hooking his mouth and forcing her gaze to the other side of the room, “I don’t show them interest when ye’re not here either.”
He made her heart flip with a few mere words. Against her will, for she didn’t want him to see how he affected her, she turned back to him. “How many times have they visited in my absence then?”
An intimate smile teased his lips and she knew she failed. Oddly, it made his victory even more alluring than the weapon that was Connor Grant’s tongue. Ah, but he wielded it like an expert against her, whether in challenge, or humor, or to utter so casually words most other men might find difficult to admit.
“Well, now that ’tis a wee bit cooler inside, ye won’t be leaving so often.”
“I might not,” she conceded. “Then again, wandering about the palace alone has afforded me an opportunity to speak privately with Prince William, so, I might.”
He sat up and her eyes moved of their own accord over the ripples in his hard belly. “Ye spoke with him alone?”
“Aye, and please dinna’ look so angry. ’Tis insulting.”
His mouth opened then closed again an instant after he visibly rejected what he wanted to say. Mairi hoped it had nothing to do with her being a lass.
“Really, Connor, ye mustna’ fret over it. I said nothing that would put me or my kin in jeopardy.”
“He’s clever, Mairi.”
“He was desperately inadequate.”
When he grinned at her, it was thankfully recognizing her for the warrior she was—either that or he was laughing at her c
laim. When she backed away from the bed, he beckoned her back by patting the mattress beside him.
“Tell me how ye slew him, Mairi.”
She didn’t realize she was smiling until she went to him and sat, forgetting everything else but the joy of sharing her secrets with him. “Swear to me yer fealty to our Catholic king first.”
He rolled his eyes, but did as she asked.
“Connor, he was involved fer certain with the massacre at St. Christopher’s.”
“How do ye know?”
“He practically told me,” she said, eager to tell him all. “He thought he was being clever, but his queries were as obvious as the nose on his face.”
He laughed, and so did she. Hell, she had not laughed with him in so terribly long. It was like dancing without her feet touching the ground. She told him about the prince’s queries having to do with France and his uncle, and how he tried with failed subtlety to find out where their kin lived, and finally why Colin had accompanied the king to Edinburgh.
“It had to be him, Connor. It all makes sense. Why is he so curious about my kin? Dinna’ ye see?” she asked, then continued before he could agree or not. “Rob feared Miss Montgomery’s enemies might be among the king’s guests. That is why he asked ye not to tell the king of his daughter’s rescue. When ye arrived and my kin picked up and left, it likely roused William’s suspicions that something was amiss. Then, when James fled in the cover of night with another MacGregor supposedly to meet with Parliament a month early, he feared the worst. The king’s daughter had to be alive somewhere with the MacGregors. ’Twas the only thing that would make James leave England without explanation.”
Her eyes followed him when Connor leaned back on the bed to allow her words to seep in. Silently, she took in each nuance of muscle that graced him. After the excitement of telling him what she had discovered was exhausted, her thoughts shifted back to baser curiosities. Did he want to kiss her again? How would the golden bristles on his face feel against her throat, her breasts? She blinked realizing that he was looking at her.