The Laird's Choice

by Amanda Scott

  “Parliament met on the twelfth of March, as you know,” he said. “We nearly did not reach Jamie in time, because although we did delay Pharlain and reduce his own force significantly, he and the other rebel lairds had a head start on us. Also, we had to skirt Murdoch’s castle in Doune, where the rebels were gathering.”

  “One of Parlan’s men told you they would go there, aye,” she said. “But you did get to Perth in time.”

  “In time, aye, but barely. Sithee, this meeting of Parliament had lasted days. Before Jamie became King, meetings lasted an afternoon or a day. But he had much to discuss, including one gey controversial notion. To aid him in establishing his rule of law, he wants to appoint advocates for the poor without cost, to plead their cases in his courts. There was long discussion and much dissent, because not one lord or anyone else had ever heard of such a thing. But, in the end, Jamie prevailed.”

  “When did you and Ian, and the others, get there?”

  “Late on the evening of the eighth day, only a day before the rebels, who had waited near Doune for others besides Pharlain. Thanks to the men from Arrochar who yielded to your father, we had gathered enough evidence and testimony for Jamie’s needs. But the rebels had a huge army, including Highlanders, Islesmen, most of Lennox’s Lomondside lairds, as well as the Bishop Finlay of Argyll, a host of Campbell-MacGregors, Grahams, and others.”

  “Still, his grace had allies of his own.”

  “Aye, sure, the Douglas, Scotts, Angus, the Bishop of St. Andrews, Lauder, and others. All of them had followed his command, as we did, and brought small tails of men with them. Only his cousin Alex Stewart, who is Lord of the North and Earl of Mar, ignored the royal restrictions on noblemen’s tails. Sithee, Alex sees himself as Jamie’s equal, but his refusal turned out to be a good thing, because he is also one of the few Stewarts loyal to his grace. So, it was Alex who took Stirling Castle and Stirling Bridge back from the rebels. He did it with a ruse, which impressed our friend Ian Colquhoun. Alex also arrested Murdoch and his son, Lord Alexander Stewart. There was great battle, though, before we defeated them all.”

  “Did Murdoch lead the rebels?”

  “Nay, Lord Alexander did. Sithee, their plan was to cut Jamie off from his allies in the south, kill him, hold Stirling—castle and bridge—and seize Dumbarton. On Jamie’s death, Murdoch was to become King of Scots, and Lord Walter Stewart was to become Governor of the Realm.”

  “Murdoch’s reign would not have lasted long then, I’d wager.”

  “I agree, and so does Jamie. Walter would likely have eliminated Murdoch at the first opportunity and taken the throne. But the possibility that either Murdoch or Walter will become King of Scots no longer exists.”

  “They are both dead, then.”

  “Aye, but Jamie adjourned Parliament because of the rebellion.”

  “Adjourned?”

  “The lords of Parliament had the same reaction, since no King of Scots had done that before. But Jamie said that he still had work for this Parliament to do and that no one could attend to business with a rebellion going on. So, they reconvened just days ago in the great hall at Stirling Castle. Jamie and others presented their case there against Murdoch, Lennox, Lord Walter Stewart, and his brother, Lord Alexander. When the lords of Parliament found them all guilty of high treason, Jamie ordered Walter beheaded straightaway, the others the following morning.”

  “But not James Mòr Stewart,” Andrena said thoughtfully. “One wonders how he came to be so different from the other Stewarts of Albany.”

  “Apparently not so different after all,” Mag said grimly.

  Andrena stared at him with instant concern for the bleakness she sensed in him. “What is it, sir? Not Ian or Colquhoun, I hope. What happened?”

  “More than a sennight before the rebels gathered near Doune, Murdoch and Lennox arrived in Perth, hoping to look innocent,” he said. “But when we met the rebels in battle, Lord Alexander Stewart was leading them with James Mòr at his side. By my troth, lass, James Mòr rode right at Jamie and tried to murder him.”

  “Jamie led his own army, then.”

  “Aye, sure, he did. The man is an expert horseman and a veritable fiend with a sword in hand. He took three men down by himself and was lunging for James Mòr when the royal charger slipped and fell with him.”

  Andrena gasped. “Did you see that?”

  “I did, for I was riding close behind him. I’d reined toward James Mòr, but when I saw the King fall, I rode up to him instead, to keep others away whilst he remounted. I expected him to blame me for letting James Mòr get away, but…”

  “Surely not!” she exclaimed, ignoring the strange uncertainty, even sadness, that she felt emanating from him then.

  “Nay,” Mag said with an astonishingly sheepish look. “He knighted me, lass. Ye’ll be Lady Galbraith-MacFarlan now, I fear.”

  “Both names?”

  “Aye, sure, and by his grace’s command, for he dubbed me so, with both.”

  “Does my father know that yet?”

  “Nay, it will be a wee surprise for Andrew. But I trow he won’t hold it against me. I came to find you before I told anyone else, mo chridhe. Do I get nae reward for such thoughtfulness?”

  “There is doubtless much more that you’ve not told me,” she said. “What of your brother Patrick? If you saw James Mòr, did you see Patrick with him?”

  He hesitated, his sadness and disappointment making his answer for him. Then he said, “He was there, aye, and Pharlain escaped during the battle. But I can tell you the rest later. There is nowt to dread for anyone close to you or your family. Moreover, my father, Colquhoun, Ian, and I all survived without serious injury.”

  “But there is something more that you fear will trouble me,” she said.

  “I can see that this gift of yours is going to cause trouble,” he muttered.

  She was silent.

  “Very well, I told you that James Mòr, Patrick, and Pharlain escaped. What I did not tell you is that they and their men captured Dumbarton. Ian’s cousin, Gregor Colquhoun, is dead, and Ian has returned to Stirling to take the news to Jamie.”

  She sensed there was more and that he would somehow be much involved in whatever was to come. But if the royal burgh and castle of Dumbarton were in rebel hands, she also knew that what he needed most right then was a welcoming kiss and loving attention from a wife grateful beyond words for his safe return.

  Accordingly, she scooted close to him, dried her feet with the hem of her skirt, and let him pull her into his arms.

  “Ah, lass,” he said, bending to possess her lips with his own.

  Soon his plaid was off and spread beneath them, and he was feasting himself on her eager body, caressing all of it that he could reach, unlacing her and baring her breasts to his impatient hands and lips.

  “How I have missed you, my love,” she murmured, when one of his hands moved to touch her below.

  “It is good for a wife to miss her husband,” he said with a smile in his voice. “Show me how much you have missed me, mo chridhe.”

  Since she could detect every change of feeling in him now, she quickly discovered that she could stir him to a certain point and then try something else. Such wee frustrations as these tactics caused seemed to enflame his senses.

  Recalling next how his lips and tongue had driven her nearly mad at times, she tried similar techniques on him, with exceptionally satisfactory results.

  “Lass, lass,” he said breathlessly, “I can see that there are benefits to your gift, but we must find a more comfortable place.”

  “But I don’t want to stop,” she said. “Come inside me now, love.”

  Mag needed no further invitation than that, nor would he… ever.

  Please turn this page for a preview of the second book in Amanda Scott’s Lairds of the Loch series.

  Title TK

  Available in TK

  Chapter 1

  Scotland, Loch Lomond, Summer 1425

  Li
zzie, no! Come back!”

  Dismayed to see her young companion spur the bay gelding she rode to a gallop and rapidly disappear southward—the opposite direction from the way they were supposed to turn when the Glen Fruin path met the one along Loch Lomond’s southwestern shore—eighteen-year-old Lachina MacFarlan gritted her teeth, warned herself to remain calm, and urged her own dun-colored horse to a faster pace.

  A male voice from behind and above 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 give more than fleeting thought to the likely reaction her good-brother, Sir Magnus Galbraith-MacFarlan, would have when he heard—as he certainly would—that his little sister had broken her word yet again.

  Although 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—Lina’s older sister Andrena—were visiting Mag’s sister Wilhelmina and her husband, in Ayrshire. For another, Lina knew that Mag was astute enough to deduce that the blame for this mischief, if he learned of it, lay entirely with the irrepressible Lizzie.

  Reaching the shore path, Lina scarcely heeded the sparkling blue expanse of the splendid loch spread before her but deftly turned the dun gelding onto the main track and felt mixed relief and exasperation when she saw Lizzie ahead of her again.

  The slim, fourteen-year-old scapegrace rode as if she were part of the horse, Lina thought with a touch of envy. She was a competent horsewoman, but Lizzie was spectacular, especially riding astride in her mossy-green cloak with her mass of long, curly red hair—confined only by a white ribbon at the nape of her neck—billowing behind her in a great cloud of light red and sunny, gilding highlights.

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

  The day was cool, thanks to the chilly breeze blowing off of Ben Lomond, just northeast of them and still snow-capped. The breeze rippled the waters of the loch, but the sun was shining in a clear sky. While riding down the glen, had Lizzie not been riding ahead of her, eager to reach the loch, Lachina might have paused to doff her cloak. Now, in the chilly breeze, she was glad she had not.

  Before seeing Lizzie turn south, she had assumed that the younger girl might ride north to the cluster of cottages, or clachan, on the west shore of the loch, opposite her father’s tower on the islet known as Inch Galbraith. Lizzie had said earlier that she wanted to do so and had paid no heed when Lina had suggested that such a distance might mean they would worry Lizzie’s aunt, the lady Margaret Galbraith of Bannachra Tower. The tower, an ancient Galbraith possession, stood on a rise above Fruin Water, halfway up the glen.

  That Lizzie had turned southward instead meant that she’d had a destination other than the clachan in mind all along. The ever-present, self-critical voice in Lina’s head suggested that she ought to have guessed that the younger girl was up to mischief, that she’d seen enough of Lizzie in the past few days to be aware of the lengths to which she would go to get her own way. Lina also knew that Lizzie must have heard her shout, although Lizzie had not paused or looked back.

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

  But Lizzie pounded on, making Lina wish that Sir Magnus were with them, because he would doubtless…

  That thought slid away of its own accord. Useless to speculate about what anyone might do who was miles away. Moreover, had Mag or the Laird of Galbraith been with them, Lizzie would not have dared to ride on ahead as she had.

  Lina pressed her lips together. No use to repine about what Lizzie was doing, either, because repining would do naught to stop her. 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 that Lizzie and Murie shared were their occasional lapses of good judgment and a desire—common to many people of their age and experience—to enjoy more freedom than they had and to make their own decisions.

  Murie could also take the bit between her teeth from time to time, but she would not go dashing off into unknown territory, as Lizzie was doing—territory unknown to Lina, at all events. Lizzie was a mystery to her in other ways, too, because they scarcely knew each another. Although Magnus and Andrena had been married for nearly six months, Lina had known Lizzie for only six days.

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

  Realizing that while she was lost in thought, the gillie had closed the distance between them, Lina glanced back at him and said, “I think Lady Elizabeth wants to see if Duchess Isabella’s banner flies over Inchmurrin yet, Peter. She was with me when the laird told us that his grace, the King, had given her permission to return.”

  “We’d ha’ heard summat more if the duchess were coming so soon, m’lady.”

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

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

  Lina did know about those orders, because she had heard the Laird of Galbraith issue them herself, and so had Lizzie. But Galbraith had issued a number of orders before departing the day before, without much more explanation than to say he was responding to a summons from the Colquhouns of Dunglass Castle, which lay some ten miles south of Loch Lomond, on the river Clyde near Glasgow.

  Suppressing a sigh, Lina said, “We must catch up with her ladyship, Peter.” Leaning forward, she urged her mount to a faster pace. Thickets of shrubbery and copses of trees dotted the loch shore and the hillside above them, but denser woodland lay ahead, and the track disappeared into it. Surely, Lizzie would not…

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

  “I can see her, Peter,” Lina called back to him. “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 deciding that he had said enough, he broke off.

  Having turned her head slightly when he’d begun talking again, Lina turned back to see that Lizzie was slowing her mount. Perhaps, she’d come to her senses. Even as the thought flitted through her mind, a sense of unease stirred.

  The woods ahead seemed suddenly and ominously to darken.

  “Was that not a grand gallop?” Lizzie called out cheerfully as Lina and Peter drew near and slowed their mounts.

  “What you want, my sweet, is a taste of your brother’s temper,” Lachina said evenly, reining in some yards away and keeping her eyes on the woods, aware that her unease was increasing. “What were you thinking to hare off like that?”

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

  “You chose the setting,” Lina said. “And you might at least have considered the fact that your father will likely blame me if he learns about this, since I am four years older than you are.”

  “Nay, then, he will not. If he were here, he would scold, to be sure. But he is not here. And by the time he comes home again, everyone else who may learn of it will have forgotten it. So, you need not fret or fratch with me, Lina. By my troth, I want only to see if the Duchess of Albany is in residence yet.”

  “We can see Inchmurrin’s towers from here, Lizzie. No banner flies above them, let alone a ducal one. Moreover, we are disobeying your father’s orders. Do you truly believe that he will not hear about what we have done?”

  Lizzie shrugged. “Peter is your gillie, Lina. He will not carry tales about me to my father. Wil
l you, Peter?” she added, flashing her beautiful smile at him.

  “It will not matter who tells him,” Lina said.

  “No one will, and we are quite near Balloch now. Since the duchess inherited all of her father’s properties, and Balloch is yet another of them—”

  “The King is unlikely to let her keep all of the Earl of Lennox’s properties,” Lina said, trying to ignore her growing sense of urgency and at least sound patient. “Balloch was, after all, a royal estate before the first Duke of Albany gifted it to her father when Isabella married Albany’s son. In any event, we are turning back.”

  “But I have never seen a duchess,” Lizzie said. “Nor have I—”

  “Listen, m’lady!” Peter interjected.

  Lina heard immediately what he had heard and wished that she had been born with her older sister’s ability to sense when others were near her in the woods.

  “Horsemen,” she said, looking at Peter, who nodded.

  “Armed men,” he added knowingly. “Ye can hear weapons clanking, and they dinna be trying tae keep silent, neither.”

  “Then likely they are royal men-at-arms, escorting the duchess,” Lizzie said.

  “Or rebel forces in such numbers as to fear no one,” Lina replied, feeling in her bones that that was more likely than the duchess.

  “It could as easily be my father, returning from Dunglass,” Lizzie said.

  “I hope it is,” Lina said roundly. “You will be well served if he finds us here, will you not?”

  Lizzie grimaced.

  Peter said, “We mun turn back, m’lady. If we set our horses tae a gallop—”

  “They will give chase,” she said flatly. “We cannot outrun them, Peter. Our horses are not fresh, and those others may be.”