Authors: Prince of Danger
Amanda Scott (35 page)
When they were all safely up out of the well-like hole, the men replaced the boulder and Michael ordered the two lads who had helped them to keep utterly silent about the incident and to see that the glen and castle remained well guarded.
“Do what you must to see that no one enters the glen or approaches the castle from this direction without keeping a close watch on them,” he added.
“Aye, sir, we’ll keep all safe.”
Isobel sighed. Trust was difficult when curiosity stirred. She had a strong feeling that she would never learn all she wanted to know about the treasure.
H
ugo was on his way back to St. Clair, armed guards surrounded the castle, and men continued to scour the glen and the banks of the river Esk without success for any sign of Waldron. Supper with the maddeningly uncurious countess was over, that lady had retired to her bedchamber, and Isobel went with Michael upstairs to their bedchamber, wishing she could speak her mind.
He had already put away the map and the letter from Sir William.
“What is it, lass?” he asked quietly as he shut the door. “You have been bursting to say something since we returned to the castle.”
She shook her head. “It is just my old curiosity screaming at me, sir. I want to know what is down there. I want to see everything. Still, I know it is not my secret or responsibility but Sir Henry’s—Prince Henry’s, that is.”
“Call him Henry,” Michael said. “He is your brother now.”
“Aye, well, that is what has been bothering me. I feel as if I am somehow proving myself untrustworthy by wanting to give way to that curiosity again.”
To her surprise, he chuckled. “Faith, lass, if anyone has the right to be curious about what we found, you do. Do you think I am not bursting with the same curiosity? I promise you, if I did not know that God watches me, I’d be sorely tempted to sneak back there at the first opportunity and take every item out of those chests to examine thoroughly. The one chest we opened seemed to contain mostly documents, but I wager there must be gold, jewelry, and other valuable items as well. The Templars controlled much of the world’s wealth, and a significant amount of what they held could be in those chests. I’d like to see what they contain, but we do not have that right. We do have a duty, though, to protect what we saw.”
“So we cannot talk about it,” Isobel said with a sigh.
“Only to each other, only when we know no one can overhear us, and even then, only rarely,” he said. “Now, I want to ask you something.”
She braced herself, knowing what he would ask and wishing she need not talk about it. “You want to know all that happened with Waldron,” she said.
“I do,” he said. “I’m guessing he had plans that you did not approve.”
She smiled at his phrasing. “He made his intentions very plain to me. I had my dirk, and because he thought me only a weak, helpless woman, he believed as well that he had persuaded me to want what he wanted. I . . . I let him think that,” she admitted, feeling obliged for some reason to explain that part to him.
“That was wise of you,” he said, putting his arm around her and urging her nearer the bed. “What then?”
“He pulled me close and held me tightly enough that I could feel how full of lust he was,” she said, grimacing at that distasteful memory. She hesitated, but Michael remained as patient as always, and at last, she said, “When I realized that his jack-of-plate would not protect him there, I put both hands around the dirk’s hilt and rammed it into his bollocks as hard as I could.”
He winced.
“What?” she demanded. “Do you think I was wrong to do that?”
Grinning wryly, he drew her close and kissed her forehead. “Nay, sweetheart, I was wincing, as any man would, at the nature of the pain you caused him, not disapproving of it. He deserved it if any man ever has. I thought after our first day together that you would be unlikely to surprise me much, ever again, but the extent of your ability to look after yourself, and others, too, astounds me. If the Order admitted females, I swear I would nominate you for membership in the Knights Templar.”
Her frustration, and her discomfort with the topic of conversation, vanished, and she laughed, saying, “You would not!”
“I cannot, but I begin to think they made an error by leaving women out. Had it not been for you, after all,” he added, his voice altering subtly, “not only would we never have met, but Waldron might well have succeeded in his quest, or worse.”
“He could still do so,” she pointed out. “If he still lives, he may return, and now that we do know where the treasure lies . . .”
“That is exactly why we must consult Henry before we do aught else. Only he has the right to move it to a place of greater safety if we can but determine where that may be. But in the meantime,” he added, his intent now clear to the meanest intelligence, “I’m thinking that since we cannot explore the cavern or the chests, we might indulge ourselves in certain other forms of exploration.”
“Are you, sir?” Her blood began racing at the thought.
But he paused. “Only if the memory of what Waldron tried to do has not put you off the notion,” he said, pulling her close and looking into her eyes.
She looked back gravely. “I don’t know whether to hope I killed him or did not kill him,” she said. “But whatever happened on that wall-walk today has naught to do with how I feel about you, Michael. When I feared that those horrid men were torturing you again . . .” She stopped, unable to complete that thought.
“I know, sweetheart. I heard Waldron threaten you with methods the Kirk employs against heretics, and I nearly gave up any chance I had of besting those louts to leap up and try to throttle him. You cannot know how hard it was to keep still and let you go with him. I have come to love you, Isobel, more than I knew it was possible to love anyone, and I’ve never been so afraid in my life as I was then.”
“But you did let me go,” she said. “I’d like to believe it was because you trusted me to look after myself, but I know that was not the reason.”
“No,” he said. “I knew that was not the course most likely to aid us against him and his men. ’Twas more likely to sink us into disaster.”
She nodded, leaning her head against his chest, and when he took her hand and held it gently, she moved it with her own to the tie of her laces. “Make love to me, Michael. I want to feel your arms around me and feel your body close to mine.”
His lips claimed hers then, and she moaned softly when his tongue slipped into her mouth. Caressing her, his hands dealt with the laces, and then slowly and with great tenderness, he undressed her, pulled back the coverlet and quilt, and laid her gently on the bed. Stripping off his clothes, he slid in beside her and took her in his arms again, stroking her all over, caressing her until she wanted to purr like a contented kitten. But the more he continued, the more her body began to demand.
Heat rose in her until she could not stand it and pushed his hands away, shifting until she could lie on her side and do to him what he had been doing to her. To her astonishment, the passion she felt and saw reflected in him grew stronger as he responded to her touch, until at last, he surged up and rolled atop her, fitting his body easily to hers, knowing just how to stir her and himself to new heights. He took her there and they reached the peaks together, collapsing afterward in warm satisfaction, to curl close together and sigh in unison at the wonders of their love.
After a long, languorous moment, Michael said drowsily, “I have admitted my love for you, sweetheart, and I believe you love me, too, but I’m wondering if you will admit that you have changed your opinion of marriage. It is still ‘forever and ever,’ after all, and I don’t mean to let you try to change that.”
“It is just as well,” she said. “Because forever is not nearly long enough.”
Dear Reader,
I hope you have enjoyed
Prince of Danger.
The history of the Knights Templar and their missing treasure has fascinated historians and many others for centuries. When I discovered that Scotland was a likely refuge for the Templars who escaped the efforts of King Philip IV to seize the Templar treasury in Paris, and for the treasure itself, I began to look more closely into the Scottish history of that period and the century that followed.
The most likely route for the treasure ships, thanks to England’s being between Scotland and France, was around the west coast of Ireland and through the Isles to the Scottish west coast. The most likely route from Ireland to Kintyre, where many believe they landed in late 1307, lies through the Sound of Isla (now Islay), which lies just north of Isla. And Finlaggan, the administrative headquarters for the Lords of the Isles, lies at the northern end of that isle. In 1307, Angus Og, father of MacDonald, first Lord of the Isles, lived at Finlaggan, and the chance that a fleet of ships passed along that northern coast without his knowledge seems unlikely.
Of course, it also seems highly unlikely that anyone offloaded treasure and carted it around the Isles, let alone all the way to Roslin Castle (or its later chapel) without many, many people knowing what was happening. I have, by the way, used the official British spelling for Roslin Glen and Roslin Castle throughout.
The Sir William St. Clair (or Sinclair) of Bruce’s heart fame was not Sir Henry’s father, as many have suggested. That Sir William St. Clair died in 1330 in Andalusia, with Sir James “the Good” Douglas and Robert Logan, while fighting the Moors during his attempt to carry the Bruce’s heart to the Holy Land. His son, also Sir William, was Baron of Roslin from 1330 to 1358, when he died in a fall from his horse during the Lithuanian Crusade. It is that Sir William who married Isabella of Strathearn and Caithness. Henry was born in 1345.
Some question exists as to exactly when all the tunnels and cells at Roslin were dug. Many were created when William Sinclair, fourth Earl of Orkney, built his famous Rosslyn Chapel in the 16th century. Historians have debated his reason for hiring a host of miners five years before he began work on the chapel, and many reason logically that most of the tunnel work must have been done then, but there is no proof of that, and Roslin Castle was noted long before then for a proliferation of tunnels, cells, and dungeons, carved into the cliff on which it perched. Nearby Wallace’s cave, named for William Wallace, who is believed to have taken refuge there, was also known long before then.
The source for Henry’s speech in the cathedral is the text of his installation at Maestrand, Norway, as reproduced on the Rosslyn Templars website at www.rosslyntemplars.org.uk/installation.htm.
If you are interested in learning more about the Templar treasure, I suggest the following sources:
Holy Blood, Holy Grail
by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh (New York: Dell Books, 1982);
The Temple and the Lodge
by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh (New York, 1989);
Pirates & the Lost Templar Fleet
by David H. Childress (Illinois: Adventures Unlimited Press, 2003);
The Stone Puzzle of Rosslyn Chapel
by Philip Coppens (The Netherlands: Frontier Publishing, 2004);
The Da Vinci Code Decoded
by Martin Lunn (New York: Disinformation Co, Ltd., 2004); and
The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar
by Steven Sora (Vermont: Destiny Books, 1999).
It occurs to me that some of you may be skeptical about Isobel’s memory in Chapter 17 of throwing Hector. You should know that the author, at five feet three inches and 125 pounds, did that very thing to her husband (six-four, 185) in our living room, the second year of our marriage. I swear, I meant only to give him an idea of what little I’d learned about self-defense, never dreaming it would work on someone so much larger, but his higher center of gravity did him in. I’d like to say he’s behaved himself since, but he’s looking over my shoulder and already laughing.
As always, I’d also like to thank my terrific agents, Aaron Priest and Lucy Childs, and my wonderful editor, Beth de Guzman. I couldn’t do it without them!
If you enjoyed
Prince of Danger
, please look for
Lady’s Choice,
the story of Sir Hugo Robison and Ladies Adela, Sorcha, and Sidony Macleod (Hugo’s quite a guy), at your favorite bookstore in August 2006. In the meantime,
suas Alba!
Sincerely,
AMANDA SCOTT
, best-selling author and winner of Romance Writers of America's RITA/Golden Medallion awards,
Romantic Times
’s Career Achievement Award for British Isle Historical, and
Romantic Times
's Awards for Best Regency Author and Best Sensual Regency, began writing on a dare from her husband. She has sold every manuscript she has written. She sold her first novel,
The Fugitive Heiress
—written on a battered Smith-Corona—in 1980. Since then, she has sold many more, but since the second one, she has used a word processor. More than twenty-five of her books are set in the English Regency period (1810-1820); others are set in fifteenth-century England and sixteenth- and eighteenth-century Scotland. Three are contemporary romances.
Amanda is a fourth-generation Californian who was born and raised in Salinas and graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in history from Mills College in Oakland. She did graduate work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, specializing in British History, before obtaining her Master's in History from San Jose State University. She is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. After graduate school, she taught for the Salinas City School District for three years before marrying her husband, who was then a captain in the Air Force. They lived in Honolulu for a year, then in Nebraska, where their son was born, for seven years. Amanda now lives with her husband in northern California.