Heaven and the Heather (10 page)

“Is that the only reason?”

Niall stared at her, his eyes narrowed. “Does there need to be any other reason?”

“In civilized places,
oui
, there does.”

“Will my returning yer precious purse mean anything to ye?”

Sabine paused, the meat juices dripping from her fist. “It means you can keep a promise. That you’re a man of honor, in one regard.”

“Aye, that was my hope.”

Niall reached up and took the meat from her. He placed it back on the trencher. With the hem of his woolen garment he wiped the juices from her hands. She found her gaze lowering to his exposed and powerful thighs, for a moment curious as to what lay in shadow beneath the wool.

“Are ye trying to learn more about me?” he asked never missing a thing when it came to her. How irritatingly perceptive.

Sabine jerked her gaze up to meet his. “Certainly not!…I mean,
oui
, what is that odd wool you wear?”

Niall dropped it back to his thighs.

“’Tis my plaid, fashioned into a kilt. ’Tis a goodly garment. Keeps me concealed afield, keeps me warm, keeps the rain from my head, perfect for my ‘wild home’.”

“Wild home,” she breathed. “Kilt…plaid.” The strange words felt comfortable on her tongue.

Slowly, Niall cupped both of her hands and raised them to his lips.

She tried not to close her eyes and give into the moment. Yet, from his touch a flurry of sensation overtook her. He kissed her wrists, at the place where her blood pulsed so fast and so hot. She forced herself to resist his bold manner, but he took her further away from this chamber, deeper into his free spirit. She shivered as he pushed her sleeve up her right arm kissed the sensitive flesh there, all the while cradling her damaged hand in his large strong one. She could not help but close her eyes. Hardly aware of what she was doing, she flexed her twisted fingers around his thumb and squeezed. A low moan escaped her lips. She had to return to the bedchamber, to the masque, or they both could face the gaol.

“You must take your leave from this chamber,” she whispered. Then she cleared her throat delicately and said more forcefully, “You have to go.”

She released his thumb and took her hand back. She sat there, eyes closed, trying to catch her breath.

“D’ye want that?” he asked from far away.

She opened her eyes. Niall stood at the side of her bed. He had abided her wishes, damn him!

“
Oui
,” she replied mournfully. “’Tis true.” She tucked both of her hands deep into her lap. “You must leave. Go back to your home.” Her face was suddenly warm. Sweet Sainte Giles! Were those tears misting her eyes? “I beg you, leave my
sac
and…go.”

“Aye, I’ll go,” he whispered. “Ye’ll get yer purse after I see the queen.”

He gave her one sapphire wink and a hint of unforgettable grin before turning his broad back to her.

He took a deliberate, direct path to the door. Was leaving just as difficult for him as it was for her? She had to erase such thoughts. Sabine glanced at her right hand. She grasped a fistful of bedclothes and squeezed tightly. Strength. Sweet Saint Giles give me…strength.

“Rory, get yer hands out of the lassie’s skirts,” Niall ordered his friend. “Let’s away to the queen.”

Strength. Sabine squeezed harder. The pain wrapped around her hand and seared up her arm. She willed herself to remember something pleasant, anything. All she saw was Niall’s back as he stepped to her chamber door.

Then he paused and said, “Oh, to find peace where death haunts me not, ’tis best my blade stills my heart.” He slowly turned to face her from across the chamber.

“You spoke those words during the
comédie
,” she said, releasing the bedclothes. The pain remained. “They were your own, were they not?”

“Aye,” he said, “they were.”

The pain ebbed away as Sabine considered the words, so poignant, so beautiful, so much from the Highlander’s heart. “Do you believe you will die if you cannot find peace?” she asked. “Why do you want me to know this?”

“Because it is why I must see the queen.”

“She will be angered that you have broken into her masque. You could be imprisoned or die.”

“Would she have given me an invitation?” he asked, stance so stiff and firm on the rush carpet.

Sabine shook her head. “Of course not.”

“Yet, you gave me an invitation,” he said.

“You have my
sac
, I had no choice.”

He paused, hand on the latch. “I will give it back to ye.” He opened the door and slipped out, his friend behind him. “Yer hope lies within.”

Sabine gasped. Damn him for knowing her mind! And bless him.

Niall, a contradiction in plaid, a cretin with culture, had left her more confused than in her entire life. He walked a strange and crooked path, one that was so intriguing it made her ache with longing to know where it would lead.

As much as she hated to admit it, Niall MacGregor was far more a noble than a savage. Perchance that was what he wanted her to believe all along.

But would Her Majesty believe the same? Sabine trembled. She slipped off the bed to prepare to return to the masque. Soon, she feared, she would have her answer.

chapter 5

Audience for an Outlaw

N
iall and Rory hunkered in a niche in the great hall. They wore their masks and shared the dark, cramped space with a massive iron candle holder, the candles long gutted. There were many other candles lit, too many, illuminating the vast space. They had found the only safe place in which to observe the revelers. And for Niall to gather his wits. He would have one chance with the queen this night, best he make it a good one.

“So, now what do we do?” Rory asked. He glanced quickly at the door they had just come through.

“I ken yer mind,” Niall whispered. “Ye wish to return to that French lass.”

“She seemed willing enough. But I’m no’ the only one who was captured by the French.”

“One sympathetic member of the queen’s court could bode well for our clan.”

“Is she? Sympathetic to our clan, I mean?”

Niall stared at the door more than a dozen paces away. Sabine entered, mask on her face. “I don’t know,” he replied.

S
abine glanced about the great hall. Niall was not in sight. Had he found common sense and abandoned his futile plan? She glanced anxiously toward the throne where Mary sat with her escort. Niall was not there stating his case. She knew he would try to do so, and soon. The summer sky in his fierce, determined stare had told her so. It had stolen her breath, and she would never forget it. Soon, she hoped to sketch it from her memory.

Sabine walked stiffly toward the queen. She wanted to be near her when Niall returned.

Lord Campbell suddenly stepped in front of her. He was breathing hard and smelled of the garden. Were those flower petals and bits of grass decorating his doublet?

“I’m relieved to see you’re well and good,
mademoiselle
,” he said, swiping at his clothes.

Sabine curtsied. “Yes, m’Lord. I am better.” She stood and eyed him, fighting laughter. “But I fear you countenance a far different story.”

Lord Campbell glanced swiftly over his shoulder. “I have spent the last hour evading the French oaf who produces those ridiculous plays. Someone told him I was…I was…never mind. When I find who told him such a thing, I’ll hang him from the highest rampart of this palace.”

Niall was the first name that came to Sabine’s mind.

“It could’ve been true love, m’Lord,” she said, concealing a smile behind her misshapen hand. “You are fortunate. ’Tis an impossible prospect for most of us.” Niall had to have been behind that wry bit of trickery otherwise he could not have made it to her chamber without attracting Campbell’s notice.

Lord Campbell grabbed her right hand quite and gave it a painful squeeze. “Join me in the dance. We have much to discuss.”

“We have noth—” she said despite the agony swelling in her hand, stiffening her fingers even more.

“Precisely. Come,” Lord Campbell interrupted.

He practically dragged her to the center of the dancers, then stopped, released her and bowed as if suddenly remembering his social graces. Sabine followed protocol and curtsied. They began a French
dance basse
, a favorite of Her Majesty’s. Fingers interlocked, her left, his left, they stepped lightly across the floor. Sabine looked everywhere but at Lord Campbell and still did not spot Niall.

“I will propose to you after this dance,” he said, his tone more of a threat than promise. “Then all will know you’re mine.”

“Is that what I am to you, a possession?” she asked.

“What else is a woman to a man but a possession, a thing to be treasured? You’re a fine thing to be kept, much like the queen’s falcons. Your mask is quite appropriate, my darling.”

“How ironic of you, Lord Campbell. I didn’t think a man of your importance would appreciate poetry.”

He paused, then quickly regained himself. “The falcon is the most beautiful and cherished of all of the royal menagerie. ’Tis a great compliment that you are selected to wear that mask.”

“I fail to see where the compliment is on me, m’lord, for a falcon is but a kept beast, brought out for royal pleasure.”

“And it pleases Her Majesty to see you wed to me.”

“Whatever pleases Her Majesty,” Sabine sighed, “t’will please me.” No words were more difficult to speak than those.

“Does it not please you?”

“I do not love you, m’lord,” she boldly confessed as if that would be enough to dissuade him from marriage.

“Love? Instead of wishing for such trifles as love, you should be grateful.” He glanced at her right hand at her side. Sabine tucked it in a fold of her gown. She realized she had not done that in front of Niall.

Lord Campbell looked toward the throne. “See how Her Majesty revels in her childish attraction to that Darnley.’Twill not be the first fateful decision she has made this night, I’ll wager.”

“What do you mean?” Sabine demanded.

Ignoring her question, he looked off through the crowd.

“M’lord, I ask you again, what fateful decision has Her Majesty made?”

Campbell’s eyes suddenly narrowed as they caught sight of something across the great hall. His lips tightened into a grim line. “MacGregor…damn him.”

“What—” Sabine wrenched her gaze in the direction of Lord Campbell’s, in the direction of the throne.

Niall knelt on one knee before the queen, fox mask in hand. His friend knelt beside him, the bear mask still on his face.

“
Non
,” she breathed.

Lord Campbell suddenly shoved her aside, breaking through the dancers, on his way to the throne.

She took a quick path along the periphery of the crowd, to her place beside the Marys and the other attendants. All of the women of court stood silent with eyes very wide at the sight of this Highlander kneeling before the queen. None of them were more rigid and attentive than Sabine.

“Most Gracious Majesty, I am Niall MacGregor, Chief of Clan Gregor. I beg a word with ye.” He bowed his head.

The luxuriant locks of his cinnamon-colored hair tipped his shoulders. In the doublet Monsieur le Canard had given him, Niall looked like a prince, yet he called himself chief. Highland nobility! Sabine’s mind reeled at the possibility of a kingdom of people like Niall.

Mary stared down at him, her face, save for one raised ginger brow, betrayed no emotion. She beckoned a servant to hand her a goblet of wine. After a sip and a visibly long, hard swallow, she spoke.

“While we are most intrigued by your presence, we are most disheartened by your intrusion.”

“Regrettable, Yer Majesty, but necessary.” Niall held her in a steady blue gaze, one Sabine knew so well. Perchance, that was why the queen had not yet deemed to send him to the gaol.

“Necessary?” Mary asked.

“Yer Majesty, there are more than stone walls and guards keeping me from speaking with ye. I am, and will be to the day I die, in loyal service to the sovereign of Scotland, yet there are those who would lay a false face to the name MacGregor.”

“Not false at all, Your Majesty,” Lord Campbell interjected. He stepped into a brief bow. “But well-deserved. This man is part of a clan of thieves and raiders.” He pointed at Niall, who remained strangely calm. The Highlander in the bear mask trembled.

Niall continued to kneel before the queen, his gaze set on her from under the fervent arch of his eyebrows. “I
ask
Yer Majesty not to heed the ravings of this man who represents the generations of Campbells who have stolen land from and murdered my people.”

Sabine studied Niall’s steady form, kneeling there before the throne. A man like this would only
ask
of his queen. He would never beg.

“Such charges are not to be brought to this court at this time,” Mary said. “Or any time. You, MacGregor, have invaded the royal palace. That action is worthy of the gaol.”

“I shall summon the guards,” Campbell offered eagerly.