Seduced by Destiny (33 page)

“O’er my dead body,” Angus growled.

“Da!” Josselin scolded.

“That can be arranged,” Simon muttered.

“Uncle!” Drew snapped.

Will folded his hands patiently around his tankard. “Where
do
ye intend to go, lass?”

Everyone looked at them expectantly. They definitely weren’t staying in Edinburgh. After their confrontation with Philipe
on the golf course, Josselin had promised the apoplectic secretary that they’d keep well away from the queen.

“Well,” Drew said, “we haven’t quite decided, but…”

Josselin continued for him. “We’re stayin’ in Scotland.”

Drew’s uncles groaned.

“You’d let a maid tell you where to live?” Simon spat in disgust.

“She isn’t tellin’ me—” Drew began.

“Why would you want to stay,” Robert growled, “in such an uncivilized—”

There was a loud scrape of chairs as the Scots in the room rose to their feet.

Josselin sighed and shook her head as vile oaths and threats began to fill the inn.

“Listen to me!” she bellowed, silencing them all. “There will be no malignin’ of anyone’s place o’ birth at my weddin’, do
ye understand? The next person who
utters one more word of it, I swear Drew and I will both disown ye.” She gave them all a withering glare. “Now sit down.”

Once they were seated, she resumed. “I’m not tellin’ Drew where to live. ’Twas his choice. He makes his livin’ at golf, and
he—”

“Can’t you bat your ballocks around some sheep field in your own country?” Robert asked.

Drew suppressed a laugh. “ ’Tis balls, Uncle, not ballocks.”

“Well, can’t you?”

Thomas answered his brother. “Golf’s been banned for years now in favor of archery.”

“The lad should go where he can make the best livin’,” Alasdair added, “and the best home for Josselin and their bairns.”

“Bairns!” Kate cried with, in Josselin’s opinion, far too much enthusiasm. “Ach, lass, are ye already with child?”

Simon protested. “Surely, Andrew, you won’t let your son be born on Scots soil!”

Angus narrowed his eyes. “And what’s wrong with our soil… aside from the fact it’s stained with English blood?”

“Out!” Josselin cried, pointing toward the door. “Both o’ ye! Out! And leave your weapons here.”

Simon and Angus scowled, but they did as they were told. They stood, slammed their daggers flat on the table, and shoved their
chairs back, then began lumbering reluctantly toward the door.

But just as they were about to exit, the door opened, and Davey the beer-wagon driver sauntered in. He had a missive for Josselin.

Josselin took the letter from him, gasping when she saw the seal. ’Twas stamped with the royal insignia of Queen Mary. With
quivering fingers, she broke the seal and, standing beside Drew, read the contents aloud.

“My faithful and good subjects, as you may find it a difficult, indeed impossible, undertaking to return to your ancestral
abode at Tintclachan in the Highlands, I am determined to grant to you, by God’s grace, at the suggestion of my secretary,
Philipe de la Fontaine, and as a condition of your marriage, 200 roods at the southeastern limit of Scotland, including a
links bordering on the North Sea. It is my dearest wish that you will endeavor to establish a course there for the pleasure
of any who may come, and that you will erect a tavern nearby for the comfort of all. Furthermore, I trust that you will understand
always the responsibility that accompanies the holding of a property so positioned. I pray God to give you a very happy and
long life. From Edinburgh, this 11th of October, 1561. The Queen of Scotland, Marie.”

While the parents blinked in confusion, Josselin grinned, and Drew swept her up in his arms, twirling her around till she
grew giddy with laughter.

“ ‘So positioned’,” Drew repeated in wonder. “ ’Tis at the border. Everyone will be able to play there—Scots, English, Catholic,
Protestant.”

Josselin nodded, pleased. Apparently, Philipe had found a way to grant them the next best thing to exile.

“We’ll have tournaments,” he continued. “And I could start a school—a school o’ golf.”

“I can run the tavern,” Josselin gushed. “And we’ll be ideally situated to guard the border for Mary, to defend Scotland against
ruffians.”

While they celebrated their great fortune, Drew’s uncles watched uncertainly.

Finally Simon grumbled, “I suppose, lass, you’d consider us ruffians?”

There was a pregnant pause.

Finally Josselin smiled at him. “O’ course not… Uncle.”

He scowled, but she could see the endearment pleased him.

Drew raised his tankard from the table. “A toast to kith and kin livin’ in peace and harmony!”

“Aye,” Josselin added, eyeing Simon and Angus, “and if ye ever dispute that, ye’ll have to fight it out with clubs and balls
on our links.”

Everyone raised a cup in accord. By the wee hours of the night, the sworn enemies—their tongues and hostilities mellowed by
an excess of beer and merrymaking—were toasting one another’s health and swapping tales of the married couple’s childhoods.
When Will began gleefully relating the story of how Jossy, at four years of age, offered to defend her first love—Rane MacAllister,
the lord sheriff’s huntsman—with a wooden sword, she decided ’twas time to retire.

She stole up the stairs with Drew, closing the door on the festivities below. The two of them had their own celebrating to
do.

The morn was halfway gone when the happy bride collapsed back onto the pillow, spent. Her chemise was halfway down her arms.
Her skirts were bunched around her waist. One of her stockings had gone missing. But somehow she couldn’t summon the energy
to care.

Beside her, the bridegroom, too, lounged in apathetic splendor. He wore a self-satisfied smile and little else. His shirt
was torn, revealing his still heaving chest. His legs were splayed casually across the bed, with his trews slung around one
ankle.

If they continued much longer like this—dozing blissfully off, only to awaken again for another round—they might remain at
The Sheep Heid forever and never make it to their new home.

Josselin sighed. She supposed she should drag herself out of bed. Change was in the wind, and they had a future to plan. Drew
would want to inspect every inch of their seaside property to determine how to arrange the course. And Josselin had ideas
for the magnificent tavern she’d build.

“The Silver Thimble,” she mused, gazing at the wedding ring on her finger, which had been fashioned out of the thimble Drew
had given her.

“Hm?”

“Our tavern.” She turned on her side and idly ran her knuckles down Drew’s arm. “We have to have a name for it.”

“How about The Blue Cods?” he replied, too exhausted to open his eyes.

She gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “Ye’re a filthy lad.” With the attention she’d lavished on them all night, his
cods were anything but blue.

He grinned with his eyes still closed.

Josselin frowned up at the heavy-beamed ceiling. ’Twould be clever, she thought, since she and Drew had overcome the differences
of their birth, to unite the symbols of their two countries. “The Cross and Lion,” she tried.

He snorted, countering with, “The Fig and Prick.”

“Drew!” she scolded, dropping her jaw. “I’m serious. ’Tis an important consideration.”

He opened one lusty blue eye to gaze at her. “Darlin’, how can I consider anythin’ but swivin’ when ye’re lyin’ there, all
naked and lovely and temptin’?”

She might be flushing with pleasure at his smoldering glance, but she wasn’t going to fall for his flattery again. They’d
been swiving all night. Enough was enough.

She gave him a chiding smirk, tugging the bedlinens up over her breasts, and he sighed in exaggerated disappointment, closing
his eyes again.

Maybe the name of the tavern should reflect something of the legacy of warfare they were leaving behind and the new journey
of peace upon which they were embarking. “The Rusty Dagger,” she suggested.

One corner of Drew’s mouth curved into a smile. “The Frisky Yard,” he insisted.

She had to bite back a laugh at that one, then shook her head. Drew MacAdam was incorrigible. But she supposed that was one
thing she loved about him. After all, if he was a man to give up easily, he would never have pursued the cursing, trews-wearing,
brawling lass with whom he’d crossed paths on the Royal Mile. He would never have chased halfway across the countryside to
keep her safe. And he would never have risked the wrath of his uncles and her da’s to marry her.

She smiled. Their parcel of land wasn’t going anywhere. The day was still young. And they had years ahead of them.

“I know,” she said with a wicked glint in her eyes, walking her fingers down his chest. “The Withered Cock.”

Drew opened his eyes and lowered a disapproving brow at her. Then he clasped his hands behind his head and gave her a slow
grin as his trusty staff responded boldly to her rousing touch.

With a smug growl, he tore off her coverlet, rolled atop her, and sank into her welcoming warmth. “The Longnose Club,” he
told her in no uncertain terms.

’Twas a long while before Drew and Josselin left their room at The Sheep Heid Inn to venture to their new home, but when they
did, two pieces of their destiny had been determined. One was that their tavern would be called The Rose and Thistle. The
other was that their first son would be born exactly nine months hence.

Dear Reader,

Picture, if you will, a little girl in a polka-dot bathing suit, standing on a rough board jutting out over the waters of
the Edisto River in South Carolina. She’s about six years old, and standing below her in the chest high, tea-colored water
is a tall man with a deep, deep Southern drawl—the kind that comes right up out of the ground.

“Jump, little gal,” the man says, “I’ll catch you.”

The little girl was me. And the man was my Uncle Ernest. And that memory is one of those touchstone moments that I go back
to again and again. My uncle wanted me to face my fear of jumping into the water, but he was there, big hands outstretched,
steady, sturdy, and sober as a judge. He was the model of a man I could trust.

I screwed up my courage and took that leap of faith. I jumped. He caught me. He taught me to love jumping into the river and
swimming in those dark, mysterious waters, overhung with Spanish moss and sometimes visited by snakes and gators!

I loved Uncle Ernest. He was my favorite uncle. He’s
been gone for quite a while now, but I think of him often, and he lives on in my heart.

There is even a little bit of him in Clay Rhodes, the hero of my debut novel WELCOME TO LAST CHANCE. Jane, the heroine of
the story, has to learn that Clay is the type of guy she can always trust. A guy she can take a leap of faith with. A guy
who will always be there to catch her, even when she has to face her biggest fears.

And isn’t love all about taking a leap of faith?

I had such fun writing WELCOME TO LAST CHANCE because it afforded me the opportunity to go back in time and remember what
it was like spending my summers in a little town in South Carolina with folks who were like Uncle Ernest—people who made up
a village where a child could grow up safe and sound and learn what makes a life meaningful.

I hope you enjoy meeting the characters in Last Chance, South Carolina, as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Ya’ll take care now,

www.hoperamsay.com