THE GIFT: A Highland Novella (18 page)

Excerpt: CAPTURED BY A LAIRD (THE DOUGLAS LEGACY #1) by Margaret Mallory

 

Scotland

1517

 

Burning her husband’s bed was a mistake. Alison could see that now.

Yet each time she passed the rectangle of charred earth as she paced the castle courtyard, she felt a wave of satisfaction. She had waited to commit her act of rebellion until her daughters were asleep. But that night, after her husband’s body was taken to the priory for burial, she ordered the servants to carry the bed out of the keep. She set fire to it herself. The castle household, accustomed to the meek mistress her husband had required her to be, was thoroughly shocked.

“Do ye see them yet?” Alison called up to one of the guards on the wall.

When the guard shook his head, she resumed her pacing. Where were her brothers? They had sent word this morning that they were on their way.

As she passed the scorched patch again, she recalled how the flames shot up into the night sky. She had stood watching the fire until dawn, imagining the ugliness of the past years turning to black ashes like the bed. The memories did not burn away, but she did feel cleaner.

Destroying such an expensive piece of furniture was self-indulgent, but that was not why she counted burning it a mistake. While she could not tolerate having that bed in her home, it would have been wiser to give it away or sell it. And yet she simply could not in good conscience pass it on to someone else. Not when she felt as if the bed itself carried an evil.

Instinctively, she touched the black quartz pendant at her throat that her mother had given her to ward off ill luck. It had been missing since Blackadder broke the chain on their wedding night. After the fire, she found it wedged in a crack in the floor where the bed had been.

“Lady Alison!” a guard shouted down from the wall. “They’re here!”

The heavy wooden gates swung open, and her two brothers galloped over the drawbridge followed by scores of Douglas warriors. Praise God. As the castle filled with her clansmen, Ali-son immediately felt safer.

One look at Archie’s thunderous expression, however, told her that his meeting with the queen had not gone well. Without a word, her brothers climbed the steps of the keep, crossed the hall where platters of food were being set out on the long trestle tables for the Douglas warriors, and continued up the stairs to the private chambers. They never discussed family business in front of others.

“She is my wife!” Archie said as soon they were behind closed doors. “How dare she think she can dismiss me as if I were one of her servants?”

Alison tapped her foot, trying to be patient, while her brother, the 6th Earl of Angus and chieftain of the Douglas clan, stormed up and down the length of the room. When Archie’s back was to her, she exchanged a look with George, her more clever brother, and rolled her eyes. This was all so predictable.

“I warned ye not to be so blatant about your affair with Lady Jane,” George said in a mild tone.

“My affairs are none of my wife’s concern,” Archie snapped.

“A queen is not an ordinary wife,” George said as he poured himself and Archie cups of wine from the side table.

Alison found it ironic that the Douglas clan owed the greatest rise in their fortunes to Archie’s liaison with the widowed queen. Usually, it was the ladies of the family who were tasked with securing royal favor via the bedchamber.

Archie, always overconfident, had gone too far. While the Council had been willing to toler-ate the queen’s foolishness in taking the young Douglas chieftain as her lover, they were livid when the pair wed in secret, making Archie the infant king’s stepfather. The Council responded by removing the queen as regent. She fled to England amidst accusations that she had tried to abscond with the royal heir.

“How was I to know my wife would return to Scotland?” Archie said, raising his arms. “Be-sides, I’m a young man. She couldn’t expect me to live like a monk while she was gone.”

Doubtless, the queen, who was pregnant with Archie’s child when she fled, expected her husband to join her. But while the queen paid a lengthy visit on her brother Henry VIII, the Douglas men retreated behind the high walls of Tantallon Castle and waited for the cries of trea-son to subside.

That was two years ago. And now, Albany, the man who replaced the queen as regent, was on a ship back to France, and the queen was returning. Archie had gone to meet her at Berwick Castle, just across the border.

“Is there no hope of reconciling with her?” Alison ventured to ask.

“I bedded that revolting woman four times in two days—and for naught!” Archie thrust his hand out. “I had her in my palm again, I swear it. But then some villain sent her a message in-forming her about Jane.”

“Must have been the Hamiltons,” George said, referring to their greatest rivals.

“Despite that setback, I managed to persuade the queen—through great effort, I might add—that we should enter Edinburgh together as man and wife for all the members of the damned Council to see,” Archie said, his blue eyes flashing. “But then she discovered I’d been collecting the rents on her dower lands and flew into a rage.”

No wonder the queen was angry. After abandoning her, Archie had lived openly with his lover and their newborn daughter in one of the queen’s dower castles—and on the queen’s mon-ey.

“You’re her husband,” George said, leaning back in his chair. “Ye had every right to collect her rents. Still do.”

Alison did not want to hear about husbands and their rights. She folded her arms and tamped down her impatience while she waited for the right moment to ask.

“Enough talk. We must join the men.” Archie threw back his cup of wine. “We’ll ride for Edinburgh as soon as they’ve eaten their fill.”

George was already on his feet. She could wait no longer.

“Ye must leave some of our Douglas warriors here to protect this castle,” she blurted out. “The Blackadder men are deserting me.”

She hoped her brothers would not ask why. She did not want to explain that burning her husband’s bed had insulted the Blackadder men and spurred many of them to leave. They dis-liked having a woman in command of the castle, and she had unwittingly given them the excuse they needed.

“I can’t spare any men now,” Archie said, slapping his gloves against his hand. “I must gather all my forces in a show of strength to convince my pigheaded wife that she needs my help to regain the Regency.”

“The Hamiltons will attempt to do the same,” George added.

“But what about me and my daughters?” Alison demanded. “What about the Blackadder lands Grandfather thought were so important that I was forced to wed that man? I was a child of thirteen!”

“For God’s sake, Alison, we’re in a fight for control of the crown,” Archie said. “That will not be decided at Blackadder Castle.”

“Please, I need your help.” She clutched Archie’s arm as he started toward the door. “Ye promised to protect us.”

Archie came to an abrupt halt, and the shared memory hung between them like a dead rat.

“Mother did not need to remind me of my duty to my family,” he said between clenched teeth. “And neither do you.”

Unlike the Douglas men, who lauded Archie’s seduction of the queen as a boon for the family, their mother begged him to end the affair. A generation ago, one of her sisters had been the king’s mistress. After it was rumored that the king had fallen so in love that he wished to marry her, all three of their mother’s sisters died mysteriously.

When Archie wed the queen in secret, knowing full well that every other powerful family in Scotland would oppose the marriage, their mother made one demand of her sons. Archie and George promised her, on their father’s grave, that they would protect their four sisters.

“I’ll find ye a new husband as soon as these other matters are settled,” Archie said. “You’ll be safe here until then.”

Another husband was not what Alison asked for and was the last thing she wanted. “What I need are warriors—”

“Who would dare attack you?” Archie said. “Now that we are rid of Albany, I am the man most likely to rule Scotland.”

Before she could argue, Archie pushed past her and disappeared down the circular stone stairwell.

“Don’t fret, Allie,” George said, and gave her a kiss on her cheek. “Your most dangerous neighbors were the Hume lairds, and they’re both dead.”

***

David Hume left his horse and warriors a safe distance outside the city walls and proceeded on foot. If the guards were watching for him, they would not expect him to come alone, or so he hoped. Keeping his hood low over his face and his hand on his dirk, he mingled with the men herding cattle through the Cowgate Port to sell in the city’s market.

A month ago, David would have been amused to find himself entering the great city of Ed-inburgh between two cows. But his humor had been wrung from him. As he walked up West Bow toward the center of the city, the rage that was always with him now swelled until his skin felt too tight.

He paused before entering the High Street and scraped the dung off his boots while he scanned the bustling street for anyone who might attempt to thwart him. Then, keeping watch on the armed men amidst the merchants, well-dressed ladies, beggars, and thieves, he started down the hill in the direction of Holyrood Palace. He spared a glance over his shoulder at Edinburgh Castle, the massive fortress that sat atop the black rock behind him. If he were caught, he would likely grow old in its bleak dungeon. He’d prefer a quick death.

David had walked this very street with his father and uncle. With each step, he tried to imagine how that day might have ended differently. Could he have stopped it? Perhaps, perhaps not. Regardless, he should have tried. From the moment they entered Holyrood Palace, he had sensed the danger. It pricked at the back of his neck and made his hands itch to pull his blade.

The Hume lairds had been guaranteed safe conduct. Relying on that pledge of honor made in the king’s name, David did not follow his instincts, did not shout to their men to fight their way out. Instead, he watched his father and uncle relinquish their weapons at the palace door, and he did the same.

Never again.

When he saw the stone arches of St. Giles jutting into the High Street, David’s heart beat so hard it hurt. The church was next to the Tolbooth, the prison where the royal guards brought his father and uncle after dragging them from the palace. David’s ears rang again with the shouts and jeers of the crowd that echoed off the buildings that day. As he crossed the square, he did not permit himself to look at the Tolbooth for fear that his rage would spill over and give him away.

He turned into one of the narrow, sloping passageways that cut through the tall buildings on either side of the High Street and found a dark doorway with a direct view of the Tolbooth. Only then did he lift his gaze.

Though he had known what to expect, his stomach churned violently at the sight of the two grisly heads on their pikes. His body shook with a poisonous mix of rage and grief as he stared at what was left of his father. They had made a mockery of the man David had admired all his life. His father’s sternly handsome features were distorted in a grimace that looked like a gruesome grin, his dark gold hair was matted, and flies ate at his bulging eyes.

David’s chest constricted until his breath came in wheezes. He wanted to fight his way into the palace, wielding his sword and ax until he killed every man in sight. But Regent Albany, the man who ordered the execution, was no longer in the palace, or even in Scotland.

In any case, David had too many responsibilities to give in to thoughtless acts that would surely result in his death. He was the new Laird of Wedderburn, and the protection of the entire Hume clan fell to him. When he thought of his younger brothers and how much they needed him, he finally loosened his grip on his dirk, which he’d been holding so tightly that his hand was stiff.

The execution of the two Hume lairds and this humiliating display of their heads made their clan appear weak and vulnerable. That perception put their clan in even greater danger, and so David must change it. This first step toward that end required stealth, not his sword.

He would have his bloody vengeance, but not today.

While he waited for nightfall, he pondered how Regent Albany had managed to prevail over men who were better than him in every way that should matter. The first time Albany captured David’s father and uncle, they persuaded their jailor, a Hamilton, to free them and join the queen’s side. A furious Albany responded by having their wives taken hostage.

David wondered if Albany understood at the time just how clever that move was, or if he had merely taken the women out of spite. In any event, the trap was set.

By then, Albany was planning to return to France, which was more home to him than Scot-land. David’s uncle was inclined to wait and seek the women’s release from Albany’s replace-ment. But David’s father and stepmother had a rare love, and he was tortured by the thought of her suffering in captivity. Because of his weakness for her, he persuaded his brother to accept the regent’s invitation and guarantee of their safety.

“Free my wife! Avenge us!” his father had shouted to David as the guards dragged him away.

His father’s final words were burned into his soul. While he kept his vigil in the doorway, they spun through his head again and again. He wanted to smash his fist into the wall at the thought of his stepmother living amongst strangers when she learned of her husband’s death. Nothing could save the man who held her hostage now. Vengeance was both a debt of honor David owed his father and necessary to restore respect for his clan.

When darkness finally fell on the city, David gave coins to the prostitutes who had gathered nearby and asked them to cause a disturbance. They proved better at keeping their word than the regent. While the women created an impressive commotion, screaming that they had been robbed, David scaled the wall of the Tolbooth.

Gritting his teeth, he jerked his father’s head off the pike and placed it gently in the cloth bag slung over his shoulder. He swallowed against the bile that rose in his throat and forced him-self to move quickly. As soon as he had collected his uncle’s head, he dropped to the ground and left the square at a fast pace. He could still hear the prostitutes shouting when he was halfway to the gate.