Heaven and the Heather (11 page)

“See that the MacGregor and his companion are repaired to the tolbooth. They must pay for their transgression against us,” Mary decreed.

Niall stood, never once regarding Lord Campbell, keeping the queen firmly in his sight. “Yer Majesty, I must concur. For how could I be in yer presence unless I had used less than favorable means?”

Sabine unconsciously tipped her chin up. Niall bore more pride than a thousand men. She could not see that it would save him.

“Less than favorable, you say?” the queen asked. She leaned forward the slightest bit. “Tell us, MacGregor, who allowed you to have these ‘less than favorable means’? One of my guards? Tell me, and perchance this court will deem to hear your plea, in our own good time, after you’ve been properly punished in the gaol.”

The floor nearly slid out from under Sabine. The entire great hall was silent as Charlemagne’s tomb, awaiting Niall’s reply to Her Majesty’s question. Sabine died a thousand times waiting to hear if Niall would betray her to the queen.

He took in a long breath. “Yer Most Gracious Majesty, I entered yer presence on my own.”

Sabine breathed again, her relief brief as a blink. It turned to concern for Niall. He stood before the queen, supplicating himself, asking for her mercy.

Her heart died when Mary said, “MacGregor, you came to us on your own, and you will leave in Lord John’s custody.”

Lord Campbell stepped up to Niall, gesturing to the guards who had made their way to throne.

Niall stared hard at the queen, devouring her words with the blue fire of his gaze.

“The tolbooth is too good for you, scum,” Lord Campbell said. “Since you refuse to tell her who let you into the palace, you will pay for your insolence…
dearly
. I’ll see you sent to the Danes.”

“Campbell’s always speak the shite,” Niall said more calmly than his situation would dictate. As quick as the fox he portrayed in the
comèdie
, he produced a large knife from under his plaid and placed the tip at the center of Lord Campbell’s throat.

“Rory,” he said, “we know when we’re not wanted.”

The other Highlander removed his bear mask, reluctantly, and took out his knife. He aimed it randomly at the stunned spectators.

Niall gave the queen a biting stare. “I wish we could’ve spoken on more civil terms, Yer Majesty, but yer reaction keeps with a great majority in this land.”

He cocked his head toward Lord Campbell. “This vermin murdered my father and brother with the muscle of yer Privy Council behind him. The question ye should ask yerself, Yer Majesty, is why. Why d’ye allow loyal subjects to be slaughtered, hunted down? We have done nothing to affront the law of this land. All we have done is fiercely cling to our land that another wants. That person is this bastard here. ’Tis his hand that influences yer councilors, for his own ends. He did this while ye were at sea on yer way here. He took advantage of yer absence.”

Niall jabbed his knife a little deeper into Campbell’s neck. A trickle of blood and a strangled moan escaped his open lips.

“Our Privy Council acts in our best interests when we are not in our kingdom.”

“Aye, keep telling yerself that lie,” Niall said.

Sabine gasped. He was as good as executed for saying such things to the queen.

“Guards,” Mary said. “Take this
sauvage
away.”

Sabine lowered her chin. She had called Niall the same, but now as she looked into his azure stare that stabbed her queen, she saw pain deep within. He was no savage. He had not given her away, told the queen she had let him into the palace, all for the price of her
sac
.

“Let yer guards take one step nearer,” Niall hissed. “And I’ll give this bastard what he deserves before yer own Royal eyes.”

Mary raised a hand. The guards stopped.

“You have no proof against Lord John,” she said. “Release him, and we’ll see your execution is merciful.”

“A skilled axeman and a well-honed blade are tempting enticement,” Niall said with a grin. “But I’ll have to decline so I must bid you
adieu
.”

He broke his stare from the queen only to give Sabine a quick wink. She gasped, scandalized. Lady Fleming glared at her.

Blade still biting slightly into Campbell’s neck, Niall managed a slight bow to his sovereign. He forced Lord Campbell backwards through the crowd, Rory flanking him, knife keeping the crowd at bay.

Sabine held her breath. Niall would never escape the palace alive.

He shoved Campbell from the great hall. His companion, Rory, slammed the doors behind them.

Immediately, the crowd began excited murmurings. They had a taste of the inhabitants of Scotland’s wild, remote places and seemed to think it was an entertainment.

“A most reckless soul,” Mary observed. She took a sip of wine.

“Yes, I agree,” Lord Darnley said.

A sudden crash echoed from beyond the door. Then shouts.

“Ah,” Mary said, “they’ve got the intruders.”

The door burst inward. Lord Campbell stumbled into the Great Hall, his clothing askew, a hand clamped on his neck. He stumbled through the crowd to the throne, not bothering to bow before his queen.

“The MacGregor and his man have escaped…crashed through one of the windows…through the glass! We should hunt them down!”

Sabine’s heart danced. Niall escaped! The Highland fox would surely return to his lair. She slumped at the prospect that he would never return to the palace, unless he was insane, and her life would be far less exciting for it.

“Calm yourself, Lord John,” Mary said. She glanced at Lord Darnley. “Would you like to join us on a hunt?”

“For that Highlander?” Darnley asked, eyes alight.

“And other Highland wildlife,” she replied with a smile. “’Tis time we visited these Highlands. A good sovereign should see more of her country. On the ’morrow we will depart.”

Sabine’s knees weakened.

At one time, only hours ago, she wished to see beyond the palace walls. Now her heart told her these walls were far safer for her than the world of a wild Highland fox with sapphire eyes. Eyes that could bring her down with one piercing look.

chapter 6

Betrothed to a Nightmare

I
f there ever was a place that could make Sabine wistful and fearful at the same time, it was the Highlands, at Castle Campbell Dubh. She had been in this gloomy place for three days, her mind occupied with settling in Her Majesty’s many accoutrements.

After three day’s travel in the queen’s entourage, she was still exhausted from riding in the carriage behind Her Majesty’s. The pain from endless bumps and jarring to her entire body were practically gone, save for the dull throb that remained in her backside, and the occasional stab of pain in her spine. She swore she was a good inch shorter after all of that.

During the journey, she had abated her misery by snatching glances out at the vast and changing landscape from behind the velvet curtains Lady Fleming preferred to keep closed. Mirrored lakes shaped like fingers appeared at every turn. Deer drank freely from them, startling when the royal procession disturbed their idyllic silence. Birds soared above the emerald hills that grew higher and higher with each league they traveled. And Sabine, wrapped in the stolen glances at this grandeur of Scotland, remembered that she would be abandoned at their destination, abandoned by the queen into the hands of Lord Campbell.

Sabine opened one of the queen’s cavernous
portmanteaux
. Her body groaned with the effort. Her attention to duty was fractured with thoughts of her impending marriage. Soon banns would be posted in the royal chapel, and her fate would be sealed. She had to keep her mind on duty to save her sanity.

She removed a heavy cloak and carried it to a dark table. Her mind tickled with the realization that Niall MacGregor was somewhere in that vast landscape. Did he know she was at the verge of his wilderness? Something told her that he did. The same something told her the Highlander would seek her out and make good on his vow. She had to believe Niall would return her
sac
. It was a scrap of hope, and her wedding day would be here soon enough. A small bit of hope was the only thing that kept her from screaming to the rafters.

Sabine smoothed the cloak on a table with a sigh. She looked about the expansive chamber given to the queen for her time here in Campbell’s Highland castle. The dark furniture, a long table, two throne-like chairs, and a bed the size of southern France, gave her a start. She eyed the dark, almost black, stain of the wood. Only one thing could have deepened the color of the wood beneath so well, ox blood. Her father had owned much dark furniture in the château. It suited his nature.

She quickly decided that if she did not rein in these errant thoughts, she would throw herself from the highest gloomy rampart. Lord Campbell would find her, no doubt, with more unwanted attention. Was it so terrible to be called the most beautiful woman in Scotland over and over again, to be coveted so much…to have a man who “made allowances” for her imperfection?
Oui.
It was.

To assuage her restless mind Sabine turned back to attending to Her Majesty’s extensive, rich wardrobe.

She took a boar’s-bristle brush and ran it carefully through the ermine collar of the lush cloak. She barely heard herself humming a nervous and disjointed tune, trying hard to ignore the reality that she was indeed in the Scottish Highlands. She was in the land of Niall MacGregor.

“
Mon Dieu
,” she whispered and focused on the ermine, but Niall’s image quickly intruded again. How annoying! She sat the brush and the gown aside and walked to the window.

The summer breeze stirred loose tendrils of her hair. She imagined Niall living out there among those silent sentinels and the brooding forest that swelled through the valley like a dark green river before it disappeared over the horizon. She closed her eyes and prayed to Saint Giles she would never see him again. And she prayed to the depths of her hope she would.

Sabine opened her eyes and backed away from the window, ceasing her torture if only for a moment. Unrelenting shivers swept through her. She turned away from the window into an attendant’s curious stare.

“Are you well?” the woman asked.

“
Oui
.” She took the brush and began methodically grooming the ermine collar.

“You are most worried about that Highlander, are you not? I see it on your face.” Her memory of that night in Holyrood when Niall invaded Sabine’s bedside was too clear.

“You see nothing except my annoyance at your silly words.” Sabine folded the gown more roughly than she should and practically threw it into an ornately carved oak press.

“On the journey to this isolated place, I saw you peering from the carriage curtains,” the attendant continued. “Then you were standing before the window locked in a dream. If you were not looking for that Highlander, then for what were you searching?”

“Peace,” Sabine whispered.

She held her breath. Had she actually said that word aloud? It was Niall’s dream, he had told her. But it was her dream! She could not share it with that Highlander, she should not share anything with him. Ever since she could remember, peace had eluded her. It was not the peace that comes after battle, surely what that Highlander had known, but the peace that came deep from within one’s soul. She tried to flex the twisted fingers in her right hand. The pain became easier to ignore when she thought of Niall—

“
Merde!
” she hissed. It should not be that way! He was a barbarian and she was…well-born, French.

“And a mere servant to the Scottish queen,” she said.

Sabine knelt before the portmanteau.

“I can never understand you,” the woman sighed.

She knelt beside Sabine and took out a riding skirt of the finest Florentine serge, a violet color rivaling a winter’s sunset. “Her Majesty will need this on the ’morrow?”

“
Oui
,” Sabine replied.

She took the skirt from her unwanted companion and rose to her feet, and smoothed the serge with her right hand. On the ’morrow the queen would hunt deer.

“I am commanded to go,” she said mournfully.

The attendant glanced at her twisted hand.

Sabine caught her stare. “Not for the archery, to discuss the posting of banns,” Sabine interjected. “The next step to my nuptials to Lord Campbell.” Saying it to another made it far too real. A steady cry of despair suddenly rose within her, one so deep her lips could not release it. There had to be something good within this predicament. Her scrap of hope slipped away. Niall could never invade this castle and return her
sac
.

“I…I must go,” she stammered. “Get some air.”

She stole through the warren of corridors and snaking stairways, barely lit by sconces with burning, musty bricks of something these Scots called peat. The corridors that housed the queen, Lord Darnley, and her Ladies were illuminated by candles. Lord Campbell had insisted on the best for his queen. He was always preening before Mary, vying for her to notice that he was the most loyal of her subjects in Scotland. It was a quality that Sabine had never desired in a husband. Would Lord Campbell be as loyal to her, after they wed, as he was loyal to his queen?