Highland Tides (16 page)

The memory of Braden’s claims that her uncle planned to kidnap the Queen and force her into marriage played on her mind. She became convinced her own abduction had something to do with his scheme. But what?

She sobbed silent tears into the smelly wool, wishing she was safe in Callum’s strong arms.

Did he care enough to come for her?

~~~

Callum stared into the steaming bowl of oats Ainslie had hurriedly placed on the table before scurrying away. Braden picked up his spoon and stirred his porridge half-heartedly.

“I’m nay hungry,” Callum said.

Braden kept stirring. “Me neither.”

For Braden to forego oats signalled the depth of his frustration. They’d spent the night pacing back and forth in the tavern’s main room, trying to settle on the best course of action.
 

A sleepless night coupled with the previous long excursion to Holyrood had left them exhausted. They’d come to the conclusion the Earl had probably taken Lexi to the same place he planned to take the Queen. Try as he might Braden couldn’t recall if Charlotte had actually told him where Bothwell took Mary, Queen of Scots after he abducted her.

Fear and dread gripped Callum’s innards. “Why has he done this?” he asked his brother. “He was only too happy to be rid of her.”

Braden licked the back of his spoon. “We canna be sure, but my guess is he needs someone to be lady-in-waiting to Mary.”

Callum shook his head. “But she must have dozens of ladies-in-waiting.”

“However, he willna want to kidnap a dozen servants. He’ll need someone he trusts, or thinks he can control.”

An idea came to Callum. “Mayhap there’s a way to find out.”

Braden frowned. “Such as?”

“Ye say the Queen will be kidnapped any day now on her way back to Edinburgh.”

“Aye.”

“The news will spread quickly.”

“Aye.”

“There’ll be rumor, gossip, speculation.”

The corners of Braden’s mouth edged up. “And sooner or later, his hide-y-hole will come to light.”

Callum brought his fist down on the table causing his wooden spoon to dance. “Then we’ll have him.”

Braden scooped up oats from his bowl, but paused with the spoon half way to his mouth. “Aye, but dinna forget, we can do naught to rescue the Queen, only Lexi.”

Callum dug his spoon into his oats. “That’s all I care about,” he rasped.
 

Their plan might take days to come to fruition. The time apart from Lexi loomed like an abyss. Not knowing how she fared gnawed at his gut. She’d become vital to his happiness in such a short time. But then what was time when a man had traveled a hundred and thirty years.

He swore a silent oath. Despite Braden’s warnings concerning interference in history, he’d kill the Earl of Bothwell if a single hair on Lexi’s head was harmed.

The next morning, Horace, Joseph and Lexi had ridden only about five miles when a castle came in sight in the distance. The four-story keep sat high on a ridge and must have commanding views.

“Fawsyde,” Joseph spat.

Lexi shivered, recalling gruesome tales of the massacre there twenty years before when the English had set it alight and burned or suffocated every living soul in the place before the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh. Its smoke-blackened walls stood as a reminder.

To her surprise, Joseph rode off through flocks of grazing sheep towards the castle, leaving her alone with Horace. She fervently hoped this was not their destination.

It was as if he sensed her agitation. “Dunbar,” he said.

She’d heard of the castle, perched on a cliff overlooking the North Sea, but hadn’t known her uncle had laid claim to it. She’d never been there, but vaguely recalled him mentioning Queen Mary had ordered repairs to the gun placements after the Earl of Moray’s failed rebellion two years earlier, so she’d assumed it was a royal holding.

What a fiasco the so-called Chaseabout Rebellion had been, the Queen’s army and her half-brother’s forces chasing each other across Scotland and back because Mary had married Darnley, a Roman Catholic. Moray feared a return to the Papist religion. The two armies never clashed. Moray fled to England, but was now back in Scotland and apparently back in his half-sister’s good graces as a member of the Privy Council. And Darnley was dead.

If Bothwell did indeed intend to kidnap the Queen, why would he bring her to a royal holding. Unless…

Her thoughts were interrupted by Joseph’s return. He’d procured another horse. At least she would ride into Dunbar on her own mount.

Ravenous, she was grateful he’d brought food and willingly accepted a heel of brown bread and a chunk of crumbly cheese. She wolfed the food down as they mounted and were off again.

~~~

At first sight Dunbar Castle appeared to have risen from the sea. It wasn’t until Lexi and her abductors reached the outer curtain wall that she realized the main part of the castle, topped by an impossibly tall tower, perched on a rock detached from the shore. She supposed there must be a passageway over the waves crashing against the rocks below.
 

Relief mingled with surprise when she espied her uncle waiting to greet her at the gate, mounted on his favorite stallion. Since childhood she’d marvelled how he always succeeded in finding a copper-red stallion. She used to believe his hair was cut from the mane of his horse.

Horace took her down from her mount. Smiling, her uncle dismounted and held out his arms in an uncharacteristically warm gesture. She had rarely seen a smile on his freckled face. Deciding there was perhaps more to be gained from being compliant, she walked into his embrace. He seemed ready to offer an explanation.

“Welcome, Alexandra,” he gushed, as if naught amiss had happened between them and he was a long-lost relative welcoming her to his demesne.

“Uncle,” she replied cautiously.

“Come,” he said, taking her arm. “Let me show you this magnificent edifice. Still wearing the same riding attire, I see. Don’t worry. I’ve had new raiment brought to your chamber.”

Apprehension prickled up her spine. Apparently he intended she be here for a while. “Thank you,” she murmured, aware he would reveal his plans in his own time. James Hepburn wasn’t a man to be trifled with. Her parents had learned it the hard way. However, he didn’t know she’d been forewarned of his plans, thanks to Braden.

He pointed to a black cavern off to the left, below the curtain wall. “Leads to the dungeons,” he explained. “Nasty place. Looks like the mouth of the Acheron, don’t you think?”

This was the uncle she remembered. When she was a child he’d told her in lurid detail the myth of Charon ferrying the newly dead across the river of woe to the Underworld. It had plagued her dreams for months. If Bothwell incarcerated anyone in the black hole they’d likely never emerge. Her throat tightened. Surely he didn’t intend to imprison the Queen there?

He led her into the keep and thence along a very long passageway. It was unnerving to think she was walking over the sea. They came to a gate set into a wall. Hepburn gestured to the armorial bearings affixed over it. “George, Tenth Earl of Dunbar,” he explained.

For the life of her she didn’t recall any connection between her family and the Earls of Dunbar, but her uncle carried on as if expounding on his own ancestral history. “He succeeded his father in 1369. Beside the Earldom of Dunbar he inherited the Lordship of Annandale and the Isle of Man from his heroic aunt, Black Agnes of Dunbar.”

She risked a sideways glance as he gazed up at the three-legged symbol of the Isle of Man to the left of the impressive coat of arms. She’d never heard of this apparently memorable woman. Not for the first time, it occurred to her he was not in complete control of his wits.

She grew more uncomfortable as he stared for a long while, lost in his own thoughts, then he seemed to recollect where he was and ushered her through the gate. “This leads to the main apartments,” he said. “First I’ll show you where Queen Mary stays when she’s here.”

An alarm sounded in Lexi’s head. “She’s been here before?” she asked.

“Several times,” he replied. “She likes it here. You’ll be her lady-in-waiting. It’s a great honor.”

~~~

Callum and Braden heard the hubbub in the main room of the tavern before they descended the stairs a day later.

Perspiration beading on her forehead, Ainslie bustled here and there, toting a tray laden with bowls of oats. She plopped two down in front of them. “Yon rascal Bothwell has kidnapped the Queen,” she exclaimed. “Who knows what he’ll do next.”

They did know, but held their peace, feigning outraged surprise at the news.

Braden tucked into his oats. “Keep yer ears open,” he muttered.

Callum nodded, listening to the lively exchange of opinion.

“Bothwell’s a madman.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if the Queen was in on it.”

“Nay.”

“They say she knew of the plot against her husband, Darnley.”

“We’re not sorry he’s gone.”

“Papist fop.”

“Bothwell’s no better. They say he’s divorced his wife.”

“Mayhap that’s so he can wed the Queen.”

This remark prompted guffaws of laughter.

Braden raised an eyebrow. “Amazing how quickly the common man can add things up,” he said softly. He turned to face the ruffians seated at other tables. “That’s my guess too,” he said. “But where would he take her to convince her of the merits of his proposal?”

They gaped at him. Callum feared his brother might have spoken too much like a gentleman. However, Braden stood his ground, nonchalantly chewing his oats.

“Mayhap she won’t need convincing.”

More laughter.

“John Knox’ll ‘ave summat to say if they do wed.”

“Surely she’d nay marry the mon who murdered ‘er ‘usband.”

A peculiar sense of being witness to an unfortunate episode in history he was powerless to change swept over Callum. “Are ye sure they wed?” he whispered to Braden. “Seems folk will be outraged.”

His brother nodded. “Aye. It will prove to be Mary’s undoing, but according to Charlotte she never did make wise decisions. And I recall her telling me the Earl went mad at the end of his life, in prison in Denmark.”

“Denmark!”

There was loud laughter from a nearby table. “Nay, laddie,” one of the fellows exclaimed. “He’ll nay take her that far. My guess is somewhere impregnable, like…mayhap Dyn Barr.”

“Dyn Barr?” Callum asked.

“Aye. On the coast. Dunbar.”

Murmurs and grunts of agreement had Callum thinking Dunbar might be a possibility. “Where in the name of the saints is Dunbar?” he asked Braden.

Lexi waited nervously in Queen Mary’s apartment. Unable to stand still, she paced from one richly decorated wall to the other, counting her steps over and over. Always the same. Fifteen one way, fifteen the other.

She made an effort to take an interest in the ochre paintings of Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child who cradled the world in his tiny hand, praying fervently for the saint’s protection for her and Callum. If ever there were travellers in need of help—

She marveled at the still incredible notion of how far her husband had come to wed her.

Her uncle had told her the Queen would be with him on his return, but she had no notion if the monarch was coming willingly or nay. If it was nay, Lexi might end up with her head on the chopping block, or at least on the receiving end of a Queen’s wrath.

The apartment was isolated from the rest of the castle, the crashing waves of the North Sea far below drowning out all else. If Mary was unwilling she’d have no recourse here against James Hepburn. He was obviously excited at the prospect of her visit. She’d never seen him show nervousness. He was like a youth intoxicated by a lass.

Lexi shivered, despite the hearty fire blazing in the hearth. Surely he wasn’t lunatic enough to rape a queen?

Her thoughts flew to Callum and his refusal to take Lexi against her will. Little did she suspect then how she would come to crave his touch.

For the hundredth time she smoothed a hand over the blue damask bedspread, then folded and refolded the exquisitely embroidered nightgown and bedrobe made ready on the bolster. She glanced around to make sure everything was in perfect order. The shadows would lengthen soon, but was it too early to light candles? She patted her hair and once more examined the skirts of the new woollen gown Uncle James had given her. No point providing a monarch reason to…

Her heart leapt into her throat when the door was thrust open and her uncle strode in, beaming a big smile, a scowling Queen Mary on his arm. She fell to her knees in a full curtsey, head bowed low.

“Who is this?” the Queen asked haughtily.

“My niece, Alexandra Hepburn,” he replied, as if the marriage he’d insisted on had never taken place. “She is here to serve you, Mary.”

Mary!

Lexi suddenly noticed a tiny black ant crawling amid the fibres of the woollen rug on which she knelt. By rights she should reach out and squash it. An ant never travelled alone. But as she watched the insect valiantly climb up one thread and down another, allowing nothing to deter it, she recognised she had to do the same. One challenge at a time.

“Can she be trusted?” the Queen asked.

“Implicitly,” Hepburn replied. “That’s why I brought her.”

The monarch’s skirts swished as she walked by Lexi to the window. “That’s as well for you, James,” she said. “You’ve already done serious damage to my reputation.”

Still studying the intrepid ant, Lexi was yet unsure if the Queen was in Dunbar of her own accord.

“Get off your knees, Lady Alexandra. I am fatigued after a long ride. You may undress me.”

Lexi scrambled to her feet, careful not to step on the ant. “Your Majesty,” she murmured, taken unawares when the Queen tossed her riding cloak at her.

~~~

Braden sympathised with his brother’s growing frustration. In the sennight since Queen Mary’s disappearance they were no closer to finding out for certain where she’d been taken. They’d been obliged to hand over some of their nine shillings to Mistress Ainslie in payment for staying on at the inn and both had invested in new raiment more suited to the time.