Sandra Madden (29 page)

Kate stopped twisting her ring. Her hands dropped to her sides. She could only shake her head to signal she was not distressed. But she was; she'd become an airling in Lady Anne's presence. Inching her chin a defensive notch higher, Kate offered a silent prayer that she would not faint on the spot and completely disgrace herself.

Apparently sensing Kate's dilemma, the duke intervened. "Can ye see Kate's ring?" he asked. " 'Tis similar to yers, me lass."

Anne beckoned with a flick of her wrist. "Come closer, girl."

But Kate could not move. At last she'd come upon someone who might have information concerning her ring and she'd become mute and immobile.

"You may approach me, Mistress Kate."

'Twas clearly a command from Lady Anne.

But nay, Kate could neither approach, nor retreat for that matter. Her knees were knocking. Could the sick woman not hear the rattling? But to lose courage now was not the thing.

"Come." Donald Cameron took Kate's hand and led her to the bedside.

"You are a beautiful young woman," Anne said with a new gentleness. Her golden eyes glittered as her gaze swept the length of Kate in a lingering, careful scrutiny.

Kate lowered her eyes and dipped her head. "My thanks."

"Now, let me see your ring,"

Kate held out her hand. "I have sworn never to remove it."

Lady Anne took Kate's hand in hers, and Kate could feel the woman's fever. Her hands were warm and trembled slightly as if beset by spasms.

Peering from beneath lowered eyes, Kate held her breath as she watched the duke's good friend slowly examine the ring.

Lady Anne's blond hair was matted from being confined to bed. She possessed high cheekbones, but her complexion was yellowed and flushed from fever. Twig thin, she might just as readily be broken. No lines of laughter fanned the corner of her eyes, nor framed her mouth.

A sweet, deep compassion flooded Kate.

Lady Anne looked up at her; a tender smile parted her parched lips. "Kate," she stated softly. "Katherine."

"Do you recognize my ring? Have you seen one like it?" Kate asked with a thudding heart.

"Aye." Anne splayed her left hand out before her.

Kate gasped. Anne wore a like ring on her middle finger. The only difference between the two rings that Kate could see was that the crown was not hidden by the rose in Anne's ring. In contrast to Kate's ring, the rose was a small detail and the crown dominated.

Kate held her breath. Her gaze shifted to Lady Anne as she silently beseeched an explanation.

Lady Anne issued a soft order. "Sally, bring the duke and Kate stools. The time has come to tell my story."

"If it will be too much for ye, Anne, we shall come back at another time. You shouldna overtax yerself."

"Dear Donald, do not worry over me. I must say what is on my mind now that you have—”

Anne broke out in a fit of coughing brought Sally scurrying to the bedside. She held a silver goblet to Lady Anne's lips.

"Milady, you are not well. Mayhap another time," the retainer cautioned sternly.

Anne gave her a weak smile. "But this may be the only time."

Kate sank to the chair. Anne still held her hand.

Donald Cameron chewed on his lip as he sat in the chair beside Kate. She glimpsed his struggle to suppress the tears in his eyes.

"I have lived in this castle all of my life," Anne told them quietly. "I was born here. Born to Mary, the eldest daughter of King Henry and Katherine of Aragon."

"Dear God." The duke's oath issued from beneath his breath.

Kate's breath stuck in her throat. Was Lady Anne claiming to be the daughter of Queen Mary? The half-sister to Elizabeth, who attempted to restore Catholicism to England?

"Aye, 'tis true," Anne said. "They called my mother Bloody Mary, though she did not deserve such a name, nor blame."

The duke leaned forward in his chair. "Anne, me love, how do ye know this?"

"The entire kingdom knew my mother was with child. But when she did not produce me, she was accused of having a false pregnancy. She hid me here with the only woman she trusted, Sally Pickering."

" 'Tis true, my lord," Sally added. "While she was with child, Mary's husband, King Philip, left her to return to Spain. 'Twas a blow, for she loved him."

Anne continued. "For many years my mother was kept occupied thwarting conspiracies that would have given Elizabeth the throne. The constant struggle took its toll. Alone and weary, she feared for my life. My mother came here to give birth to me in secrecy. She left Sally to raise me. 'Twas for my own protection."

"Dear God," the duke exclaimed.

Kate could not speak.

Anne went on in a strained voice. "Without husband or babe, whatever remained of my mother's heart was broken."

"I am so sorry for her, for you," Kate murmured.

Anne attempted to nod. "They say my mother died of influenza, but 'twas a broken heart."

"You are a princess and have lived as a prisoner,” Donald Cameron said in disbelief.

"A prisoner of my birth."

"And you never left this castle?" Kate asked, unable to believe such a wicked fate for one who should have lived a life of wealth and privilege.

"I dared not, cared not. I was happy. My solitude was the only thing I knew. But I was not convinced my children would be happy with such a life."

"Children?" Donald Cameron repeated.

"Aye. My children... and yours."

The duke leaped from his chair.

Princess Anne raised her eyes to his. "I should have told you but I dared not."

"I have fathered children?" His voice trailed away as he met Kate's eyes. The duke's shock ran deep and clear.

"I feared their lives might be at risk. Elizabeth conspired against my mother; why would she not conspire against my children, no matter who their father?"

A tingling had started deep inside Kate. A tingling and a trembling. She stared at the princess, unable to look away.

The duke's questions came with furious intensity. "Who are they? How many are there? What in God's name have ye done with our children?"

Kate awaited the answers breathlessly.

"I instructed Sally to deliver each child to a deserving childless couple."

"Do ye know their names? Do ye know where they are?"

"Aye, Donald, I do know their names."

Kate did not feel surprise when Anne's eyes met hers, but a startling numbness crept over her.

At last the duke broke the heavy silence. "Kate Beadle?"

Princess Anne weakly squeezed Kate's hand. "You are named after my grandmother, Katherine of Aragon."

Stunned, Kate gasped. She stared in disbelief at the amber-eyed woman clinging to life.

"God's death," Donald blurted.

"You, you are my, my mother?" Kate asked in the merest whisper.

"Aye, and you are more beautiful than I ever dreamed."

Tears streamed down Kate's cheeks. She did not remember the start of them, could not imagine they would ever end. 'Twas a steady flow. At last she knew the truth. She knew who she was. She was not the daughter of a strumpet, nor the unwanted child of a poor servant girl. She was a princess, born of royalty.

But she could never reveal the truth. Her birthright was clear and forever must remain secret.

Princess Anne continued, struggling to finish her story in labored breaths. "Sally made regular unannounced visits to you and your brother in the beginning. I wished to make certain you were all placed in loving homes, living normal lives, the kind of life I could not give you."

"I canna believe this," the duke exclaimed, lowering his head, clasping his face in his hands.

"If the couples who raised our children did not abide by my stipulations, Sally would have removed them from their homes."

"What stipulations?" he demanded.

Kate gazed at the man who was her father. A duke, a good, kind man. Her heart went out to him, for his pained expression plainly revealed his turmoil, a man caught in a tempest of anger and grief.

"The families were given funds to educate the children and a ring to be worn by each child at all times." Anne paused, drawing a ragged, hoarse breath. "You will be able to identify our son by his ring. You have found our daughter by happenstance. Now you must find our son."

Doneval's bushy brows dove into a confused frown. "How could ye hide the pregnancies from me?"

"By voluminous skirts. Sometimes you did not come to me for months. And occasionally, I was forced to send you away without seeing you. Those were difficult times. You have come to mean much to me through the years."

"We will be married now, this eve. You have oft refused me, but now I must insist."

Slanting the father of her children a faint smile, Anne closed her eyes. "On the morrow."

Tears stung at Kate's eyes. "Princess Anne, may I... may I call you 'Mother'?"

Anne opened her eyes again. "Aye, my sweeting. Say the word I have dreamed so often. Only in my dreams have my children called me 'Mother.' I never thought to hear..." Her voice trailed off; her smile died.

"Oh, Mother..." Kate fell to her knees at Princess Anne's bed.

"You are a fine young woman. I love you. You have made me proud, Princess Katherine."

"Princess?"

"Princess."

A princess!

Had she been alone, Kate would have pinched herself to make certain she wasn't dreaming.

Anne raised her eyes to the duke and signaled him closer. "Donald, you must find our son," she entreated him in a thin rasp. "He was pledged to wear the same ring as Katherine's. And he may be in danger. I fear Elizabeth more than ever now.”

"Hush now, lass. Save your strength," he crooned.

But Anne refused to be silenced. "Sally will help you find him. You must find him and have him remove his ring."

The duke swallowed hard as tears slipped down his
cheeks. "To discover I have children, but to lose ye at the same time, weel na, 'tis too much for an old Scot to bear."

"You are strong, Donald. You must take care of Kate now... and Cameron."

"I will nurse you, Mother, and you will grow stronger," Kate promised over the din of her drumming heart. She spoke urgently, as if haste and determination could triumph over her mother's illness. "We shall find my brother and live together as happily as a family can be."

Princess Anne closed her eyes. "My fondest wish is for you to be safe from the royals and create your own family."

"You must go now," Sally insisted quietly, shepherding Kate and the duke from the chamber. "My princess needs her rest."

Kate took Donald Cameron's hand. In heavy, sorrowful silence, they waited together in the adjacent chamber for Anne to call them to her side once more.

Princess Katherine. Kate rolled the words silently on her tongue. The kindly auburn-haired duke was her father. The ill, recluse princess was her mother. Of all the dire scenarios Kate had imagined in the past, none had been near to the truth.

Would she have been a different person had she known from birth who her natural parents were?

When Donald fell asleep, Kate slipped back into Princess Anne's chamber. She perched on the bed and gathered the sleeping woman's hand in hers.

Kate held her mother's hand through the night, until the dawn, until the small, frail hand she held grew cold.

Chapter Nineteen

Happiness lies just ahead

Kate wandered the cold misty moors with her father, the Duke of Doneval, taking comfort in the close companionship they'd found.

The end of summer in Scotland felt more like early winter weather at Rose Hall. For as far as the eye could see, shades of brown layered the rocky angles of the landscape, fading hazily into an iron-gray horizon.

Chilled to the marrow, Kate hugged her cloak closer to her body. Traces of her breath bleared before her like faint smoke.

Princess Anne had been buried just over a week ago. The grief-stricken duke, her devoted servant, Sally Pickering, and Kate had gathered around the grave marked only with an iron cross. Death had freed Anne to rest beneath the boughs of a sheltering elm just outside Downes Castle.

Kate had wept for the mother she had never known. A woman banished by fear and distrust to another country. A woman raised in a solitude and anonymity that she eventually had come to cherish because it was all she'd ever known.

At last Kate had found her mother, but only hours before she died. Even as Kate offered comfort to the duke-—in faith, her father—the blow reached achingly deep within her.

Donald Cameron's emotions shifted. One day he stormed about the castle in anger, the next, he plunged into a grief-stricken stupor. Walking together helped.

The bleak moors surrounding them rather matched Kate's mood. She felt as one with the sullen highlands. She felt the need to wander where her mother had walked not long ago, to follow in Anne's footsteps for a time.

Kate looped her arm through her father's as they ambled over the cold, hard ground.

Edmund's hound, Percy, bounded ahead, then doubled back again sniffing his way along. Begging to play, he pranced about Kate's feet. She reached down and gave a dutiful pat to his head.

The duke came to a stop. Placing his big, rough hand over hers, his gentle brown gaze met hers. "I canna think what I would have done without ye during this time, lass."

Before Kate could answer, he turned away, fixing his gaze on the horizon. "But now we must look to the future."

"It seems too soon to think beyond this day."

But her father would not be deterred. "We canna tarry. We must return to London."

"Why?"

" 'Tis necessary that I recognize ye as me daughter at once."

"But why? In time it will be known."

He shook his head. "We havna time. I shall claim to have found ye after searching for many years. Ye are the daughter stolen from me mistress—who shall remain unnamed—and left as a foundling on the doorstep of John Beadle."

Kate gave a small shrug of compliance. " 'Tis close to the truth. But who would steal a babe?"

"The MacAllisters, a rival clan and a terrible enemy. Aye, an' what glee the heathen MacAllisters would feel in taking revenge by placing a Scot's baby with an English family."