The Beauty of the Mist (35 page)

Maria took another step toward Caroline, her voice now a whisper.

“Which would you prefer?”

The visible shudder that wracked Caroline Maule’s body made it clear to Maria that she had gotten her message through. The woman’s mouth opened and closed a few times, but each time Caroline held back her words and remained silent. But her eyes darted about like those of some wild animal trapped in a cage.

Caroline Maule will retaliate someday, she thought. But so long as John is not her target, then Maria would be satisfied.

“These are my conditions, Caroline,” Maria said firmly, drawing the woman’s gaze to herself. “You will return what belongs to me, and then you keep your distance. I have no wish to see you, to listen to you, or to hear of you...ever. In return, I will try to dissuade the Emperor from–at the very least–cutting out your tongue.”

Maria waited, letting her words sink in. Then, seeing Caroline’s gaze rivet on her own face, she knew that she would have reinforce her message.

“Of course, you can reject my offer,” she continued, not allowing Caroline to speak. “In which case, I’ll call Count Diego and have his men escort you to your new quarters where you’ll await the rather unpleasant fate we’ve been discussing.”

Maria gave her only an instant to make a decision, and then moved to the table where she’d been writing. Picking up a small bell from the table, she rang it lightly.

Before the young queen had time to replace the bell on the table, Count Diego entered from a side door with two steel-helmed soldiers at his heels.

As Maria moved toward the window, she watched as realization and sudden and fear registered on Caroline’s features. The woman’s blue eyes now flitted wildly between Maria and the three men.

“Have you chosen, Caroline?”

The tall Scottish woman’s hands trembled visibly as she reached inside one of her billowing sleeves, producing the gold chain and Maria’s ring.

“You may put it there.” Maria nodded toward the small table. “And about my other conditions?”

“Aye, Your Majesty. I accept your conditions.”

The words rolled off Caroline’s tongue too quickly, too easily for Maria’s comfort, but she knew she had achieved a victory here. A small but important victory.

“Isabel
will
accompany me,” Maria insisted.

“Not so long as I am Emperor,” Charles retorted.

The footmen swung open the great doors, and he and Maria stepped past them into the magnificent hall. All eyes were upon them, and as they passed into the crowd, the kilted Scots bowed stiffly on the right side of the room while Charles’s courtiers did them homage from the left.

“I would be out of my mind if I allowed you two to spend any more time alone with each other, ever again.”

“We will hardly be alone, Charles.” Her eyes scanned the groups of Scots, but John was nowhere to be seen. “You are sending more attendants with me than the
Great Michael
has sailors. In fact, we’ll probably double the population of Scotland the day we arrive.”

“Make light of it as you will, Maria. My answer is the same. Isabel is not going with you.”

Maria inclined her head slightly toward Janet Maule and a hawk-eyed Sir Thomas. Caroline was conspicuously absent from the welcoming feast. I will need to speak with Sir Thomas one day, Maria thought grimly. She took a deep breath and they moved on.

As they crossed toward the dais, she continued. “Very well, Charles. Have it your way.”

“That’s very kind of you, Your Majesty,” he responded wryly.

“We’ll summon Mother from Castile to accompany me.”

The stiffening of his arm muscles beneath her fingers spoke of his displeasure with her words. She turned and looked at him from the side. His jaws were clenched, and his look of anger admirably restrained.

“I’d be quite happy to wait for her before sailing to Scotland,” she continued.

“You know, my dear sister,” he said, turning his green eyes on her. “I liked the old Maria so much better.”

“I’m not surprised,” Maria answered. “But I like
you
as I always have.”

His eyes showed something new, she thought. He was truly seeing something in her that he’d never seen before.

“Well, Charles, you are the Emperor. I turn to you for your wisdom and your command. Which one will accompany me? Joan the Mad?” She paused. “Or Isabel of Castile?”

“Very well!” Charles nearly choked on his words. “Take Isabel if you must! ”

Maria bowed slightly to him. She had thought the pleasure she would get out of this new relationship she was establishing with her brother would be quite gratifying. But it couldn’t be while another relationship was tearing at her heart. Maria’s eyes searched the crowd again, looking for him, as Charles led her onto the dais at the far end of the room. There, the two of them would receive the Scottish guests officially.

He was here, that much she knew. While she had been meeting with Caroline, the Emperor had met with the Scottish delegation and with John Macpherson to relay to them his sincere gratitude for saving her life. He had told them the official account the two of them had agreed upon, and they had all seemed to accept his words without question. Maria had asked Charles of John Macpherson’s reactions to his words. He’d said there had been none. But how could it be true, she’d wondered? Feeling her throat tighten again at just the thought of the hurt she must had caused him, she blinked rapidly to fight her tears. It would be very undignified if she were to weep before a crowd such as this.

John stood, silent and morose, leaning on the marble pillar against the far wall. The people around him carried on with their animated talk, asking his opinion on topics which he had been totally deaf to. He had been taken for a fool, used, and then cast aside. He had been betrayed–or was it he who had done the betraying? What of his duty to his king? As he stood nodding absently to Count Diego’s comment, he decided that the answer was the same.

What a fool she had taken him for! She had taken him as quickly as the sea can claim a ship. Another victim...and taken down as pitilessly. He wondered how many men she had allured with her charms. So practiced, the pretense of naiveté, that innocent expression...and those lies. She must had thought the selection of men on
Great Michael
quite limited, since he had been the only one she’d dallied with. He wondered how many men she’d taken to her bed.

John glanced about. The long tables beneath the colorful tapestries were laden with fish and bread and fruit, but two servants had carried out the empty cask of wine he’d been drinking from. When were they going to bring another? he thought with annoyance.

John knew that she and the Emperor had entered the great hall, and he’d deliberately moved as far away as possible. He’d paid his respects to the Emperor earlier. Congratulated him on the birth of his daughter. That was enough.

Daughters. The Highlander grew suddenly furious at the thought of his foolishness, his silly plans for their future. Well, there was no future. And he was better off. Here he was, a seagoing man, a warrior–and one pushing middle age–and he’d deluded himself into thinking of children! Of all things! he thought chastising himself angrily.

John recalled talk of the queen’s barrenness.
There
was a blessing he thought. To think that...with so many lovers! His face became black with rage. So many children might have...to think that he might have planted his seed in her! His hand fisted uncontrollably at his sides. Is this the treatment she gave all of the men she bedded? Simply walking away? Playing this ghastly game of a lass with no name, and then disappearing? He had seen her walk into the hall, but he would be damned if he would approach her.

John’s face burned at the ignominy of it all. A sense of disbelief raged in his brain. He was taking this woman to his king, to be his wife. The innocent James, his own friend Kit, still merely a boy, and John was to deliver this...this experienced woman for the lad to wed. He wondered how she would play her game with him. John was certain she would, but poor Kit would not know the difference.

The Highlander’s thoughts ran cold. This would only need to be a short term situation, he thought. They needed to take her back to Scotland, so Angus would step aside and free King James. But once the marriage contract was...fulfilled, and once James was a free man, then an annulment could be obtained. With her inability to have a child, Kit’s ambassadors could go to the Pope with a good case. A very good case, he thought bitterly.

Count Diego’s comments continued register only vaguely, and John tried to concentrate on the discussion that seemed to be focusing eyes more frequently on him. They were discussing him, he realized, and the minister was singing his praises regarding to fine treatment the queen received after the rescue. So little did he know just how fine the treatment
was
that he’d given her.

By the devil, how could he have been such a fool! He had slept with his future queen! Even though she had deliberately had hidden the truth from him–had caught him in her web of deception–he was still guilty of a heinous crime against his host and against his own king. And it made no difference that, other than the servants at Hart Haus and his own men, no one could be certain of the extent of their affair. It made no difference. He himself knew, and he would not forget.

Aye, his people would keep silent, and she would, as well, the Highlander thought. From what her brother had said earlier, Mary of Hungary was thrilled to go to Scotland and assume her position as Queen. He wondered if the Holy Roman Emperor had any knowledge of his own sister’s darker side. The commander of the
Great Michael
had listened silently as the Emperor himself had spoken of the Queen’s strict religious beliefs. But only a day earlier, John and this paragon of virtue had been lying together in her bed, and there had been nothing religious in what they had done to one another, he thought. Was the entire Habsburg family–the entire Imperial court–as corrupt as the Emperor’s sister? Or were they all just as taken in by her as he had been?

Count Diego’s hand on his shoulder cut into John’s thoughts.

“It’s time, Sir John. Everyone is waiting.”

John straightened up, looking at the man curiously. “Waiting?”

The Spaniard only gestured toward the path of people who were opening up before them.

John’s gaze followed the lengthening path. The groups of guests seemed to be stepping back and creating a passage way. There were whispers, murmurs, that he could make nothing of, but all eyes in the Great Hall were riveted on him. As he stood, unsure of his next move, the path–with the undulations of a snake–kept widening and lengthening, slithering toward its mark. When the people furthest from him stepped aside, John didn’t have to look to know who would be standing at the venomous head.

Maria’s green eyes locked on his from the far end of the hall.

Watching him from this safe distance, she felt the panic prickling in her scalp, burning in her face. What happens if he doesn’t move? What happens if he decides simply to leave the party? What happens if he approaches, only to tell her to go to hell?

Maria knew enough of his temperament to know that he might do any of those things without a second thought. Charles and his great ideas, she thought silently as fear and sorrow struggled for dominance in her soul. Turning her eyes momentarily from potential spectacle before her, Maria glanced at her brother, who had moved a few paces to the side. She could see in his face that he was looking on all of this with greatest interest.

Suddenly, it all became clear to her. He was testing her! Testing them! This way, Charles could witness how she and John would react to one another; he wanted to know how much of what Caroline had implied to Count Diego was true. Oh, Virgin Mother, she prayed, if Charles were to see anything that might confirm any suspicion he might harbor regarding what had gone between the two of them...John’s life would be imperiled.

Her face composed and cool, she turned her regal gaze back on the crowd, and took a short step to the edge of the dais.

John, too, was well aware of the Emperor and his minister. Count Diego had not remained with him for the scintillating conversation. Both men’s eyes were watching his every move as closely as they were watching hers. What he’d thought about her taking all of them for fools must be true...at least up to now. The Highlander considered leaving. Exposing her, even. So be it if she is disgraced before her own people, he thought. But then, that would be the end of the marriage and the end of any hope of freedom for Kit.

Damn her, he cursed silently.

“I am ready,” he announced without emotion to the Count. “Lead on.”

Those looking on in the Great Hall could only see a man and a woman from different worlds. Mary of Hungary was a queen–soft yet regal, and utterly devoted to her family. Sir John Macpherson was a naval commander, a warrior–hard, fierce, a leader of men, yet entirely devoted to his King.

What those in the Hall couldn’t see was the surge of emotions–the guilt in one, the anger in the other. The sorrow in one, the hatred in the other. All these things lay hidden, buried just beneath the surface of their seemingly tranquil countenances.

John strode stiffly across the Hall, his eyes fixed upon the woman at the far end. As he drew nearer, the Highlander could hear a herald recounting from the side of the dais a narrative of John’s bravery and of the good fortune that had guided their queen miraculously to his ship.

More lies, John thought. Count Diego appeared at his elbow and began to whisper what exactly was about to occur. More face-saving foolishness. He couldn’t wait to be done with the lot of them. He was getting closer now. He didn’t try to hide his contempt as his eyes swept over her gown. But how she must have laughed at him when he’d offered to dress her in cloth of gold. The jewels sewn into her gown seemed by their very design to heap scorn on his simple gift. Perfect, he thought. That gown was the perfect symbol of how inadequate she must have found him. Of how inadequate he truly was.