The King's Mistress (14 page)

Eyes narrowing, Yolande came to her feet, her regal posture restored. “As you lust, MacKinnon, but hear well, if you fail to keep that slut from my sight…”

Without another word, she spun, threw open her private chamber door and disappeared.

Britt blew through his teeth. “Well, that went better than expected.”

Heavy footsteps echoed through the hall. Gen raced to the door, the threat of her furry companion forgotten in the hope of seeing Britt. She stood on tiptoes and craned her neck, only to find a thick, squat shadow moving toward the cell.

Oh God, ’twas one of the queen’s men coming to take her away.

Or kill her.

Breath hitching in panic, she scrambled backward, tripped over her satchel and pressed her back to the wall. Instinctively, she slipped her hand into her pocket for her
sgian duhb
, only to recall Britt still had her blade. Augh! Claw and scream as she might, it would be to no avail. No one was close enough to hear.

Metal scratched metal and shadow blocked the door’s wee window, throwing the cell into complete darkness. “Gen, I have the key.”

“Britt!” Genny ran to the door. The moment it opened, she threw herself into his arms, pressing her face against his massive chest.

His arms tightened about her, his hands warm and soothing at her back and neck. Pressing his lips to her hair, he whispered, “Shhh, shhh, there’s no need to greet. You’re free.”

She managed a jerky nod, still not sure she believed it. When she did catch her breath, she muttered, “What took so long?”

He laughed. “’Tis a long tale that can wait until you’ve had something to eat and drink.” He took hold of her right hand and, grinning, brushed a loose lock from her cheek, then wrinkled his nose. “And a bath.”

She smiled at that. She did reek to high heaven, her hair was a tangled mess, and Greer’s favorite gown was torn and soiled beyond repair, but she didn’t care. She was free and with Britt. ’Twas all that mattered, all that would likely ever matter again. “I’m past ready to take my leave.”

He retrieved her satchel and, taking her hand again, headed for the door at the end of the hall. “We need go through the kitchen.”

She followed without question until she found he’d led her into the crowded lower bailey, what he called a ward. Realizing they were heading for the stable, she pulled back. “Wait. We can’t leave the castle.”

“But we must.”

“But my—” She looked about, then crooked a finger, bidding him come closer. When he bent, she whispered, “The moon is full.”

“So?”

Feeling heat rise up her neck and infuse her face, she muttered, “My courses—I am
due
any day.”

When understanding finally dawned, he turned the color of a fresh-cut beet. “Oh. But not yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Then we have time to worry about how we’ll get you safely within the queen’s company later. Right now, we have a more pressing problem.”

Was he not listening? “What could be more important than protecting Greer’s bairn?”

“Montre.”

“Oh?” In her distress, she’d completely forgotten about him.

“I promised the witch his safe return in exchange for the key.”

The admission took her breath away. Here she’d thought the Council had ordered her release, but instead ’twas due to Britt’s risking his own freedom to garner hers.

He tugged her forward. “Come. We’ve no time to waste.”

From the window high above the lower bailey, Yolande, hand to her heart, watched the whore and MacKinnon race for the stable.

How had MacKinnon gotten the upper hand like this?

She needed Armstrong’s infant, needed it desperately, but she would not lose Anton in the process.

Now she had no choice but to trust that MacKinnon was a man of his word, that he wouldn’t kill Anton now that he had what he wanted.

Just the thought made her ill.

She’d been given no choice but to trust her instincts. She’d seen the way MacKinnon’s lip had curled in derision whenever Lady Armstrong had flirted and her husband had made a fool of himself. Knew there was no love lost there. In fact, MacKinnon had done his utmost to keep her lustful husband and whore separated. Why he should now take up her cause was beyond her understanding. Unless…

Oh Lord, unless this had all been a ruse.

Her heart hammered against her hand. Could MacKinnon have wanted Armstrong for himself all along? If so, she’d just placed the nails in Montre’s coffin.

No,
she would not believe that. MacKinnon, a man of few words while around her, was also a man uncomfortable with dissembling.

“My queen, are you all right?”

Ignoring her cousin’s question, Yolande said, “Please summon Duval.”

“Of course, but first let me see you to rest. You’ve been standing before this window for so long—”

“Now, Evette!” Startled, her cousin jumped back a step. After she rushed away, Yolande turned her ire on the rest of her court. “Leave. We wish to be alone.”

No sooner had her ladies disappeared than Duval bowed before her. “Your Highness.”

She gave Montre’s second in command a much altered and abbreviated version of her conversation with MacKinnon. “If MacKinnon speaks the truth, then soon he will send word through his squire as to where Anton will be found. Bring him to Kinghorn and tend to his every need until I join you.” She took a shuddering breath, then squared her shoulders, a queen in command. “If, God forbid, you find Anton dead, then I want MacKinnon’s head severed and brought to me on a pike. Take every guard we have, but
do not
return without word that Anton is alive or with the other.”

Britt looked about Hildy’s personal chamber in shock. “Are you sure this is the only room left?”

MacLean’s lady, hands on her ample hips, rolled her eyes. “’Tis the only bed left in the town. Take it or leave, love.”

Growling under his breath, Britt dropped a mound of coins—what Hildy claimed would be three days’ lost wages—onto her outstretched palm. The coins disappeared before he could blink. Hildy then turned her attention to Genny. “Hot water is on the way. The hip bath is behind yon screen.”

When the door closed behind her, Britt muttered, “At least ’tis clean.”

Genny grinned. “’Tis more than I can say for myself at the moment.” She sighed and looked about the room. “I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything quite so…red.”

Hildy’s boudoir was not simply red but shockingly so from floorboards to ceiling, thanks to beet-colored stenciling and yards of scarlet drapery and bedding. Even the sheepskin pelt beneath his feet had been dyed blood red.

Genny tested the thickness of mattress. “I dare say, she must do…uhmm, very well for herself.”

“Apparently.” The room’s appointments, as lavish as any he’d seen in Edinburgh and certainly more than any within his home, could have come straight from a Persian palace.

Genny kicked off her slippers and, giggling, took a flying leap backward and landed in the center of the bed with a pleasant thump, her arms above her head, her breasts thrust toward the ceiling. God’s teeth!

Laughing, she patted the counterpane. “Come. You’ve never felt the like.”

He shook his head. Not only would he have “never felt the like”, but would in all likelihood roll atop her, kiss her breathless, then love on her ’til neither of them could think, much less feel. To distract himself and the growing discomfort betwixt his thighs, he said, “I need go.”

Genny sat up, a frown marring her normally smooth brow. “What’s wrong? Have you suddenly taken ill?” She gasped. “’Tis your wound, isn’t it? Has it festered?”

Worry etched her lovely face as she slid off the bed and reached up to touch his forehead, but he stepped away. “Nay, I’m fine. I just need to leave.” Before he gave in to desire.

She reached for his breastplate. “If ’tis so, then let me see your wound.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m fine, better than fine, but if you must check something, here.” He took her hand and placed it on his cheek. “See. No fever.”

“You aren’t fevered. Then you must be worrying about the meeting. Please tell Ross at the least what you’re doing. If something should happen—”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “The fewer who know I’ve coerced the queen, the better.” And the safer for Genny. There were many in the queen’s court who, thinking Gen to be Greer, would gladly bring her down.

“Then promise to be careful.”

“Aren’t I always?”

“Nay. If memory serves, you rarely are.” She placed her palms on his chest. “I’ve been most ungrateful, have yet to thank you. Were it not for you…”

The earnest expression in her eyes, the soft swell of her lower lip and sweep of her thick lashes as she looked up at him caused his heart to thud erratically, and without thinking, he pulled her close. Could she feel the chaos just looking at her caused within his chest? Could she hear the roar of his blood? “I’ll return once the queen’s men find Montre and take him away to safety.” Of that he had to be certain.

Heaving what sounded like a resigned sigh, she slipped her hand from beneath his and backed away. “Then you’d best be off, but keep in mind I shan’t rest until your return. Then we shall break fast together, and hopefully you can get some sleep.”

He nodded, knowing he’d be fortunate to get any. He’d be sleeping in the stable, in Montre’s cell, if need be. Anywhere but next to lovely Geneen Armstrong.

In the stable, Britt forced his reluctant destrier betwixt the poles of MacLean’s cart, then struggled into the too-tight homespun tunic he’d found in a corner. He had no time to find anything else. His squire was already making his way to the queen.

His disguise finally complete, he opened the door to the secret room and found his prisoner just as he’d left him: bound, battered and bruised. “You’re a lucky man. Her Highness has negotiated your release.”

Montre glared at him through his one good eye.

Britt bent, unlocked the shackles securing Montre’s arms behind the pole, then pushed his prisoner forward and secured his wrists again. “Listen carefully. I’m bringing you to your men. They will take you to Kinghorn, where you will remain. Her Highness will join you there after the funeral. Should you take it into your head to disobey and leave, then I’ll have no choice but to relate the whole sordid tale of Her Highness’s duplicity—how she took it upon herself to order the executions of two of His Majesty’s subjects without His Majesty’s knowledge or consent—to Ross and Comyn, neither of whom is a forgiving man. Do you understand?”

From his expression, Montre was apparently surprised Britt hadn’t already done so, but he nodded.

“Then off we go.” Britt jerked Montre to his shackled feet. “Into the cart and lie down.”

The moment Montre was in, Britt buried him beneath a mound of straw, then jumped onto the driver’s seat.

To his annoyance, the roadway out of Edinburgh was clogged with citizenry, cattle and heavily laden wagons. Britt didn’t begrudge those who would make a handsome profit from his liege lord’s demise—life did go on—but he was also most mindful of those who would soon give chase and couldn’t help but grind his teeth in frustration. He had to deposit Montre and then be away before the queen’s guards arrived at the shielding.

Finally the roadway cleared before him, and Britt braced his feet against the footboard before shouting, “Hie now!” His destrier, none too happy about the cart poles shafting his powerful sides, tried to run out of them.

Ten miles later, the isolated shielding he’d chosen for Montre’s rescue came into view. Britt pulled back on the reins and guided his agitated mount up the narrow, rutted path, then around the shielding and into the nearby piney copse, where he dropped the reins and jumped to the ground. Reaching under the straw, Britt took firm hold of Montre’s ankles, hauled him off the cart and onto his feet. “To the shielding. Move.”

Montre, his stride limited by the foot of heavy chain, hobbled forward. The minute they were under cover and in shadow, Britt hit Montre between the shoulders, pushing him to the ground. When his prisoner, growling, flipped over onto his back, Britt pointed to the thorny brush to his far right. “I’ll leave the key to your shackles in yon weeds.” Finding the key would take Montre’s guards some time, enough at least for Britt to take his leave unnoticed.

As he turned to leave, he stopped and looked back at Montre, who was now sitting up. “Should Her Highness ever again try to take her revenge out on Lady Armstrong, upon
my
honor I will see Yolande de Dreux dead.”

Britt returned to the copse, unwound the leather straps securing the cart to his mount and pulled him free. Grabbing a fistful of mane, he vaulted onto his horse to wait and none too soon. No less than a dozen of Montre’s red-clad soldiers came around the hillock and thundered up the road. Spying the shielding, the man in the lead—likely Duval—pointed, and the riders turned as one and came racing up the hill. Britt, mission accomplished, turned his mount in the opposite direction.

While Hildy dried her flame-colored hair in what breeze could be found within the mews, Gen paced before her. “’Tis well past gloaming. MacKinnon should have been back long by now.”

“Back from where?”

Gen shrugged. “That I don’t know.”

Hildy waved a dismissive hand. “Then you’re acting the fool. For how can he be late if you have no notion of how far afield he’s gone?”

“True, but—”

Hearing hooves clip-clop behind her, Gen spun around. “Britt!” Entering on foot, leading his mount, he grinned and held out an arm in welcome. She ran to him. “I’ve been so worried. Did all go well?”

He slipped his arm about her waist and gave it a squeeze as he led his destrier to the stable. In a whisper he said, “Aye. Montre is safe, and Her Highness has been informed.”

“Wonderful. When shall we return to the castle?”

“On the morrow, but only if you promise to keep from Yolande’s sight.”

Genny’s steps faltered. “But how? I must return to court. You ken why.”

“I do, and we shall ponder the how of it after I’ve board and rest.”