The Wild Rose of Kilgannon (26 page)

I took a deep breath and nodded. "I thank you, sir, for whatever you can do for us. I will most gratefully accept your offer to see my husband." He bowed again and left the room. I looked after him and then turned to meet Randolph's
eyes.

Angus and Harry were waiting for us as planned when we returned to Louisa's, and listened with worried eyes to our story.

"I dinna trust him," Angus said and Louisa nodded.

"Nor I," Randolph said.

"Trust him or not," Harry said, "he is arranging for Mary to see Alex. That much is good."

The men nodded and although we discussed it for an hour no one had any plan cleverer than that I go to see Alex the next day.

I went to the Tower in the morning, but it was afternoon before I saw Alex. I was kept waiting three hours in the captain's quarters. The captain, who I'd seen be brusque with others, fussed over me with tea and pillows and told me

that Alex's trial would begin the first week of October, and that Alex and I would have several hours undisturbed. His kindness confused me.

Eventually I was led upstairs, not to the
little
stone room where we had met before, but to a comfortable room in Beauchamp Tower, overlooking the courtyard, furnished with couches and a table laden with food and whisky. And in the corner, a bed. I wandered to the window, wiping the glass clean, but there was nothing to see this cold
grey
day but the courtyard where Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey had been beheaded. Small comfort to know it had been almost two hundred years ago. I left the window, and waited in a chair, my hands folded in my lap. When at last the door opened and Alex was let in I leapt up.

He was pale and wary, but alone and unchained, and I threw myself into his arms. But I didn't kiss him. His lips were bruised. He held me to him as he said my name over and over. I smiled at him, my smile becoming rigid as I noted the circles under his eyes, the bruises creeping up his neck, the dried blood in his hair and the stiff way he moved. I stepped back from him, afraid of doing more injury. Damn them, I thought, and struggled to keep my tone mild. "How are you, my love?"

He smiled gingerly. "I am well, Mary Rose, all things considered." He held me at arm's length as he examined me. "How good ye look, lass. How are ye? And the babe and my boys?"

"They are well. We are all well." We talked first of the children, then of my family, and of Angus and Matthew and Gilbey. I told him I'd heard about Murdoch's trial. And then of my meeting Edgar DeBroun and everything that he'd said. Alex nodded.

"He told me he'd seen ye. He said ye defended me strongly."

"I simply told him the truth."

He gave me a wry smile. "They're no' interested in the truth, lass, only in revenge. Especially DeBroun. He tells me I can buy an easier death if I tell them what they want to ken."

"Do you know where Duncan could be? Or the others?"

Alex shrugged. "Any fool kens they're in hiding. I dinna ken where. Why does DeBroun think I would tell them even if I kent?"

"To ease your suffering."

"I'm no' suffering. My body is taken care of well enough."

"Alex, how can you say that? Look at you. You look as though ... Alex, how do they question you? Are you... ?"

"Tortured? No, lass, they dinna torture me." He touched his jaw
gently
. "Well, sometimes, aye, when they're frustrated, they batter a bit." He grinned. "And sometimes I bring it on just to stop their questions. It willna kill me. By the trial naught will show. They'll see to that."

"Can you not tell them something?"

"Tell them something?" His voice was tight. "What I suspect is not what I ken. What I ken is of no value to them."

"But you do know something."

"Mary, I ken what I'd do if I'd taken to the heather, but I ken nothing that could benefit the English. We have heard nothing from the outside except for what ye and Angus and Gilbey have told me. No, lass, I have nothing to bargain with even if I had a mind to bargain."

"And you would not bargain in any case."

He grinned at me. "I can see ye do ken me well."

I was silent as he roamed the room and stopped in front of the table, looking at it and then pouring a glass of whisky. He turned to me with a wry laugh. "Whisky," he said, holding the glass up to the light as he always did, then draining it in one gulp. He poured another. "Ye understand why they allowed ye to see me, lass?"

"I am to convince you to tell where Duncan is, or the others."

"Aye, but ye were no' successful, despite the enticements." He took a sip of the whisky. "Mary, dinna waste yer
worry
on me. 'Tis Murdoch in the most danger here. Duncan is his brother and there's not a spot Duncan could be but that Murdoch would ken. What I canna figure out is why they care so much about Duncan. He's no' a large part of this. I canna help but think it's naught but another of DeBroun's tricks."

He paced the room again while I watched, then turned to the window and wiped the glass as I had done, telling me over his shoulder that DeBroun supervised the questioning and that hardly a day went by that he did not visit. The questions had expanded as the Crown prepared its case. Now they asked him about events that had no relation to his joining the rebellion, including the

man he'd killed in Brenmargon Pass, the man who had attacked him the day Robert had captured Alex.

"Is treason not enough?" I cried "Why are they doing this? The other has no relevance here."

"Tell that to the lawyers."

"I cannot. The court will not tell me who will defend you. And Kenneth
Ogilvie
cannot practice here because he was not educated in England. I still don't understand that. He's a solicitor so he can handle your business matters

"But he's no' a barrister, lass," Alex interrupted, "so he canna defend me in court. And he's no' English, so he wasna welcomed at the Inns of Court. It's an effective way of keeping the power in English hands."

I agreed. "Oh," I said, remembering a message Angus had asked me to relay. "Kenneth arrived yesterday."

Alex nodded. "Good. He wrote me from Edinburgh when he agreed to come. It's verra good of him. Ye ken that Harry has a scheme to keep Kilgannon from being seized by the English?" When I shook my head, Alex smiled wryly. "It's good of Harry to try. And ye ken Harry's paying all of Kenneth's expenses? Yer uncle's been most generous, Mary Rose."

"What is his scheme?"

"Convoluted, lass," Alex said. "It will come to naught, but nothing ventured ..." He waved a hand in the air and sighed. "I'll do what Harry wishes. Perhaps Kenneth will
try
to help Murdoch as well."

"How is Murdoch?"

"They now question him every day. And Morag hasna come to see him. Damn her!" he said viciously. "I dinna think she'd desert him like this."

"It's her revenge, Alex."

He nodded. "Aye, and verra thorough too. She kens what she does. She should be revenging herself on me, no' Murdoch."

"She knows this will hurt you, Alex."

"Aye. I should never have been so harsh with her."

I raised my eyebrows. "No. It would have been much wiser to let her kiss you in front of your wife. Or more." I surprised a laugh from him. "And if you'd sacrificed yourself and married her, none of this would have happened."

He grinned at me. "What could I have been thinking, to many ye instead, Mary?"

"A weakness of mind, no doubt," I said, then jumped as the baby moved strongly. "Alex, we have to name this child. We can postpone it no longer. It is a boy."

He laughed,
started
. "How can ye be so certain, lass?"

"I have no idea, but I am."

"You're a one,
Mary
Rose." He laughed again and then considered. "Why not after yer father? What was his name?"

"Robert." It was as though I had conjured Robert Campbell into the room, and Alex's face fell. After a moment he met my eyes.

"Aye. I'd forgotten that." His voice was toneless.

"What about William?"

"Well, no
offence
to yer brother, lass, but no child of mine will be named after King William. It's bad enough that you two were William and Mary. What's yer brother's second name?"

"Robert."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "Of course. Well, what about yer uncle Randolph? What is his given name?" I smiled and he groaned. "Dinna tell me. Robert, aye?" I nodded and Alex blinked. "Damn! I canna believe it." We bantered names back and forth for a long while and at last, defeated, stared at each other, then decided on a girl's name in case I was wrong.

"Margaret for yer mother and mine, both
Margaret’s
," he said and I nodded, pleased, for I'd had the same thought. "Margaret Rose MacGannon. Bonnie name. Shell be a bonnie wee lass." He nodded, satisfied. "Aye. That's simple. Now just have a girl."

"And
if
she's
a
boy?"

"Then you decide, lass," he said softly. "I won't be there." He looked at the whisky in his hand and slowly put the glass on the table before raising his eyes

to look at me. So blue, I thought. "We have a bed, Mary," he said
quietly
. "Will ye share it with me?"

I nodded, unable to speak, and rose to meet him, pulling his mouth down to mine. He tasted of whisky and tears and I clung to him, then slipped my hands under his shirt and slowly peeled the material away, and then repeated the process with his other clothing until he was naked before me. As his skin was revealed I saw the bruises and welts on his chest and back and the burns on his thighs, and I cried with new distress. Alex dismissed the marks with a shrug. "I've been ... what did they tell ye in Edinburgh? ... unrepentant? Aye, that's it, I've been unrepentant and they're no pleased with me. Now kiss me, Mary."

"Your lips are bruised," I said
softly
.

"So they are, lass, but having ye kiss me is the best medicine I ken." He sat on the edge of the bed, pulling me down next to him.

"Then, my love," I said, pushing him horizontal, "let me heal you all over." He smiled and lay back and I kissed his shoulders and neck and traced my fingers across his skin. "Do you remember, Alex?" I asked, pausing and lifting my head from across his chest. "Do you remember after the attack in the coach, when you brought me to your ship, that you offered to heal each bruise I had by kissing it?"

He laughed softly and ran his hands through my hair, loosening the pins. "No, lass, I dinna remember. Did I do that?"

"Yes." I breathed on his skin and kissed my way across a rib. "And even when I was so angry with you, even later when you'd brought me back to Louisa's, I remembered you doing that, kissing each bruise on my neck, and what it did to me."

"Rather like what yer doing to me now?"

I laughed. "Not exactly," I said and bent to my task.

Somewhat later he pulled me against him and kissed me soundly. "Your lips," I cautioned but he laughed.

"Healed, lass. Quite healed. And now, Mary Rose, it's yer turn. Come, lassie, let's get these clothes off ye. I've some healing to do, I'm thinking." He helped me remove my bodice and skirt and he wondered at how
little
my body had changed with the pregnancy. But when he moved to let me lie next to him, he winced, and I paused, knowing he was in pain, and that my remedy was

inadequate for what he was facing. I began to
cry
then and he held me to him
gently
, his caresses gradually growing more insistent.

Our lovemaking was silent and
gently
, as if we were each afraid that the other would break. Afterward I lay in his arms and looked at the ceiling, telling myself to memorize the feel of his body stretched next to mine, the sound of his heart beating, the silk of his skin as I caressed him from hip to thigh, finding an unbattered spot. And when he slept I watched him, feeling both father and son against me, separated only by a thin veil of skin. And at last I slept as well, wondering how much longer we'd have before we were separated. Moments, perhaps, I thought, and drifted off.

Sometime in the middle of the night we found comfort in each other again and then lay in gratification in the dark, talking of inconsequential things. Then he paused and smoothed a hand over my hair. "This might be the last time we're together talking like this, ye ken." He pulled me closer. "I love ye, Mary Rose.
Ye’ve
made me verra happy and I'm no' afraid to die. When they lead me to the platform I will have yer face in my mind."

"How can you talk so calmly of this?" I whispered.

"How can I not? Do ye no' think I live with it every minute? I faced it long ago, lass. After Sherrifmuir I kent I was lost." He sat up and lit the candle, facing me in the dim light. "I kent the risks when I joined the rebellion, Mary. Like it or no', it's right that I am here the now. I ask my clan to obey the law and if they dinna, to suffer the consequences. How can I no' see the comparison with this? I dinna choose to have lost a rebellion and now be considered a traitor, but it is what happened. I see the correctness of this." He raked his hand through his hair. "But I wish they would get on with it. If they're going to kill me, I wish they'd just do so. The waiting is far harder than I imagined." He sighed. "But so be it. This is where we are. And soon where I am will matter to no one."