She should away from here to protect it. The sendings, the nightmares, were a horror. She could not think when last she had slept well.
Already she had gained enemies at this court. The Stewarts—Robert and his grandfather, Walter Stewart, the Earl of Atholl—watched her with narrowed eyes as she left mass that morning with the queen. It was not an oversight that the heir to the throne, also called James, had been left guarded at Edinburgh Castle. ’Twould be difficult to move against both the king and his heir at the same time in different fortresses.
The king had guards aplenty to protect him from his enemies. He must know he was in far greater danger from his friends.
But only here can I gain the king’s mercy for Colyne! I must see this through.
“At least a Douglas heir with red hair will raise no eyebrows,” Isabella muttered.
Kat gave her an arched look.
“Perhaps ’tis not he in your sending,” Kat said, suddenly hopeful. “And Douglas is a fine cut of a man.”
Isabella glanced toward her. “When he is not in his cups.”
Kat shrugged. “There are men with worse faults. He is a merry drinker at least.”
The king scored a point and the onlookers applauded. James beamed.
“Mark you how he plays,” Kat added, her voice very low. “Just well enough to challenge the king, but in the end he falters—just enough—so His Majesty never suspects him not to play his best.”
“A born courtier,” Isabella agreed, watching her bridegroom.
The pair began another set, and Alexander caught Isabella’s eye.
He smiled at her.
“And fond of you already,” Kat noted.
“Fond enough, do you think?”
The ladies and gentlemen of the court called their encouragement to both players, but always with slightly more enthusiasm for the king.
Alexander would welcome the child, she knew. He would be overjoyed with an heir brought so quickly. Proof of his virility and the hallmark of a successful match.
And she would have something of Colyne forever.
Isabella’s voice was so soft her lips scarcely moved. “I must see him.”
In an instant, Kat seized her arm and drew her away.
Kat voice was a furious whisper. “It is impossible! You know it so!”
“There must be a way!”
“The MacKimzie is not an hour hence at a country house, Isabella! He sits in the gaol awaiting hanging! You cannot!”
“The king delays his pronouncement and even William cannot guess His Majesty’s intention. If there is some means to get him away—perhaps to France—”
“The three of us, help a royal prisoner escape? Have you run mad, child?”
“Kat, please—”
“Have you thought, my lady, that the MacKimzie may not welcome the woman who has brought his clan to ruin and set him for the gallows? Why should he not hate you?”
The ground seemed to fall out from beneath her feet. In Isabella’s mind nothing had altered between them. She loved him, and he knew of it, smiling at her over his shoulder as he led the horse. No matter what had befallen them, she loved him.
But if Colyne, imprisoned and fearing for his clan, thinking himself forsaken by her—
For an instant she was back with him, looking down at the cottages, gone so frighteningly silent. Again she felt the horror of recognizing the king’s men crest the hill. Colyne’s eyes wide with stunned hurt at her deception, his face white as he looked at the castle below.
“What have ye done, Isabella?”
“Why should he not curse you, Isabella? You have destroyed him and all he held dear.”
“Stop, dear God, stop!” Isabella gasped, wrenching her arm away. She hurried toward the gallery, unmindful of those around her. Her hand was pressed against her ribs as she struggled to breathe.
“My lady!”
Someone gently caught her arm; Isabella was startled to find Alexander beside her. His russet hair clung damply to his forehead and his cheeks were flushed from exertion.
“My lady, where do you run off to?” His tone was lighthearted and he was slightly out of breath from his game with the king.
“Oh.” Isabella scrambled to think. “The match. Are you finished already? Did you win, my lord?”
Alexander laughed lightly. “No, His Majesty is by far the better player. I am honored the king deigns to play against me at all.”
“Of course.” Isabella half smiled. “I am sorry I did not see the end.”
“Will you walk with me?” he suggested, nodding toward the open gallery.
She turned and continued at a more sedate pace, with Alexander at her side.
Does he hate me now? She clasped her shaking hands together tightly. The look in his eye when he knew I sent William, the way he cried out…
Alexander frowned. “Are you unwell, lady?”
“No.” Isabella forced a smile. “A slight headache, perhaps.”
He searched her face. “Nervous of the morrow?”
“No.” She wet her lips. “Are you?”
“Less so now that I have seen your sweet face, my lady.” He cleared his throat, shifting his weight. “Have you all you need for the wedding, then?”
“I can think of nothing, the queen has attended to all. She has even made a gift of my wedding clothes.”
“I look forward,” he said, stumbling over the words, “to calling you my lady wife.”
“And I to calling you husband.”
He smiled. “I have news. I am told the king will bestow us with a fine wedding gift. An estate to the north, good lands along the coast, and a handsome income of a thousand a year.”
She gave a bland smile. “How kind.”
“Are you not delighted?” He tilted his head, frowning now. “What’s the matter?”
There were courtiers and servants about, but this was as private a moment as she could hope for.
She shifted her feet. “There is something that weighs upon my mind.”
“What is it?” He scowled. “Has someone given you offense? I will straightaway to my brother and the king—”
“No! No such thing. I—only I have been thinking of the lady Caitrina.”
He shook his head. “I do not know the lady. Is she English?”
“She is sister to the man who held me for ransom. The MacKimzie.” She rushed on. “She was very kind to me, a gentle born lady indeed and delicate of health. I was thinking I should write to her and tell her when she could expect her brother home.”
He looked away.
Isabella’s breath caught. “My lord?”
“I am sorry to give grief to a lady who was kind to you.”
“Grief? What do you mean?”
“MacKimzie hangs for his crime in two days’ time. The king has declared it so.”
Isabella gripped Alexander’s arm. “My lord, if you went to His Majesty, asked for leniency—!”
“The king cannot allow any to raise a hand against his own.” He embraced her gently and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Nor can I. For you, lady wife, I will see this done.”
Fond of her indeed, she thought, horrified.
He frowned. “Truly, my lady, you are troubled by this villain’s death.”
In some corner of her mind, Isabella heard the warning bells of danger in his tone.
“Yes, of course,” she replied evenly, hearing her voice as if were someone else’s. “I lament I have not better tidings for his sister. She was ever kind to me. A pity.”
She hooked her arm in his, resuming their walk through the gallery. As if by accident her breast pressed against his arm.
“An estate with an income of a thousand a year?” Isabella watched his suspicion melt as she smiled a courtier’s smile. His glance went to her décolletage. “How generous His Majesty is! And how well he must think of you, my lord!”
When the sickly winter sun at last made its appearance, Isabella pressed her cheek to the col
d glass of the window, watching it rise. The ache in her back was fierce from the sleepless night and she rubbed at it absentmindedly.
Only another day!
A dozen plans occurred to her but there was so very little time, no room for error or misstep, and she had no allies to rally to her cause. Even Kat, who loved her so, remained unmoved. And William, who might sincerely care for her as his own daughter, would not intervene.
She had only till that pale sun rose again to save him.
She thought of the Lord of the Isles, his life once spared by the king’s chivalrous nature when the queen and her ladies appealed to him to be merciful.
She would plead for Colyne. She would kneel before the king and queen and her husband at the kirk door with all the court and the priest watching and plead for Colyne to be spared. She would ask it to be done as a wedding gift as repayment to his sister, who had been so kind to her during her captivity.
Certainly there would be gossip after she knelt to plead for a rebel, but she would bear it. Her husband would be embarrassed, likely furious as well, an ill start to her marriage.
Alexander was already suspicious.
No matter, she thought, closing her eyes. No cost is too high.
She allowed the maids to ready her for the wedding without protest. Their giggles and gossip died out quickly in Isabella’s exhausted, absorbed presence. In the end Kat waved them out, putting the last touches on Isabella’s finery herself.
Fit for a princess, the gown’s silver cloth had the finest embroidery to enliven it, with rich fur trimming and delicate lace. Upon seeing it Isabella wondered if the queen had lavished such attention on her cousin out of longing for her daughter, the Princess Margaret, now Dauphine of France.
At last satisfied, Kat stepped back.
“Are you ready, poppet?”
“Yes,” Isabella replied wearily. “Let us have the thing done.”
“I prayed to live long enough to see you marry well.” Kat smoothed her hair as she had when Isabella was a child. “Alexander is a fine man. He is everything I had hoped for you. I know you have given your heart to the MacKimzie, but can you not find a tiny piece for Douglas?”
Isabella covered Kat’s hand with her own. “I will try.”
“It saddens me that this brings you no joy.”
“Pray, as I do, the king shows him mercy. Nothing could bring my heart more joy than that.”
“Then I shall pray it so as well.”
Isabella gave a faint smile. “They are waiting. We must not be late.”
Kat turned to open the door.
Isabella drew her breath in sharply. The fine Venetian rosary, also a gift from the queen, slipped from her hand. The scarlet glass beads shattered against the stone floor.
Isabella felt another hot rush of pain and doubled over, gasping.
“Poppet! What is it?”
A new wave of pain kept her from answering; it ran though her belly like a burning poker and radiated down her leg. She was on her knees now. A thin film of perspiration broke out over her face as nausea roiled her stomach.
Poison? It would suit the Stewarts well to keep her fortune away from the Douglas clan.
Kat was touching her face, frantic. “What is it? Poppet, you are clammy!”
Her fingers spread out among the ruined scarlet beads as another pain gripped her. A sudden warmth soaked her dress.
“No,” Isabella whispered. “The baby. Oh, please no.”
“Oh, dear God!” Kat cried.
No, I cannot lose the child! It is all I will ever have of him!
Isabella made a strangled sound as another wave hit her, her hand clenching to a fist.
The king sent his own physician, Doctor Morse. The doctor, either fearing contagion or intimidated by Kat’s warnings that her lady was gentle born and thus not to be examined in any immodest way, came no closer than the doorway.
Isabella watched silently from the bed, blankets piled high over her as Kat rattled off her symptoms—fever, headache, cough, and digestive ills. In response to the physician’s one question on the appearance of her lady’s first water of the day, Kat agreed and judged it to be very dark indeed.
The physician nodded sagely. “Clearly a fever and inflammation of the lungs. She must rest. Tell the maid to build the fire high and I shall send instructions for a poultice to draw out the illness.” He stepped back. “I shall away to His Majesty and Lord Douglas to inform them of my diagnosis. My lady, if you are not recovered by evensong tomorrow you should be bled, just to be safe.”
He bowed to her and Isabella sent a pleading look at Kat as he went out.
Kat held the door open a crack, watching till Doctor Morse was gone from sight. She came to Isabella’s side, pressed her hand.
“I must away, to fetch the midwife. I will only be but a moment—”
“Please, Kat—you must win his forgiveness for me, if I die.”
“You will not!”
Isabella bent her head against the pain. “Promise you will carry my message to him, that I loved him ever. If I die, you must win him pardon somehow! Promise!”
Kat hesitated, unwilling to swear to it.
“Promise!”
Finally Kat nodded and Isabella released her hand. Kat slipped through the door.
Her abdomen was still nearly flat but Isabella cradled the tiny curve as she waited.
The pain was better now. Surely that was a good sign.
“Please,” she whispered to the child, rocking a little. “Please. They will be here soon.”
It was an eternity of waiting until Kat returned.
The midwife was older than Kat, broad-hipped and modestly wimpled. She put her cloak off. Her simple gown was tidy, her hands and face clean.
“How far along is the bairn?” she asked briskly. “Less than a season?”
Isabella thought, afraid to answer one way or another. “About a season.”
“Have ye much pain?”
Isabella hesitated. “Not so bad.”
The woman exchanged a glance with Kat then sat on the stool. “Let me feel your belly.”
The woman was gentle as she probed. At last she sighed and stood, shaking her head at the bloodied cloths. “There’s naught to be done now.”
Tears stung Isabella’s eyes. “Oh, please, is there nothing you can do? If it is a matter of coin I will—”
“Oh, lass, no, ’tis not tha’,” the woman replied and in her dark eyes Isabella saw pity. “But yer young yet. Ye’ll get with child again in a month or so. I can make ye somethin’ for the pain at least.”
Colyne’s eyes alight as he looked over his shoulder at her.
“Do ye think the bairn a lad? Or a lass?”
A sob tore from her throat before Isabella could stop it. She covered her mouth with her hand so that none in the hall should hear her weeping.
“No,” Isabella whispered, turning her face away. “No, I do not want anything.”
Darkness fell and Kat drew the bed curtains against the cold. From her place in the bed Isabella heard a soft knock and Kat open the door. She did not bother to turn her head or take away the hand she held over her eyes, even while Douglas and Kat spoke in hushed tones steps from her bedside.
“How does your lady?”
“Very ill, I fear. She is weak as a newborn kitten. The wedding …”
“Delayed, of course, until she is well.” A sigh. “Doctor Morse is so confident of her recovery His Majesty has seen fit to send me south on urgent business.”
“I see.” A rustle of fabric. “When do you ride, my lord?”
“An hour’s time. They are preparing now.”
A pause.
“May I speak to her?”
“She should rest.”
“A moment only.”
It was not often Kat let herself be overruled. Likely her cousin thought it best that Douglas see for himself how wan and drawn she was.
He pushed the bed curtains open quietly.
/> “My Lady Isabella?” he said softly.
Resigned, she uncovered her eyes and looked up at him.
He searched her face. “How do you, my lady?”
“Very ill, my lord.” That, at least, was true.
He sat awkwardly on the stool beside the bed. “The physician thinks it but a passing fever. He sees no reason you should not make swift recovery.”
“So he said.”
He hesitated. “With our wedding delayed, the king and my brother have determined that I must ride forth on the king’s business.”
“Oh.”
Gently he took her hand. “I shall not be long. A fortnight, perhaps.” He glanced back at Kat. “I have directed Doctor Morse to tend you with the greatest of care. His Majesty and the queen are very concerned about you.”
“They have been very kind,” Isabella replied.
A longing for him, for Castle MacKimzie and all its folk, came in a wave of homesickness.
If only I had not sent William! I would be there now, Colyne as well and the babe.
She would have bargained anything to have been back at Caitrina’s solar when this happened. If there had been any way to save the child, Caitrina would have done it.
Alexander stroked her hand. “I know you are disappointed. I as well.” He gave a half smile. “I suppose the MacKimzie alone has cause for happiness this day.”
Isabella looked up. “What do you mean?”
“My departure allows him a little more time to contemplate his many wrongs.”
“He does not hang tomorrow?” Isabella clutched at the blanket.
Douglas’s eyes narrowed, just a bit. “No, I will not be here to bear witness so my leaving gives him a short reprieve.”
Isabella sighed, smoothing the blanket. “Well, I shall not write to his sister till the thing is done. I shall say he died bravely, no matter how he makes an end to it.”
Douglas gave a snort. “May such be said of me.”
“Wherefore do you go, my lord?”
“South.”
Isabella gave him a small, wheedling smile. “You cannot tell even your lady wife?”
A smile flickered across his face, and he tried to look stern. “Well, you know I cannot tell you more.”
Isabella wrapped her fingers around his. “Do, if you can, my lord, send me news you are well and when you will return. I would not wish our wedding delayed overlong.”
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