Tarnished Rose of the Court

by Amanda McCabe

  John shook his head. “I tried to stay away from you, but I could not. Every time I tried you would draw me back to you with just a kiss, a smile. I had never felt anything like it before. It was like an irresistible force.”

  “An irresistible force,” Celia whispered. “Aye, it was the same for me. I needed you. You were all I could see.” And she feared she still needed him. Would always need him despite everything.

  “I never wanted to hurt you,” he said softly.

  “My brother’s actions were foolish and he paid for them,” she said. “You could not have stopped him. Nor could you have betrayed the Queen because of him. I do see that now.” Because of her own actions in Scotland she saw the world so much more clearly.

  “Before I went to Paris I came back to find you,” he said hoarsely, his hands tight on her shoulders. “I knew I should not, but I couldn’t stay away. I wanted to beg you to come with me.”

  Celia gasped, and shook her head as if she would deny his words, the hurt and hope of them. “But you did not! I never saw you again until that moment here at Whitehall.”

  “It was your wedding day.” There was a world of pain in his voice she had never heard from John before. It made her want to cry, to weep at what was once lost. What she still wanted despite everything.

  “I saw you from a distance on your way to the church, in a blue gown with flowers in your hair,” he said. “I did not know the truth of Thomas Sutton then. If I had I would have snatched you from the road, forced you to go away with me no matter the consequences. But then I thought you were better off without me.”

  “Better off without you?” Celia cried. She pressed her hand to her mouth to hold back the ragged sobs. “I missed you so desperately for three years, John! Ached with the loss of you, the fear of what had happened to you.”

  “I ached for you, Celia. Thought of you every day. But I imagined you safe with your family, a home of your own. Content with your life after the terrible things I had done. If I had known—God’s blood, Celia.” He pulled her against him, one hand cradling her head to his shoulder as he held her fast. “Can you ever forgive me for all I have done?”

  Celia pressed her face into the soft linen of his shirt and breathed in deeply. Tears ached behind her eyes, but she couldn’t let them free. Not yet. “Do you love me, John?”

  “I love you so deeply, Celia, so fiercely that I know I can never be free of it. I am yours.”

  With that she cried, letting the tears fall down her face even as she laughed. Her heart, so closely locked and guarded for so long, cracked open and hope and joy flew into the world. She was free.

  She tilted back her head to smile up at him, and he framed her face in his hands as he hungrily took in every part of her. Tears and exultation both. Everything she was.

  “As I am yours, John. I love you,” she said. “I will forgive you everything, for ever, if you will only promise never to leave me again.”

  “I could never leave you, Celia,” he said. “You are trapped with me for ever now, come what may.”

  For ever. Celia had never heard sweeter words. She went up on her toes as John’s lips claimed hers, hard, hungry, and in that kiss she tasted what the words love and for ever truly meant. The past was gone, the pain banished, and all they had now was each other.

  He was hers and she was his. For ever.

  Epilogue

  Scotland, One Year Later

  “Lady Brandon! Whatever are you doing up there?”

  Celia turned around at the maidservant’s shriek, the corner of the tapestry she was holding up clutched in her hand. The table she stood on was hard and smooth under her stockinged feet, and felt perfectly solid. “I’m trying to see what this would look like here, of course, Mairie. It has just arrived from London, and I think this wall is the place for it.”

  “Then you should have called for me, or for one of the pages. Sir John would be so angry if he saw you standing up there in your condition.”

  “I’m being very careful, I promise,” Celia said calmly. She laid her hand over the small bump under her satin skirt, as yet still almost undetectable. But in a few months there would be the music of a baby’s cries in these corridors and chambers that were finally coming to life again after all these years.

  Celia let Mairie help her down from the table to the flagstone floor, and as she smoothed her skirts she studied the hall around her. It was very different from when she had first seen it, the night John had brought her there to shelter her from the storm and told her of his family’s history.

  When Queen Elizabeth had sent John back to Scotland after their marriage, as part of her delegation to Queen Mary’s Court, Celia had despaired of making it a real home. Now the rooms were cleaned and refurbished, filled with fine furniture and colourful tapestries, and painted cloths, new glass in the windows, and warm rugs on the floors to keep the Scottish chill away. But the very best thing to keep the cold away was surely the hours she spent with her husband in the cocooned, sensual privacy of their curtained bed. There John kept her warm every night with his caresses, his wondrous kisses, the words of his love she had lived without for so long.

  “Here, my lady, let me hang the tapestry for you,” Mairie said. “You should sit by the fire for a while. You mustn’t get too tired.”

  “I’m not tired at all,” Celia said, blushing at her thoughts. But she let Mairie take the heavy cloth from her.

  As she watched the maid clamber up onto the table there was a sudden commotion in the entrance hall, the boom of voices and the clatter of spurs.

  “Sir John is home!” Celia cried. She spun round and dashed out of the room, her skirts clutched in her hands, even as Mairie called after her with a warning not to run. John had been to Edinburgh for many days, and Celia had begun to think he would never return.

  But now he stood there in their home again, the cold wind sweeping around him from the open doors, his hair tousled and his black velvet and leather clothes creased from the hard ride home. He looked weary from his journey, but a brilliant smile touched his lips when he saw her and he opened his arms. Celia ran into them, holding onto him as if he was the most precious treasure in all the world.

  “My fairy queen,” he said roughly, lifting her from her feet as he buried his face in her hair. “How I have missed you.”

  “As I’ve missed you,” Celia said. “Welcome home, husband.”

  And as he kissed her she knew they had truly both found their home, their hearts’ deepest desire, at long last. Together.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt of Whirlwind Cowboy by Debra Cowan!

  Author’s Note

  When I wrote my book The Winter Queen—the story of Anton Gustavson and Rosamund Ramsay—I was very intrigued by Anton’s cousin Celia Sutton. She seemed so unhappy, so haunted, and I wanted to know why! I wanted to know what had happened to her, and what it would take to make her believe in love again.

  I so enjoyed spending time with her and her gorgeous hero in this story. I also enjoyed researching the story’s setting and learning more about Mary Queen of Scots. I knew quite a bit about her late life in English captivity, but not much about her early days back in Scotland after years in France. It was fascinating to read about this time in her very complex and tragic life, but very hard not to shout warnings at her not to marry Darnley!

  Her life does indeed slide into disaster after her marriage, just as Queen Elizabeth predicts. For a detailed look at the events surrounding her marriage and its violent unraveling I like Alison Weir’s Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley.

  Celia and John’s part in the tale is fiction, of course, but much of what happens to them and the people they meet is part of history. Mary and Darnley, Elizabeth and Burghley—and their disagreements over Mary’s marriage—Mary’s four Marys, the terrible weather on Darnley’s journey to Scotland, Mary’s efforts to recreate a French Court in the rougher environs of Scotland, her religious feud with John
Knox, even her excursions out into the city dressed in men’s clothes, are all things I enjoyed incorporating into the story. It also seemed like the perfect backdrop for Celia and John’s tumultuous romance!

  If you’d like to read more about this period, there are many, many sources on Mary Queen of Scots. Here are just a few I enjoyed:

  —John Guy, The True Life of Mary Stewart, Queen of Scotland (2004)

  —GW Bernard, ed., Power and Politics in Tudor England (2000)

  —J. Keith Cheetham, On the Trail of Mary Queen of Scots (1999)

  —Roderick Graham, The Life of Mary Queen of Scots: An Accidental Tragedy (2009)

  —Antonia Fraser, Mary Queen of Scots (1969)

  —G. Donaldson, All the Queen’s Men: Power and Politics in Mary Stewart’s Scotland (1983)

  —M. Swain, The Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots (1986)

  —Jane Dunn, Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens (2003)

  —Caroline Bingham, Darnley: A Life of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, Consort of Mary Queen of Scots (1995)

  —James Mackay, In My End is My Beginning: A Life of Mary Queen of Scots (1999)

  —Alison Plowden, Elizabeth Tudor and Mary Stewart: Two Queens in One Isle (1984)

  —S. Haynes, ed. State Papers of William Cecil, Lord Burghley

  —JS Richardson, The Abbey and Palace of Holyroodhouse (1978)

  Plus the guidebook to Holyrood, now available at the palace—the photos were invaluable!

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  Chapter One

  West Texas

  June 1886

  Where was she? The ground was hard beneath her back. Her head pounded as she stared up at a gray sky and the sun hidden behind red-tinted clouds. Carefully pushing herself up on her elbows, she winced as sharp pain speared through her skull. Her shoulder ached, too. She was behind a two-story white brick building she didn’t recognize.

  She touched her temple, and her fingers came away bloody. She inhaled sharply. Blood also streaked her pale blue floral bodice. What had happened?

  A creaking sound had her looking over her shoulder. A saddled black horse watched her with dark eyes. Then she saw a wet stain a couple of feet away.

  She eased over and touched it, startled to realize it was more blood.

  Cold, savage fear ripped through her and she got unsteadily to her feet, fighting back panic. Whatever had happened here had been deadly. She couldn’t remember it, but she knew it.

  Her head throbbed as she looked around wildly, trying to identify something, anything. Not the building hiding her or the store across a dusty street or the railroad tracks beyond. Nothing was familiar.

  Alarmed and confused, she felt tears sting her eyes.

  From the front of the building she heard the heavy thud of boots. A man muttered in a low, vicious voice. The hairs on her arms stood up and fear rushed through her.

  There was no thought, only instinct. She gathered her skirts and hurriedly mounted the waiting horse, riding astride. Her skull felt as though it was being cracked open and she thought she might pass out from the pain.

  Urging the animal into motion, she rode hard away from the unfamiliar buildings and headed for the open prairie. Someone yelled after her. She wasn’t sure what he said, but she didn’t stop.

  Gripping the pommel with sweat-slick hands, she kept the horse at a full-out run until she was assured no one was behind her.

  Then she slowed the horse to an easy pace. As far as she could see there was an endless sea of golden-brown prairie grass, dotted here and there with a few evergreen trees. The landscape looked familiar, but she didn’t know why. She didn’t know anything.

  A forceful gust of wind had her grabbing the pommel. Bits of dirt and grass pelted her face as well as her mount’s. The animal slowed, but kept moving.

  Dust whirled across the prairie. The horse’s hooves pounded in a steady lope. On and on. Daylight turned to gray. They crossed a dry creek bed, then topped a small rise. Through the swirling light and dirt, she spied a small cabin and a barn. As she rode up to the front of the house, she called out, but no one answered. There was no sign of anyone at all.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she frowned at a boiling mass of clouds sweeping across the ground. The first stirrings of a dust storm. Being caught out in it could be deadly.

  Fighting back panic, she decided to take shelter in the small cabin. She wasted no time settling the horse in the barn. After filling the trough with water from the pump just outside, she closed the animal inside and ran to the cabin, praying she would be able to get in. When she tried the door, it opened and she slipped inside with a big sigh of relief.

  Shaking out her skirts then brushing off her hair and bodice, she took stock. A Franklin stove sat in the corner to her left, along with a sink and a pump and a short work cabinet. There was a small but sturdy-looking table, and straight ahead an open door revealed the foot of a bed.

  The windows, real pane glass, shook as the wind gathered force. Her shoulders and neck throbbed, but she searched for candles or a lamp in case she needed light later.

  Though small, the cabin was solid and would offer protection from the storm. Looking down, she stared at the bloodstains on her bodice. Her mind was empty. Why couldn’t she remember anything?

  A shiver rippled up her spine. Not only was she completely alone and lost—she had no idea who she was.

  * * *

  After a week of tracking Cosgrove, Bram had lost him and returned home. Whirlwind’s sheriff, Davis Lee Holt, had wired every lawman in the state and promised to send word to Bram if he received any news.

  Bram had duties at the ranch, but he still checked with Davis Lee every day about Cosgrove. Two weeks after the trail had gone cold, Bram got news. Surprisingly it was from his uncle, not the sheriff. Uncle Ike had witnessed Cosgrove robbing a bank in Monaco.

  Bram had ridden straight to the small town located northwest of Whirlwind, where he discovered Cosgrove had murdered a man during that robbery.

  Bram had picked up the outlaw’s trail again, this time headed east toward Whirlwind. Cosgrove would be a fool to go back there and probably hadn’t, but the approaching dust storm had erased any sign that he might have changed direction.

  The past three weeks had been hell, and Bram laid that on Deborah as much as the outlaw he chased. He hadn’t spoken to her mother or sisters again, though Bram’s brother, Jake, had. He had felt it his duty to let Bram know Deborah still hadn’t returned home.

  Bram tried to tell himself he didn’t care. She’d made her choice and it wasn’t him.

  The spiraling wind swirled across the prairie, flaying his face and body with sharp bits of dirt and grit. The gunshot graze on his cheek was healing. Dragging his dark bandanna up to cover his nose and mouth, he knotted it tightly.

  He was worn slick, dirty and madder than hell that this dust storm would force him to briefly suspend his search for Cosgrove, but he would find the low-down dog again. He wouldn’t stop until he did. In addition to being a rustler, Cosgrove was now a murderer. Bram wouldn’t be the only one out for the bastard’s blood. If possible, he hated the cattle thief even more than he had three weeks ago.

  The wind swept around him and he barely caught his hat before it blew off. The small cabin on the edge of Circle R property was less than a mile away, so Bram directed his mount there.

  By the time they reached the building, the red dust was thickening, spreading. At the barn behind the cabin, he dismounted and slid open the door. When his mount balked at entering, Bra
m grabbed the bridle to lead the animal inside. He understood the dun’s wariness. This storm made him uneasy, too.

  The dust swirled inside, the wind noise escalating to a steady hollow hum. Bram quickly pulled off his saddlebags, unsaddled his horse, then removed the bridle.

  Scout stomped, shifting nervously. Bram spoke softly, trying to calm the gelding. A clothesline stretched from the barn to the cabin and would enable Bram to find his way if the dust became too thick to see the house. Just as he bent to pick up his saddlebag, the horse backed up, almost pinning Bram to the wall.

  “Whoa.” He laid a calming hand on the animal’s hindquarters and edged away from the weathered wall. That was when he saw another horse deep in the shadows.

  Not just any horse. He blinked.

  That looked like Cosgrove’s black mare.

  No way in hell. Bram couldn’t be seeing what he thought he was.

  He eased closer, noting that the animal was unsaddled and had been brushed down. Speaking softly to the horse, he lifted its left front leg, then the back one. A C had been crudely carved into the top of the mare’s rear shoe. It was slyly done, the top of the C coming out of the tack’s head, but this was Cosgrove’s horse!

  The damn brand blotter had been forced to take shelter, too. Here!

  Bram’s lips twisted. This was too good to be true, and he wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to catch the bastard. Or kill him. After the murder committed by Cosgrove during that bank robbery, Bram would have no qualms about taking in a dead man.

  Satisfied that there was enough water in the trough near Cosgrove’s animal for both horses, Bram returned to his things in the corner and slid his Spencer rifle out of its scabbard.