All the parents had come together for the wedding, despite their differences, which so far had amounted to little more than mild disgruntlement. Crowded into the cozy tavern were Kate, Jossy’s three fathers, and Drew’s uncles, who, for their own protection but much to their chagrin, were forced to attend in the guise of plaid-wearing Highlanders from Tintclachan.
Even the Four Maries, enchanted by Drew’s romantic proposal on the links, had sent along a gift. At their command, Tristan MacKenzie, the dashing and talented half-Scottish, half-French apprentice to Queen Mary’s own cook, had arrived early in the morn to prepare a sumptuous wedding feast.
And now the guests gorged on the young lad’s delicious and inspired dishes of smoky salmon and mussel brose, steaming seaweed soup and fresh-baked barley bread, Scottish carrageen pudding made with rose water, and flaky French mille-feuille glazed wth honey.
But despite his far superior cooking skills, Tristan, with both French charm and Scottish hospitality, had graciously made room on the table for Kate Campbell’s renowned apple coffyns.
Beer flowed like a storm-swollen stream, which was fortunate, for most of the inn’s patrons were too drunk to notice that some of the Highlanders had a distinct English drawl to their speech.
“I’ll make ye a bargain, lad,” Kate promised Drew with a pointed glare. “If ye vow to stay in Selkirk, I’ll give Jossy my recipe.”
“Selkirk?” Robert barked at Kate. “Pah! Nay, they’ll be coming to Andrew’s home.”
“O’er my dead body,” Angus growled.
“Da!” Josselin scolded.
“That can be arranged,” Simon muttered.
“Uncle!” Drew snapped.
Will folded his hands patiently around his tankard. “Where do ye intend to go, lass?”
Everyone looked at them expectantly. They definitely weren’t staying in Edinburgh. After their confrontation with Philipe on the golf course, Josselin had promised the apoplectic secretary that they’d keep well away from the queen.
“Well,” Drew said, “we haven’t quite decided, but…”
Josselin continued for him. “We’re stayin’ in Scotland.”
Drew’s uncles groaned.
“You’d let a maid tell you where to live?” Simon spat in disgust.
“She isn’t tellin’ me—” Drew began.
“Why would you want to stay,” Robert growled, “in such an uncivilized—”
There was a loud scrape of chairs as the Scots in the room rose to their feet.
Josselin sighed and shook her head as vile oaths and threats began to fill the inn.
“Listen to me!” she bellowed, silencing them all. “There will be no malignin’ of anyone’s place o’ birth at my weddin’, do ye understand? The next person who utters one more word of it, I swear Drew and I will both disown ye.” She gave them all a withering glare. “Now sit down.”
Once they were seated, she resumed. “I’m not tellin’ Drew where to live. ’Twas his choice. He makes his livin’ at golf, and he—”
“Can’t you bat your ballocks around some sheep field in your own country?” Robert asked.
Drew suppressed a laugh. “’Tis balls, Uncle, not ballocks.”
“Well, can’t you?”
Thomas answered his brother. “Golf’s been banned for years now in favor of archery.”
“The lad should go where he can make the best livin’,” Alasdair added, “and the best home for Josselin and their bairns.”
“Bairns!” Kate cried with, in Josselin’s opinion, far too much enthusiasm. “Ach, lass, are ye already with child?”
Simon protested. “Surely, Andrew, you won’t let your son be born on Scots soil!”
Angus narrowed his eyes. “And what’s wrong with our soil…aside from the fact it’s stained with English blood?”
“Out!” Josselin cried, pointing toward the door. “Both o’ ye! Out! And leave your weapons here.”
Simon and Angus scowled, but they did as they were told. They stood, slammed their daggers flat on the table, and shoved their chairs back, then began lumbering reluctantly toward the door.
But just as they were about to exit, the door opened, and Davey the beer wagon driver sauntered in. He had a missive for Josselin.
Josselin took the letter from him, gasping when she saw the seal. ’Twas stamped with the royal insignia of Queen Mary. With quivering fingers, she broke the seal and, standing beside Drew, read the contents aloud.
“My faithful and good subjects, as you may find it a difficult, indeed impossible, undertaking to return to your ancestral abode at Tintclachan in the Highlands, I am determined to grant to you, by God’s grace, at the suggestion of my secretary, Philipe de la Fontaine, and as a condition of your marriage, 200 roods at the southeastern limit of Scotland, including a links bordering on the North Sea. It is my dearest wish that you will endeavor to establish a course there for the pleasure of any who may come, and that you will erect a tavern nearby for the comfort of all. Furthermore, I trust that you will understand always the responsibility that accompanies the holding of a property so positioned. I pray God to give you a very happy and long life. From Edinburgh, this 11th of October, 1561. The Queen of Scotland, Marie.”
While the parents blinked in confusion, Josselin grinned, and Drew swept her up in his arms, twirling her around till she grew giddy with laughter.
“‘So positioned’,” Drew repeated in wonder. “’Tis at the border. Everyone will be able to play there—Scots, English, Catholic, Protestant.”
Josselin nodded, pleased. Apparently, Philipe had found a way to grant them the next best thing to exile.
“We’ll have tournaments,” he continued. “And I could start a school—a school o’ golf.”
“I can run the tavern,” Josselin gushed. “And we’ll be ideally situated to guard the border for Mary, to defend Scotland against ruffians.”
While they celebrated their great fortune, Drew’s uncles watched uncertainly.
Finally Simon grumbled, “I suppose, lass, you’d consider us ruffians?”
There was a pregnant pause.
Finally Josselin smiled at him. “O’ course not…Uncle.”
He scowled, but she could see the endearment pleased him.
Drew raised his tankard from the table. “A toast to kith and kin livin’ in peace and harmony!”
“Aye,” Josselin added, eyeing Simon and Angus, “and if ye ever dispute that, ye’ll have to fight it out with clubs and balls on our links.”
Everyone raised a cup in accord. By the wee hours of the night, the sworn enemies—their tongues and hostilities mellowed by an excess of beer and merrymaking—were toasting one another’s health and swapping tales of the married couple’s childhoods. When Will began gleefully relating the story of how Jossy, at four years of age, offered to defend her first love—Rane MacFarland, the lord sheriff’s huntsman—with a wooden sword, she decided ’twas time to retire.
She stole up the stairs with Drew, closing the door on the festivities below. The two of them had their own celebrating to do.
The morn was halfway gone when the happy bride collapsed back onto the pillow, spent. Her chemise was halfway down her arms. Her skirts were bunched around her waist. One of her stockings had gone missing. But somehow she couldn’t summon the energy to care.
Beside her, the bridegroom, too, lounged in apathetic splendor. He wore a self-satisfied smile and little else. His shirt was torn, revealing his still heaving chest. His legs were splayed casually across the bed, with his trews slung around one ankle.
If they continued much longer like this—dozing blissfully off, only to awaken again for another round—they might remain at The Sheep Heid forever and never make it to their new home.
Josselin sighed. She supposed she should drag herself out of bed. Change was in the wind, and they had a future to plan. Drew would want to inspect every inch of their seaside property to determine how to arrange the course. And Josselin had ideas for th
e magnificent tavern she’d build.
“The Silver Thimble,” she mused, gazing at the wedding ring on her finger, which had been fashioned out of the thimble Drew had given her.
“Hm?”
“Our tavern.” She turned on her side and idly ran her knuckles down Drew’s arm. “We have to have a name for it.”
“How about The Blue Cods?” he replied, too exhausted to open his eyes.
She gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “Ye’re a filthy lad.” With the attention she’d lavished on them all night, his cods were anything but blue.
He grinned with his eyes still closed.
Josselin frowned up at the heavy-beamed ceiling. ’Twould be clever, she thought, since she and Drew had overcome the differences of their birth, to unite the symbols of their two countries. “The Cross and Lion,” she tried.
He snorted, countering with, “The Fig and Prick.”
“Drew!” she scolded, dropping her jaw. “I’m serious. ’Tis an important consideration.”
He opened one lusty blue eye to gaze at her. “Darlin’, how can I consider anythin’ but swivin’ when ye’re lyin’ there, all naked and lovely and temptin’?”
She might be flushing with pleasure at his smoldering glance, but she wasn’t going to fall for his flattery again. They’d been swiving all night. Enough was enough.
She gave him a chiding smirk, tugging the bed linens up over her breasts, and he sighed in exaggerated disappointment, closing his eyes again.
Maybe the name of the tavern should reflect something of the legacy of warfare they were leaving behind and the new journey of peace upon which they were embarking. “The Rusty Dagger,” she suggested.
One corner of Drew’s mouth curved into a smile. “The Frisky Yard,” he insisted.
She had to bite back a laugh at that one, then shook her head. Drew MacAdam was incorrigible. But she supposed that was one thing she loved about him. After all, if he was a man to give up easily, he would never have pursued the cursing, trews-wearing, brawling lass with whom he’d crossed paths on the Royal Mile. He would never have chased halfway across the countryside to keep her safe. And he would never have risked the wrath of his uncles and her fathers to marry her.
She smiled. Their parcel of land wasn’t going anywhere. The day was still young. And they had years ahead of them.
“I know,” she said with a wicked glint in her eyes, walking her fingers down his chest. “The Withered Cock.”
Drew opened his eyes and lowered a disapproving brow at her. Then he clasped his hands behind his head and gave her a slow grin as his body responded boldly to her rousing touch.
With a smug growl, he tore off her coverlet, rolled atop her, and sank into her welcoming warmth. “The Longnose Club,” he told her in no uncertain terms.
’Twas a long while before Drew and Josselin left their room at The Sheep Heid Inn to venture to their new home, but when they did, two pieces of their destiny had been determined. One was that their tavern would be called The Rose and Thorn. The other was that their first son would be born exactly nine months hence.
THE END
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More Books by Glynnis Campbell
The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch
The Shipwreck (novella)
Lady Danger
Captive Heart
Knight’s Prize
The Knights of de Ware
The Handfasting (novella)
My Champion
My Warrior
My Hero
Medieval Outlaws
Danger’s Kiss
Passion’s Exile
The Scottish Lasses
The Outcast (novella)
MacFarland’s Lass
MacAdam’s Lass
The California Legends
Native Gold
Native Wolf
About Glynnis Campbell
I’m a USA Today bestselling author of swashbuckling action-adventure historical romances, mostly set in Scotland, with over a dozen award-winning books published in six languages.
But before my role as a medieval matchmaker, I sang in The Pinups, an all-girl band on CBS Records, and provided voices for the MTV animated series The Maxx, Blizzard’s Diablo and Starcraft video games, and Star Wars audiobooks.
I’m the wife of a rock star (if you want to know which one, contact me) and the mother of two young adults. I do my best writing on cruise ships, in Scottish castles, on my husband’s tour bus, and at home in my sunny southern California garden.
I love transporting readers to a place where the bold heroes have endearing flaws, the women are stronger than they look, the land is lush and untamed, and chivalry is alive and well!
I’m always delighted to hear from my readers, so please feel free to email me at [email protected]. And if you’re a super-fan who would like to join my inner circle, sign up to be part of Glynnis Campbell’s Readers Clan on Facebook, where you’ll get glimpses behind the scenes, sneak peeks of works-in-progress, and extra special surprises!
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MacKenzie’s Lass
The Scottish Lasses
Book 3
Mery decided she had to finish the matter once and for all. She had to confront the cook. What she’d do, she didn’t know. She’d have to follow her instincts. But if she hoped to make this performance a success, she had to purge the fascinating, infuriating man from her thoughts.
Her next opportunity came hours later, at dinner.
A smaller meal was served to the minstrels and two dozen various household servants shortly after the main dinner for the nobles. Though Mery kept eyeing the entrance of the hall, the cook never came through it. Kitchen lads brought in the first course—roast capons with a sweet wine sauce, wee mutton pies, and a lovely custard with raisins.
There was a brief respite between the first and second courses. It was then Mery made her move.
She told Harry she needed to be excused for a moment. Then she s
lipped out. She crossed the small bridge that connected the great hall and the kitchens and crept onward, guided by the alluring scent of roasting meats.
The passageway grew warmer and the plaster walls more smoke-blackened as she descended the stairs. She heard shouting farther down, accompanied by the banging of pots and the clatter of cutlery.
All at once, a kitchen boy collided with her. His eyes went wide, and he nearly dropped his basket of bread. He mumbled an apology and quickly juggled the loaves back into the basket, then continued down the passageway, giving her a curious backward glance as he headed toward the great hall.
She rounded the corner where the smoke was thicker. It looked like a beehive. Workers were crowded into the tight quarters. Lads with steaming platters and sizzling spits hurried to and fro, yelling out orders and elbowing their way past each other.
The lad closest to her gave a yelp and backed against the wall as if she were some demon who’d suddenly materialized before him. She frowned and picked up her skirts to sidle past him.
For a moment, she forgot her purpose, fascinated by the activity going on around her. She’d never seen proper kitchens before.
Burly cooks sweated over enormous cauldrons. Wee boys with ash-covered faces turned spits as long as lances. Red-faced men with beefy arms whipped up frothy sauces in bowls. Scrawny lads balancing eggs and bundles of herbs squeezed between them.
Their movements seemed as carefully composed as a madrigal. Each worker followed his own path, which wove through the others, brilliantly intersecting without clashing and creating disharmony.
MacAdam's Lass Page 26
