King of Storms

by Amanda Scott

  “We may never know the answer to that question,” Giff said.

  Ships from the Lord of the Isles flotilla now surrounded them, and for a time they kept busy helping haul victims of the sinking longboat from the sea.

  “Coo, look there,” Jake shouted from near the helm, pointing at a billowing black cloud on the northern horizon. “Them villains must ha’ tipped over a firepot.”

  Moving with Fife and Sidony to stand by Jake, Giff looked closely at him, then back at the smoke. “Looks as if more is burning than a tipped-over pot.”

  “Aye, but fire on any boat be gey dangerous. Me da’s always saying that.”

  “So he is,” Giff agreed. “Those men will have a long swim. The Sound is about seven miles wide at that point, and they’re in the middle of it.”

  Fife’s face turned chalky. “Sir Giffard,” he said, “I owe more than ordinary gratitude now, as that lad clearly saved my life. He once told me he’d like to be a ship’s captain one day. If you will swear to see to his training, the Serpent is yours.”

  Jake’s eyes grew wide. “Ye’d do that?”

  “I am doing it,” Fife said. “You’re a fine lad and deserve a fine reward.”

  “But I—”

  Sidony clapped a hand to Jake’s shoulder, saying, “Remember your manners, Jake. Say thank you to his lordship, and we’ll go see how your father is doing.”

  Giff touched Fife’s arm. “My lord, Donald’s boat is drawing up. I’m sure you’ll want to go with him. We’ll hand our prisoners over to him, as well, and he will do as he pleases with the survivors of that fire yonder, if there are any.”

  “I doubt there will be,” Fife said. “De Gredin drove them so hard getting here, that I cannot think how they fought as well as they did. Then rowing away . . . Faith, they cannot have much strength left, no matter how well trained they are.”

  He left at once to greet his nephew, and Giff engaged himself for the next hour in the business of thanking Donald and the others, and getting ready to depart. At last, he rejoined the small group at the stern to find Maxwell sitting with one arm bound and a bandage round his head but otherwise looking nearly fit again.

  Dismissing the men who had aided the captain, Giff looked from Sidony to Jake and said, “Let’s have it now, lad. How did that fire start?”

  Jake began to shrug, thought better of it, and achieved a wary but innocent air instead as he said, “Me da’ would call it sheer carelessness.”

  “What would I call it?” Giff asked sternly.

  To his surprise, the lad’s expression cleared. “Aye, sure, I ken that fine,” he said. “Ye’d call finding live coals by a storage locker full o’ tarry oakum the right moment t’ snatch for doing what needed doing.”

  When Sidony choked on a bubble of laughter, Giff put a strong arm around her shoulders and said firmly, “You will come with me, my lass.”

  Ignoring Maxwell’s chuckles and Jake’s visible bewilderment, he urged her inside the aft cabin, shut the door, and, grinning, took her in his arms.

  “Now this is snatching the moment,” he said, holding her tight, savoring the way she melted against him, and knowing he would love her forevermore.

  Epilogue

  Castle Chalamine, Glenelg, a fortnight later

  A fire roared on the hearth in the castle’s great hall, but Giff, slipping quietly in through a nearby side door, doubted that any but one of the company gathered there could hear it over the din of chatter. Certainly no one had noticed him yet.

  With Macleod of Glenelg’s wedding to Ealga Clendenen two days past, and most wedding guests departed, only the family remained. But as rapidly as the Macleod sisters seemed to produce children, the family alone was larger than most Highland clachans. Only two dozen or so were scattered in groups throughout the hall now, though, without the bairns: the seven Macleod sisters and their husbands; Hector Reaganach’s twin brother, Lachlan, and his wife, Mairi of the Isles; Macleod, his bride, his sister the lady Euphemia Macleod; and Giff’s own family.

  As Giff moved toward his unsuspecting target, Lady Adela turned her head and saw him, but when he raised a finger to his lips, she turned back again and resumed her conversation with her new stepmother, who was sitting beside her.

  Lady Cristina also glanced toward him but turned away naturally as if to intervene in the friendly argument going on between her huge husband, Hector Reaganach, and Sir Hugo Robison. Heaven knew what this latest debate was about, but Giff did not care. His attention shifted back to his target.

  She sat near the fire with her stitching, as much out of the conversation as she always seemed to be in large company, and as usual, the others still tended to behave as if she were invisible. He did not understand yet how they could. His own gaze sought and found her in any room without thought on his part.

  It had astonished him, too, to see how quickly she had returned to being Silent Sidony, as if her kinsmen’s behavior ruled her own. He knew better, but he also understood now that she was content, even comfortable, amid the sort of conversational chaos that engulfed them now. Fortunately, she was as comfortable at Duncraig, if not more so, and had already made a good friend of his mother.

  He touched her shoulder, hoping he would not startle her, but when she looked up and smiled the way she smiled only for him, he knew she had sensed his presence already and welcomed it.

  Putting a finger to his lips again, he nodded toward the nearby doorway. Without a word, she set aside her stitching, rose gracefully, and followed him until he stood aside to let her precede him to the stairway.

  He shut the narrow door and strode after her, but when she looked back over her shoulder with a smile, picked up her skirts, and hurried up the stairs, he caught her at the first landing. Standing a step above him, she was face-to-face with him at exactly the right height to kiss, so he did.

  “I knew you would come for me,” she said, putting a soft hand to his cheek when he let her breathe.

  He kissed her again, lightly, but when she would have turned away again, he held her where she was. “How did you know that I would come for you, madam?”

  She chuckled. “I saw you slip away when Hugo walked up to Hector, so I supposed you saw your opportunity and took it.”

  “I created that opportunity,” he said. “I muttered something about finding the garderobe and fled before they could engage me in another of their interminable discussions of who should have done what, and when, on some field of battle.”

  “Are we escaping them?”

  “For an hour or so,” he said. “But I do want to return to Duncraig tomorrow when my parents do.”

  “I told Adela you would.”

  “Adela? Has she taken up the reins here, then?”

  “Aye, sure,” Sidony said. “She cannot help it, and Ealga does not mind. She said Adela has taught her a great deal in the sennight since they came up from town.”

  “I don’t want to talk about them,” he said, turning her about and giving her a gentle nudge. “I want to make love to my wife.”

  “’Tis a good thing, then, that Adela arranged for us to have a private room,” she said, looking back at him. “Except for my father and Ealga, everyone else is packed women with women, men with men, and bairns with bairns.”

  “Being newly married has its advantages,” he said, leaning past her to open the door to their blessedly private chamber. “This is just one of them,” he added as he shut the door and bolted it against the castleful of inquisitive bairns.

  “You still have not told me what you did with the Stone of Destiny,” she said. “This would be a good time, don’t you think?”

  The look on his face told Sidony that she had stunned him, which was as good as an admission.

  Recovering, he said evenly, “What makes you think I had the Stone?”

  “Lord Fife called it sacred and spoke of the treasure separately, as something the Chevalier de Gredin wanted. I wasn’t sure, though, until we came here. Nay,” she added hastily
when he frowned. “I did not overhear anyone else talking, nor ask them to tell me, but I did just casually mention the Stone of Destiny to Isobel and Sorcha, and Sorcha said we ought not to discuss it at all, so I knew.”

  He shook his head at her. “Rob is right. Keeping secrets is devilish hard. We’d all do better to forget all about it and hope that everyone else does, too.”

  She just looked at him.

  With a sigh, he said, “Very well, I suppose you ought to know that it was, in good part, your doing. Sithee, despite all that you, Henry, and the others had said to me about my being too reckless, it wasn’t until you insisted on leaving Girnigoe with me that I realized I had been, especially where you were concerned. In troth, I did not want to leave you at Girnigoe, but I knew I could not take you with me to meet Ranald. In thinking how best to take precautions for your safety, I realized I could take like precautions with the Stone. ’Tis why we went to Duncraig.”

  “So it is at Duncraig?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. “Nor does that matter. Just know that it’s safe now. The men who aided me have served my family all my life, and their ancestors served my ancestors. I mean to tell only Rob and Henry what I’ve done.”

  “But I want to see it,” she said.

  “Mayhap you will one day,” he said. “One day all Scotland will see it, when the world is at peace and all men who would do evil lie at the bottom of the sea.”

  A peaceful Scotland sounded wonderful, but she did not think the world would ever be without evil men. Not while men continued to lust for power and wealth, and were willing to kill anyone who stood in their way or whose opinion they did not share. A chill touched her just to think of such men.

  “Hold me,” she said.

  “Gladly.” He drew her close, his touch warming her as always. A moment later, dulcetly, he added, “I’ll even help you take off your gown, my child.”

  Stiffening, she said, “I have told you before, I am not a child.”

  “I keep forgetting,” he said with a teasing smile as he kissed her. “Come to bed and prove that to me again, sweetheart.”

  She went willingly, and minutes later, naked in bed with him, she responded to him as she had from the first time he had kissed her.

  His every touch sent waves of warmth through her, but he could do the same with a look from across a vast great hall or with a certain tone of voice. And when he wanted to stir her, as he did now, he had many methods and seemed always to be finding new ones. In minutes, he had her squirming, hot, and wet with passion.

  She knew he liked dominating her in bed, so when he moved atop her and eased gently into her, she expected matters to go as they had before. Instead, with a mischievous grin, he rolled to his back, carrying her with him so that she straddled him. Then, still grinning, he pushed her upright, saying, “I’ve wanted to do this since the first time I saw you on a horse, lass. Let’s see how well you ride me.”

  Although she felt awkward and oddly exposed at first, she soon found that she enjoyed the position and delighted in pleasing him as well as herself. In time, as their passion increased toward its climax, she found herself under him again and soon, gasping, achieved her release. His came but moments later.

  As they lay back against their pillows, she snuggled close to him, content.

  “It is good to be home again,” he murmured.

  “Sakes, Chalamine is not our home.”

  “Sweetheart, my home is wherever you are. We belong.”

  “Aye, we do. Your mother wants us to stay at Duncraig, though. She said we could have the entire north wing to ourselves if you’re willing.”

  “I know she did, and I’m eager to go home,” he said. “If you wouldn’t mind, though, I’d like us to take our meals in the hall with everyone else.”

  “Is that for my sake, because you’ll be away again for long periods?”

  “Nay, love. I’d miss my bonnie, demanding wife too much. ’Tis because I have already lost too much time with my family. Are you ready to try riding again?”

  “Sakes, are you?”

  “Aye, sure, I am,” he said, hugging her. “Sithee, I never knew before how much I could enjoy being put on my backside.”

  Dear Reader,

  I hope you enjoyed King of Storms. When I read that St. Columba was known by that title because he could tame the wildest seas, I knew I’d found the title for this book. Finding a hero for Lady Sidony, who had been little more than her sister Sorcha’s shadow before, and thus invisible otherwise, proved harder.

  Sidony needed a man strong enough to startle her out of her habit of shadowing others, so at first Giff resembled Mel Gibson’s character in Lethal Weapon, but he soon developed his own characteristics. I wanted a man willing to help her find her true self, rather than one who wanted to mold her to suit him.

  I also wanted him able to make her see that she was her own person with her own opinions, because like many youngest children in large families, she thought she had to try to be like the sisters born before her, and had come to forget (or had never yet realized) that she could just be herself. However, I did not want Giff to do all the teaching, because Sidony had been observing folks all her life and had much that she, too, could teach. King of Storms grew from those seeds and others.

  For those of you curious about what later became of the Earl of Fife, he went on to become High Chamberlain of Scotland from 1382 to 1407. In 1389, deeming his father, the King, too old and infirm even to rule by proxy, he orchestrated his own election by the nobles as Governor of Scotland. The Earl of Carrick having suffered a crippling kick from a horse that further weakened his health and resolve, the nobles likewise agreed that Fife should be guardian of the kingdom until Carrick recovered or until Carrick’s eldest son, David, was able to assume the throne.

  Therefore, when Robert II died in 1390 and Carrick succeeded as Robert III, Fife simply continued to rule. In 1397, when Parliament met, Fife was created Duke of Albany (from Albania, believe it or not, which was the ancient name of the country between the Firth of Forth and the river Spey in the north). At the same time, his nephew David was created Duke of Rothesay, a title Prince Charles bears today. These new titles comprised the first introduction of the ducal title in Scotland.

  The opinions of Fife expressed by the Sinclairs, Sir Hugo, Rob Logan, and Giff are opinions well documented among the nobility of the period. Moreover, in May 1402, the Scottish Parliament declared that the Duke of Rothesay, Carrick’s son and rightful heir to the throne, had died of natural causes after being arrested and imprisoned by Fife. To say that most of the country refused to accept those “natural causes” is to put it mildly, especially after Fife demanded and received a full pardon from that same Parliament for himself and his co-conspirators.

  Carrick died in 1406, and his second son and now heir (later James I) was sent to France but was captured by the English on the way and held hostage in London for years. Fife ruled as regent until his own death in 1420. Thus, although never King of Scots, he effectively ruled the kingdom, one way or another, for forty years.

  As for the adventures of the Earl of Fife in this book, can anyone wonder that he never mentioned them to any historian? I’m sure that if anyone asked him about that particular absence from Edinburgh, he said only that he had taken it into his head to visit his nephew Donald and attend the wedding of a distant kinswoman.

  For those of you always curious about my sources, the information about and the description of Leith Harbor comes from many, but one of the most interesting and detailed is The Story of Leith by John Russell on the Web at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/leith/index.htm.

  Details of galleys, longships, and other vessels derive from numerous sources as well, but primarily from The West Highland Galley by Denis Rixon (Edinburgh, 1998). Models for the Serpent Royal were the Isles birlinn and the Norse “esnecca” or “snekkjur,” which boasted both sail and oars and carried cargo, unlike the usual west Highland galley, which carried no car
go other than extra oars, canvas, ropes, and minimal provisions and water for its crew.

  Again, primary description of the Stone came from Stone of Destiny by Pat Gerber (Edinburgh, 1997).

  For more about the Templar treasure, I suggest again the following sources: Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh (New York, 1982); The Temple and the Lodge by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh (New York, 1989); Pirates & the Lost Templar Fleet by David H. Childress (Illinois, 2003); and The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar by Steven Sora (Vermont, 1999). For more about the Assassins, see The Assassins by Bernard Lewis (London, 1967).

  As always, I’d also like to thank Beth de Guzman, vice president and editor in chief of Warner Books; my terrific agents, Lucy Childs and Aaron Priest; my wonderful editor, Frances Jalet-Miller; and everyone else at Hachette Book Group who contributed to the creation of this book.

  If you enjoyed King of Storms, please look for Border Wedding at your favorite bookstore in March 2008. In the meantime, Suas Alba!

  Sincerely,

  http://home.att.net/~amandascot

  About the Author

  AMANDA SCOTT, USA Today best-selling author and winner of Romance Writers of America’s RITA/Golden Medallion awards, Romantic Times’ Career Achievement Award for British Isles Historical, and Romantic Times’ Awards for Best Regency Author and Best Sensual Regency, began writing on a dare from her husband. She has sold every manuscript she has written. She sold her first novel, The Fugitive Heiress—written on a battered Smith Corona—in 1980. Since then, she has sold many more, but since the second one, she has used a word processor. More than twenty-five of her books are set in the English Regency period (1810-1820); others are set in fifteenth-century England and fourteenth-through-eighteenth-century Scotland. Three are contemporary romances.

  Amanda is a fourth-generation Californian who was born and raised in Salinas and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history from Mills College in Oakland. She did graduate work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, specializing in British history, before obtaining her master’s in history from San Jose State University. She is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. After graduate school, she taught for the Salinas City School District for three years before marrying her husband, who was then a captain in the Air Force. They lived in Honolulu for a year, then in Nebraska, where their son was born, for seven years. Amanda now lives with her husband in northern California.