The King's Mistress

by Sandy Blair

  Murmuring her thanks, she took the handkerchief—hers was so wet with tears she could have swabbed the deck with it—and dabbed her nose.

  His short jerkin opened to the wind as he moved to her side, where he placed broad, tanned hands on the rail. In a lilting cadence, he asked, “Who might the blackguard be?”

  She saw no point in asking to whom he referred. Britt had been bellowing like a skewered bull, his voice carrying across the water like thunder for any and all to hear. “No one important.” Not anymore. So why did her heart feel like a crushed thing heavy in her chest?

  “Hmm. Well, no one important has certainly caused ye to keen. Any more tears and we’ll be bailing for our lives.”

  Sniffling, she nodded. She had been carrying on—acting more like Greer than herself—and that simply would not do. “My apologies. This has not been one of my better days.”

  She tried to hand him his handkerchief, but he shook his head. Blue eyes crinkled at the corners where only moments before white lines that paid tribute to days at sea had radiated over his clean-shaven cheeks. “I’ve a feeling you may have more use for it.”

  Pride stiffened her back. Oh no, she wouldn’t. She was quite over that lying behemoth, Britt MacKinnon. And mayhap if she said this often enough, not only would her head believe it, but so too would her aching heart.

  “Hmm,” he said, “think he’ll follow ye?”

  “Nay.” Britt wouldn’t dare.

  “Given the way he was bellowing, I dare say he will.” He turned to his crew of eight and shouted, “What say ye, men? Will the giant follow the lassie or nay?”

  Good Lord! Was he trying to do what her broken heart could not? Embarrass her to death?

  To the man, they all laughed and shouted, “Aye, Captain, he will.”

  Looking from one weathered brown face to another, noting the look in the men’s eyes as they laughed at her expense, as their collective gazes swept over her body, Gen felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck quiver. She slipped a hand into her pocket and grasped her sgian duhb. She’d been in such a hurry to get away from Edinburgh and gain passage to Ireland, she’d not given a moment’s thought to whom else might be onboard the Turoe. She was the only female in sight. And would be for days.

  Had she, in her hurt and fury, just jumped from the skillet into burning coals?

  “Leave the lassie be, O’Neil!”

  Genny spun at the sound of a female voice. A plump woman of mayhap thirty years, her curly titian locks flying in all directions in the wind, stood wiping her hands on a soiled apron in the doorway of the cog’s forecastle.

  Grinning, the woman crossed the deck on steady legs, shooing the men in her path away. Taking hold of the rail next to Gen, she dipped in a brief curtsy. “Darby O’Neil, m’lady. Ship’s cook and wife”—she cocked her head in the direction of her laughing husband’s back—“of yon lout, the ship’s captain, Brian O’Neil.”

  “My great pleasure to meet you.” The woman would never know how great. “I’m Lady Armstrong, formerly of Buddle.”

  The woman beamed at her. “Lovely to have ye onboard, and please, pay no heed to the men. The oafs mean ye no harm.”

  She could only pray so. “I will…I mean I won’t.”

  “So are ye for Dublin or Cork?”

  “Dublin. Do you know how long the journey will be?”

  Mrs. O’Neil inhaled, looked to west, then toward the northern horizon. “If this fair wind and weather holds, we should make Dublin in six days.”

  Not so long before she could make her way to her aunt’s home. Mayhap this woman could direct her. “Do you ken the O’Learys of Benbirk?”

  Darby O’Neil frowned. “O’Learys, you say. Hmm. Are ye sure ye’ll not be wanting to go on to Cork? ’Tis the O’Leary stronghold.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Quite.”

  Oh, Saint Bride and Columba preserve her!

  She raked her memory for tales she’d heard at her mother’s knee, hoping for clues to exactly where her sister might be. Of her aunt being wed to an English baron assigned to a castle that had been built a century before by some Norman earl in an effort to keep the peace. Greatly relieved to come up with something, she said, “Mother said Castle Benbirk—a tower keep—was in a place called Kilkenny.”

  Darby grinned, “Ah then, ’tis well beyond what the English call the pale.” When Gen frowned, she said, “Beyond Dublin’s walls…in the wilderness.” She patted Gen’s arm. “No need to fret. If Kilkenny is where ye’re bound, then Dublin or Cork makes no never mind as to where ye disembark. The place ye seek will be betwixt the two, likely on or near the River Nore, which is but a week’s ride from either port.”

  Gen sighed. ’Twould take her a week to get to Dublin and then another week—this time alone—going through wilderness. Suppressing a shudder, she asked, “Have ye wolves in this wilderness?”

  She could bring down a single wolf with her bow, but a pack…?

  The woman laughed, “Only the two-footed kind.” After a moment, she said, “Which brings us to me asking ye why a lady of obvious means should be traveling unescorted?”

  Genny looked down at the borrowed clothes she wore. A plausible story immediately began to take shape, but, sighing, she cast it aside. She had quite enough half-truths, polite falsehoods and outright lies to last a lifetime. “I didn’t have time to properly prepare for this voyage.”

  “Which means no one is meeting you. Hmm. He did ye that wrong, did he?”

  Oh aye.

  The image of Britt cradling her in powerful arms, his thick, raven hair spilling over his wide forehead, a look of pure hunger in his eyes, filled her field of vision. Then the queen’s hateful words echoed in Gen’s mind, and the woman in Britt’s arms was no longer her but a laughing auburn-haired beauty. The world tipped. As sparks burst inside Gen’s head, exploded before her eyes, her breath caught in her throat.

  Gen, do as Lady Campbell instructed and quickly, before you fall on your face.

  Gripping the rail, she opened her mouth, desperate to grasp the wind making whispery horsetails high above, brushing relentlessly against the endless waves, sweeping them into foam-topped hills. Her chest expanded, and slowly the world righted itself. Feeling more herself, she looked at Darby and found her staring. Marshaling a resigned smile, Gen said, “’Twas never meant to be.”

  ’Twas all. She’d loved and lost. Nothing thousands upon thousands hadn’t done before her and would likely continue to do, more’s the pity for them. But not her. Never again.

  Damn him.

  “Well, enough about foolish men,” Darcy said. “Ye’ve yet to see where you’ll berth.” Darcy bent to pick up Gen’s satchel and nearly toppled lifting it. “Good gracious, m’lady, are ye tottin’ stones?”

  Gen felt heat bloom in her cheeks. She’d scoffed Britt’s armored gauntlets. Why she’d bothered, she couldn’t imagine.

  “There you are. I’ve been searching high and low for you.”

  At the sound of Ross’s voice, Britt, leaning into his storage chest, looked over his shoulder. Finding his friend standing outside the stable frowning, he straightened and handed the last of his heavy armor to a young guard who’d just earned his spurs, saying, “Sorry, I can’t find the gauntlets. You’ll have to ask the smithy to make you a pair.”

  The young man, his arms weighted down, beamed. “I can’t thank you enough, MacKinnon. I’ve long dreamt of possessing fine armor someday, but never so soon or of the likes of this.”

  Britt waved away the compliment. “Wear it in good health and vigor.”

  As the younger man walked away, his prizes clanking with every step, Ross came to his side. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Lightening my load.” He’d sold all but his broadsword, Valiant’s light armor and his own chain mail. The fancy livery, lances, pikes, mauls and now his heavy armor were all gone.

  “Why?” Lyle asked, knowing it would take another lifetime to replace it all. />
  “She left.” Without a word. Without giving him a chance to explain. Tearing his heart out.

  “Her Highness has already returned to Kinghorn?”

  Britt blew through his teeth. “Not her. Genny.”

  “And why should this be cause for you selling your armor?”

  “I’m leaving, Lyle, returning to Skye.” He reached up and secured the ties on his saddlebag.

  “Forgive my stupidity, but what does her leaving and your going home have to do with any of this?”

  “Lyle, I’m not coming back. I’ve already talked with Tall Angus. He’s past ready and most anxious to take over my responsibilities.”

  His best friend stared at him opened-mouthed for several heartbeats, then said, “This is cattle shit. You can’t leave. Whoever takes over as regent will still need your sword arm. Hell, I need you.” He raked a hand over the ruddy stubble that dotted his hatchet jaw. “I understand you’re grieving Alexander’s loss—”

  “’Tis not my loss of Alexander I’m grieving, Lyle, but my loss of Gen.” When his friend continued to scowl in obvious confusion, Britt heaved a sigh and leaned against Valiant. There was, apparently, no getting around the truth.

  “I love her, Lyle. I am frigging hopelessly in love with Geneen Armstrong and want—nay, will—take her to wife, and she felt the same until our bitch of a queen told her I was married. Hurt to the bone, thinking I’d been using her as Alexander had used her sister, she ran.” He straightened. “Now I’m going to do what I should have done nine years ago. Rid myself of Cassandra.”

  “All right.” Lyle nodded and, after a minute’s thought, said, “You kill your wife, but then what? Are you then going to kill your father as well, in order to take over his stronghold and sept? I know you, Britt. You’re a man who needs work to keep sane…not that I think you are at present.”

  “I don’t intend to kill either of them, much as they both deserve it. I’m going back to droving.” He knew the routes, the safe crossings and pastures and several southern buyers, having assisted his elder brother many a summer during his youth.

  Aghast, Lyle stared at him. “You have gone mad.”

  “Not in the least. The archbishop said he’d convene the Bishops’ Court on my behalf once the affairs of state were settled, but my annulment would only be granted on two grounds: bigamy or consanguinity. Apparently murder, like rape and adultery, does not qualify as grounds.” Had it, he’d have been a free man a decade ago.

  “I intend to go through every kirk record in the Isles if need be to prove Cassandra and I are either directly related—which will guarantee my annulment—or collaterally related up to the fourth degree. If the later proves true, the archbishop warned my petition will, in all likelihood, still be denied, since a MacDonald heir sits on the court and would be loath to dissolve a marriage brokered by the lord of the isles. Should that happen, I’ll have no choice but to appeal to Rome and likely will get the annulment, but that, I’m told, requires far more coin than I have or can earn here.” Which also explained how the kirk could afford to build so many massive edifices such as that in Dunfermline.

  And not until he’d exhausted his last legal option would he consider alternatives, tempting as they were at the moment.

  “Droving? God’s teeth, Britt! Your brother died whilst droving.”

  “I don’t need reminding on how Ian died. But droving is the only way I can garner the coins I’ll need, should the Bishops’ Court vote against me.”

  “I can’t talk you out of this?”

  “Nay.” He would wed Genny come hell or high water…when he could find her.

  Lyle heaved a sigh heavy with regret and resignation. “As you lust, then. When do you leave?”

  Britt examined his saddlebags, then looked at his longtime friend. “Just need a bit of food and I’m away.”

  Lyle clasped him by the shoulders and pulled him close. Thumping his back, he murmured, “God’s speed, my friend. I shall miss you.”

  “That’s it!” Darby rolled out of the narrow berth she and Gen shared, taking her warmth with her. A hinge squeaked in the dark, flint scratched flint, and suddenly their wee cabin was awash in the soft glow from the oil lamp. Gen dashed the tears from her eyes, rolled over and found Darby, her hands on her hips, scowling at her. “For four days, you, Geneen Armstrong, have done little but mutely stare out to sea. For four nights, you’ve done naught but weep and toss. I want to know why. You’re not carrying a bastard, for I know you bleed. So what, pray tell, could possibly be so god-awful wrong?”

  Genny, mortified, sat up. “I’m so sorry. I hadn’t meant to disturb you.”

  “That I understand. What I don’t understand is why all the wretched and silent sobbing.”

  Genny sniffled. “’Tis naught that bears repeating.”

  “Let me be the judge of that.” Darby sat on the edge of the berth and patted Genny’s knee. “The telling will be hard, I’ve nay doubt, but you’ll feel better for it. So talk, tell me why neither of us is getting a wink of sleep.”

  Genny marshaled a resigned grin for the woman who had tossed her husband from his bed so Gen might feel safe and have a sound sleep, not that she had slept. “Idiot that I am, I fell in love only to learn the man had turned me into an adulterer. I left.”

  Darby’s brow furrowed. “I wasn’t plucked from the kale patch yesterday, dear. A woman doesn’t carry on as you are unless there’s a lot more to the tale. And start from the beginning.”

  There was more to the tale. A great deal more, but more puzzling was why she should be suffering this niggling guilt, which had no basis, since she was the injured party in all this.

  Mayhap if she did talk about what had happened betwixt her and Britt with another woman—one a bit older and married—she might be able to put all that had happened these past weeks into their proper perspective. Talking wouldn’t ease her pain over being deceived, but it might put to rest this constant unease now gnawing at her.

  Mindful she still had to protect Greer and her babe, she said, “MacKinnon escorted me from my home in Buddle to court in Edinburgh. On the way, we were accosted by three men who meant us serious bodily harm.”

  Darby’s eyes grew wide. “How dreadful.”

  Genny nodded and told her how Britt had put her in hiding, then slew two before being injured by the third man, who then came after her. She went on to tell her how she’d found Britt, already making his way back to her and despite the arrow in his side, and how, at his insistence, she’d removed it.

  Darby shivered. “I might well have fainted too, and ’tis about then that he kissed you for the first time?”

  Heat crept up Genny’s neck. “How did you know?”

  “The circle of life, dear. So how did you feel about him kissing you?”

  “Confused.”

  “But you liked it.”

  “Very much.”

  “So then what happened?”

  “We reached Edinburgh and learned the king had died. We were both most distraught. Britt in particular. He is—was—Captain of the King’s Guard.”

  “Ah, he’d lost not only a king but likely a friend. And he kissed you again, this time with more passion.”

  Genny blinked in surprise. Who was telling this story? “Aye, he kissed me again.”

  “And who broke it off, ye or he?”

  “He did.”

  “Hmm. And you never thought to ask him during all this time alone with him if he—a handsome and virile man by your account—was married?”

  “Uhmm.” No, she hadn’t.

  Darby just shook her head and said, “Then what happened?”

  Since it had become more than apparent Darby was more interested in the personal aspects of her and Britt’s relationship than anything else, Genny skimmed over the why and wherefores of the queen’s distaste for her but told Darby she’d ended up in the cell.

  “And he came to your rescue?”

  “Aye. He first tried to gain my release throug
h the Privy Council. They agreed to hear my case but had more pressing problems to deal with first, so he confronted the queen and made her see reason.”

  “And why would he do this?”

  “Because I’d been falsely imprisoned.”

  Darby snorted. “’Tis not the reason.”

  Genny cocked her head in question. “I beg your pardon?”

  “His king is dead. The queen, angry with you, has no reason to do as he bids, so why would he risk her wrath—place his livelihood and mayhap even his own freedom in jeopardy—in order to gain yours?”

  In those early hours in the cell, she had feared he’d forsaken her. Had mayhap even known what would happen to her. But he hadn’t forgotten her. Why? “He did so, because…because he’d fallen in love with me.”

  Smiling, Darby patted her knee. “Very good.”

  My God, he’d loved her even then, even before she’d come to the realization herself.

  “Then what happened?” Darby asked.

  Genny gave herself a mental shake. His loving her still didn’t change the fact that he was married, hadn’t told her, and therefore turned her into an adulterer. “He took me to a friend’s hostel to keep me out of the queen’s perusal, which was a condition of my release.”

  Darby grinned. “Where you shared a room?”

  “No.” When Darby’s brow furrowed, Genny said, “He slept in a stall…with his destrier.”

  Darby blinked like an owl. “You’re in love with a handsome and courageous man who saved your life not once but twice, and you made him sleep with his horse?”

  “Nay, I didn’t make him. He insisted.” Tears burned at the back of her throat as she told Darby how she, now realizing she was in love with him and wanting him to ask for her hand, had plotted with Hildy to make him come to the same conclusion.

  “And what did he do after he spied you in nature’s glory?”

  “He told me he loved me, would take me to wife if only he were free to do so. Only I hadn’t known then what he truly meant, that he already had a wife.”

  “Oh dear.”