Читать книгу A Runaway Bride For The Highlander - Elisabeth Hobbes - Страница 13

With a throbbing head and churning stomach, Ewan watched a babe of seventeen months crowned King of Scotland. James V seemed unaware of the significance of the ceremony he was the centre of, biting his fingers and wriggling about in clothes that looked far too formal and uncomfortable for a small child to endure. Ewan wondered if he even understood that his father was dead. He envied the boy if he did not. He felt as equally uncomfortable in the close-fitting doublet as the boy looked. He pulled on his high collar to loosen it and shifted on his seat, feeling queasy. The Chapel Royal was far too hot and crowded and the ceremony was unendurably unending.

Perhaps that was the intention. The nobility of Scotland would remain seated here long enough for the King to grow to adulthood and for the question of who would act as Regent to no longer be an issue.

As the bishop intoned his sermon, Ewan let his attention wander around the faces of the assembled multitude. Most of them displayed eyes that were dark ringed and complexions that were slightly waxen. The heavy drinking had gone on well into the night and Ewan had not been the only man who had indulged far too copiously the night before. Everyone had fasted before attending the coronation and he craved a cup of milk to soothe his stomach and something plain to stop it churning.

Queen Margaret knelt beside her son, stiff backed and iron faced. Now there was a woman who would not easily relinquish control over her son or the throne. The next few months would be interesting indeed. Ewan let his eyes rove further back into the congregation. Margaret’s ladies-in-waiting sat to one side of the aisle behind their mistress. They were dressed sombrely in blacks and deep, wintery colours, but among them on the final row of seats was one white headdress and veil that stood out in contrast to the darkness that surrounded it.

Ewan’s stomach tightened as he saw the French girl, head bent over in devotion. She was in profile to him. Her stiff hood and veil drew her hair back and obscured it completely, while emphasising her high cheekbones and giving Ewan a perfect view of a delicately formed jaw and slender neck. He felt an alarming lurch below his ribcage and feared his heart had suddenly forgotten how to beat. A heart as burdened with grief as his was could surely be forgiven for succumbing to the load it had been forced to bear. He pressed his fist into the spot as his eyes began to blur.

Had they not, he might have been more aware that he was being watched and looked away quicker. As it was, it took him a moment to realise that the girl no longer had her head bowed reverently, but was looking straight at him. He blinked to clear his vision and stared back, slightly unnerved by her boldness. She had called into question the manners and behaviour of the Scottish court and yet here she was, openly staring at him. He’d thought French women were modest and demure. Some devilry inside Ewan made him wink at her. Her eyes widened and she smiled nervously in a manner that Ewan thought rather sweet. He recalled how she had gently touched his arm when he spoke of his grief the night before, breaking all social codes. He’d drawn away, unable to cope with her kind attempt at consolation, and now wished he hadn’t wasted that opportunity to touch her.

Her eyelashes fluttered before she gave her attention to the ceremony and kept her eyes firmly fixed on the bishop with an expression of raptness Ewan envied. Ewan wondered whether his sermon would falter if he noticed her looking so intently, and after those blasphemous thoughts he was unable to concentrate at all. He forced himself to listen, but more than once his eye was drawn back to the girl, hoping to see that she was as distracted as he was. She never looked toward him again and Ewan had to content himself with the pleasant view of her profile.

* * *

When the ceremony ended, the nobles moved once more into the Great Hall. It appeared the dancing and drinking was to recommence early in the day. Before Ewan could make his way to the table laden with pitchers of wine a soft hand touched his sleeve and a quiet voice spoke.

‘I crave a word with you, son of Hamish Lochmore.’

A small man had appeared at his side so silently Ewan had barely noticed him. He recognised the speaker, however, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose. Robert Morayshill had worked for James IV and now presumably served the new monarch, liaising with operatives tasked with gathering information and relaying it to the government. The two men strolled towards the furthest of the great fireplaces, seemingly engaged in no more than idle talk.

‘Your father might have spoken to you before he died about certain ways in which he assisted his country.’

Morayshill let his words tail off. The word that had not been mentioned hung in the air between the two men.

Spy.

Ewan glanced at the fireplace and moved slightly into the centre of the room. A grille might be used for ventilation, or might be a Laird’s lug, a shaft leading to a chamber where unseen ears might be listening. He noted Morayshill’s eyes tighten with approval.

‘My father was very discreet,’ Ewan said cautiously. ‘He kept his own counsel.’

‘Hamish Lochmore, discreet! Your loyalty to your father is admirable, but we both know that isn’t the case.’ Morayshill laughed.

‘Wasn’t. Not isn’t. And I would thank you not to defame his memory.’

‘As you say. And I say to you that your father was brash and sometimes lacking in subtlety, which worked to everyone’s advantage at times.’

Ewan dipped his head in acknowledgement. Spying was too sophisticated a word for what Hamish had done. There had been no covert meetings between velvet-clad and silk-tongued ambassadors, no ciphers slipped from sleeve to sleeve. Instead, Hamish would receive word that a particular group of merchants or travellers who had spent time recently in courts in England or on the continent would be arriving in one of Scotland’s ports. They would be greeted by Hamish, playing the role of loud, crass, overly friendly Highland laird—a part which he performed with ease—who would take them drinking and whoring as the mood took him. The visitors would wake the following morning with a headache fit to blind them, unsure of how loose their tongues had grown.

Though Hamish never revealed the details of what he learned or how it was used, his descriptions and impersonations of befuddled Flemish wool merchants or vomiting Italian minstrels had kept Ewan and John entertained long into the night. Ewan’s throat tightened with grief at the loss of the warm-hearted figure with the bellowing laugh. There would be no more drinking and laughing. No more days hunting or riding.

‘One of the men here today has been communicating with the English court for years,’ Morayshill said. ‘This is expected. We have agents in England and abroad, naturally. However, recent matters have had far-reaching consequences.’

Ewan listened, anger rising. Someone had passed crucial information regarding the Scottish troops to the English, to be sent to Queen Catherine in King Henry’s absence. Instead of hampering trade negotiations or causing dissent in the borderlands, the spy had directly contributed to the massacre of the men at Flodden.

‘Hamish believed he knew the identity of at least one agent. Did he tell you anything?’

Hamish had hinted to John and Ewan—if drunken growls of ‘I’ll skin that redheaded traitor alive, nae mind the consequences’ could be counted as a hint—but had never shared the identity of the man.

‘I’m sorry, no.’

‘Would you be prepared to assist in discovering the culprit?’

‘I don’t think...that is... I don’t have my father’s manner.’ Ewan’s jaw tightened at the thought of another role he doubted he could fill.

To his surprise Morayshill shook his head. ‘There might be matters that a young man with more discretion and an understanding of the complexities of politics could undertake. If you can point me down the right path to follow, there are others who can verify the truth.’

‘Aye, perhaps,’ Ewan answered uncertainly, feeling a little better. His education would be a benefit there, not a hindrance, and being described as discreet warmed him. By the time they parted, he had promised he would do everything in his power to discover the identity of the spy who had done so much damage at Flodden.

Ewan made his way to the table once again, but before he could reach it the crowds parted to either side of the hall. Margaret Tudor, widow of the deceased King, was making her way into the Great Hall. Her eyes were heavy and her face drawn. Her marriage had been political—designed to create a greater bond between the English and Scots—but it was said she and James had been happy. Her grief must have been greater because James’s body had not been returned to her from the battlefield, but had instead been taken to Berwick by the English.

Ewan had been denied the chance to lay Hamish and John to rest in the crypt at Castle Lochmore and felt a sudden stab of pity for the Englishwoman. He bowed as she passed and as he raised his head he found himself face to face with the French girl who had been walking in attendance with the other women of court. She paused and looked directly at him, tilting her head to one side and regarding him with wide brown eyes as curiously as if she was examining the apes or civets in the menagerie at Holyroodhouse.

Blasted woman! Those fine brown eyes reached everywhere. The sooner Duncan McCrieff took her away to be his bride, the better. Ewan drew a sharp breath, realising that was the last thing he wanted.

She took her place in the ranks of women at either side of Margaret where the other women started fussing over her as if she were a pet mouse. Ewan paid no attention to what Margaret was saying, but instead stared at the French girl, wondering how he could be so intrigued by her when they had barely spoken and everything she did irritated him.

It must be the strange manner of her clothes that commanded his attention. He examined her now. Her dress was cut from one length of cloth and laced tightly beneath each arm; not a separate skirt and bodice tied at the waist in the Scottish fashion. The design caused the stiffened bodice to draw in closely at her slender waist and fall into a full skirt, hitched up at the front to reveal a waterfall of white underskirts. It was high necked and loose-sleeved. Nothing about it was indecent, but it gave Ewan a definite sense of her figure. The cloth was finely woven and, though without ornament or pattern, was of excellent quality. The cost of the gown would have fed the poorest of Ewan’s tenants for a year. She was not alone in that, however. Ewan glanced round in distaste at the wealth on display, himself included. He might inwardly chastise her for her bold behaviour and superior attitude, but could not condemn her for that.

Among the more extravagantly and brightly dressed members of court adorned with braid and brocade she shone. A dove among peacocks. He wondered how much of this seemingly modest dress had been carefully calculated to draw the eye rather than deflect it. It was no wonder Ewan could not help but look at her.

Satisfied he had solved the mystery of his inexplicable attention to her, he decided to finally find something to drink, but Queen Margaret had finished speaking and the girl was walking towards Ewan. Once again he found himself unable to move.

‘Why were you staring at me, my lord?’

She had addressed him directly and spoke without introduction or hesitation, and with a touch of indignation. Ewan shivered. He had noticed last night that her voice was low and deeper than her compact figure and youth would suggest. It should be high and girlish, not the creamy purr that stroked down his belly and made him want to roll over like his deerhound before the fire and submit to whatever attentions she bestowed upon him. Caught out, he blinked and answered more honestly than he intended.

‘I was looking at your clothes.’

‘Oh!’

She drew in on herself. Her hands disappeared inside the capacious sleeves as she crossed them over her chest and her breasts were pushed flat and upwards. The high-necked chemise that filled the gap between the top of her bodice and her neck concealed them, but the silk was fine and translucent enough that it bunched and dipped. Ewan suspected they would be full and firm when liberated from their bonds. He was consumed by a sudden and highly unacceptable urge to ease the gown from her shoulders and find out if he was right.

‘The style is very strange,’ he explained. Imagining that he was about to undress her did nothing to dispel the guilt that crept up on him, but she did not seem to have noticed his unease.

‘Is that how you knew I was French?’ She tilted her head to the right and gave him another of the sweet smiles that made his stomach rise and fall. Her mouth was wide and slightly uneven. It rose a little more to the right as she smiled. Perhaps she had developed the habit of tilting her head to the side so the smile appeared straight. Ewan found himself wanting alternately to smile back or run his fingers over the slight indentation that appeared in her cheek.

‘Aye, it was,’ he lied, not wanting to admit he had asked Angus about her. ‘I’m no expert, but I could tell you aren’t Scottish. You wouldn’t be English, not here at this time. You’re not fair enough to be Dutch or dark enough to be Spanish.’

She looked at him seriously, then gave a rippling laugh. It was high and girlish and was more akin to the voice he expected her to have.

‘How ingenious of you!’

He might have taken it as a compliment if she had not sounded so surprised. She had made it clear the previous night that she thought the Scottish were savages. His irritation flooded back and he intended to end the conversation then.

‘Did you wish to speak to me for a reason?’ he asked brusquely. If she thought him uncouth, why be anything other?

‘I know I should not speak to you when we have not been introduced, but I wanted to apologise.’ She reached out her hand as she had the previous night, but held it steady between them, regarding him with entreaty in her eyes. ‘I did not intend to cause any offence last night when I spoke of the wildness I saw. I am sorry.’

‘You didn’t cause any offence, at least not to me.’ It was a lie, but now she was beside him he had no wish to spoil it.

She looked relieved, but managed to ruin the thawing tension by continuing with a sigh, ‘I find it strange. That is all. I do not think the men of my country would behave so if they were nursing wounds after a defeat in battle.’

Ewan rolled his eyes and folded his arms. ‘A little more tact might be advisable.’

Her lips twisted down and she pressed them together to stop them from trembling. Ewan felt as though he had slapped a kitten.

‘Tell me where you had been yesterday evening,’ he asked impulsively.

She did touch him now, clutching at his wrist with urgency while her eyes darted from side to side. Once again Ewan stiffened. The chill of her fingers on his skin was enough to make him quicken, his blood sparking to life like a flint catching in straw.

‘Don’t speak so loudly!’

He hadn’t been and her consternation told him he had touched on something secret. He clasped her hand briefly before removing it from his wrist with fingers close to trembling, not daring to risk touching any longer. He glanced around. Duncan McCrieff was deep in conversation with Queen Margaret and was unaware his bride was elsewhere. Ewan privately thought that if this delicate little lass with large, innocent eyes were his woman he would not leave her alone in a room full of lecherous Scots to fend for herself.

‘No one will hear over the music, but I shan’t if you tell me,’ he said, grinning to cover the bewildering surge of emotions that her fleeting touch had awoken in him.

She cast him a look of pure indignation.

‘I shall not, for it is no business of yours!’

Her hands moved to her breast and she began to fiddle with a heavy pendant that hung from a long gold chain, her thumb rubbing in small circles over the etched patterns. The gesture looked like a long-formed habit and Ewan wondered if she was even aware she was doing it. He watched her fingers moving over the polished gold. They were long and slender with nails shaped like almonds and he could not tear his eyes from them as they moved deftly.

He narrowed his eyes. ‘I would have said you were meeting your lover, but I know McCrieff was in the hall before you.’

‘He is not my lover!’ She blinked rapidly, which made her thick, dark eyelashes flutter in a manner that caused Ewan’s heart to do similar. ‘I have no lover. If you slander me in such a way, I shall have to tell Duncan.’

‘You’ll inform him that I saw you slipping in furtively from somewhere you should not have been?’

She pouted, dropping her head.

‘I simply wanted to be alone.’ Her voice was filled with melancholy that spoke to the misery in Ewan’s chest in a language that needed no words. Had her necklace been a gift from whomever she was mourning? It was all Ewan could do to stop himself from drawing her into his arms in an attempt to comfort them both, but from the corner of his eye he saw Duncan McCrieff was now winding his way through the groups, heading in their direction. He wore his customary surly expression. Ewan thought about leaving the girl alone, but McCrieff had already seen them standing together and had increased the speed at which he jostled his way towards them. To depart now would be more suspicious than to stay. The girl had noticed his approach, too, and Ewan didn’t like the way her pale cheeks grew even paler.

Ewan lowered his voice and inclined his head a little. ‘It is probably not my place to say, but in a strange country with an unfamiliar husband I would try to win as many friends as I could.’

‘Yes. I do need friends,’ she whispered.

Her eyes grew wide and gleamed. She looked as if she was about to cry and Ewan felt a stab of remorse that he had contributed to her unease. He wondered if she was aware that she had edged closer to him as her bridegroom approached so that her skirt was brushing his leg. He could say nothing because Duncan was upon them.