“Will ye be wanting to invite the queen to sup with us?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
She had been enjoying the conversation, but his remark was like a cold rain dampening her spirits.
“I hope to never see that particular royal again,” she said, and stared at the horizon.
“That was a poor jest,” Rory said, touching her arm. “I shouldn’t have mentioned the queen.”
***
Rory could kick himself for upsetting her. He had not been thinking straight since he kissed her. He’d only meant that kiss to divert her from asking all those questions—and to satisfy his curiosity—but he was lost the moment their lips touched. Passion roared through him with blinding force. He had no notion how long their mouths were locked in frenzied kisses before he realized that he was actually considering lifting her skirts and taking her on the horse’s back.Jesu!She would think he was an animal.
After that, he kissed her gently, and somehow that was just as devastating. He had an overwhelming desire to protect and care for her. And their first time should be just as she wanted—in a large bed, in a fire-lit chamber, after a wedding feast with music and dancing and toasts to their happiness.
“I know this change in your family’s position must be hard on ye,” he said.
“We Douglases have been in disgrace before.” Sybil gave a dry, humorless laugh. “The men of my family have always been ambitious.”
Rory knew some of the stories of the Douglases. When the Scottish nobles wished to depose James III, it was Sybil’s grandfather who legitimized their rebellion by persuading the king’s teenage son to join them. As penance for his part in the events that led to his father’s murder, James IV wore a heavy chain belt under his clothes until his own untimely death at Flodden.
“The last time we Douglases fell out of favor was not as bad as this.” A bittersweet smile touched her lips as she added, “Though it seemed bad enough at the time.”
Her tone was light, but he could tell she used it to hide deep wounds. He would have told her she did not need to talk about this, but he sensed that she needed to.
“My brother thought he was so clever wedding the queen in secret, knowing full well the King’s Council would never approve the marriage,” she said. “When the council responded by removing the regency and the royal children from the queen, she fled to England, but Archie stayed and weathered the storm. After a year, he reconciled with Albany, the new regent, and was appointed to the King’s Council with the other powerful magnates.”
News traveled slowly to the Highlands, and Rory had not heard of her brother’s first fall from power until he had regained his position.
“Regent Albany thought all was well and returned to his home in France,” she said. “Of course, it all started again.”
With the king still a young child, that was bound to happen. Unprincipled men would try to use the boy king’s power for themselves, just as Hector took control of the clan before Brian came of age.
“Archie challenged James Hamilton, the Earl of Arran, for control of the king and council. It was a low blow when the queen sided with the Hamiltons, but I suppose she was equally infuriated when her brother Henry VIII supported Archie.”
“Why did she turn against your brother?” Rory asked. “He is her husband.”
“When the queen returned to Scotland hoping to regain the regency, she learned that Archie had been living with his lover in one of her castles—and even worse, he was collecting her rents for his own use.” Sybil sighed and shook her head. “Now she hates my brother with as much passion as she once loved him. That should have made him cautious. God knows, I tried to tell him.”
“What did he do to be charged with treason?” Rory had not stayed in Stirling long enough to learn the details. As soon as he heard that the Douglas men had fled Scotland and the queen’s men were on their way to bring Sybil to the palace for questioning, he rode hard to reach her first.
“His dispute with the Hamiltons escalated until it broke out into a bloody battle on the streets of Edinburgh,” she said. “The other noble families, the city merchants, and the council tolerated the usual secret deals and maneuverings of court fights, but this was too much. There were hundreds of men fighting in the streets of Edinburgh, for God’s sake.”
“What happened then?”
“The council sent an urgent message to Albany, begging him to return before the country descended into chaos.”
“Where was the queen in all of this?” Rory asked.
“She was astute, for once, and added her voice to the call for Albany’s return,” Sybil said. “She was at the dock to welcome him when his ship arrived. The next we knew, she and Albany were allies, and all the blame for the street battle was laid on the Douglases.”
Though Rory was a chieftain’s son, he was never more aware that his bride had grown up in higher circles.
“And that’s how I came to be in this fix,” she said, giving him a genuine smile this time.
“By this fix, ye mean riding off with me?” he said.
“Aye,” she said with an even wider smile.
He should have left it at that, but there was something—or rather someone—that still nagged at him.