CHAPTER 5
Finn walked down the long, dimly-lit corridor, pleased to find it empty, and followed the sounds of voices and music that should lead him to the great hall where the feast was being held.
As he neared a corner, he suddenly found himself face to face with a pair of burly palace guards who came around it from the other direction.
“What business do ye have back here?” one of them demanded, moving his hand to the hilt of his sword. “Ye should be in the hall with the rest of the guests.”
“A lady invited me to slip away to her bedchamber. If ye saw her,” Finn said, spreading his arms out, “you’d know I couldn’t say nay.”
“I see no lady,” the guard said.
“She returned to the hall before me.” Finn lowered his voice. “She didn’t wish her husband to see us return together,”
“Men who look like him have all the luck,” the other guard said with a sour expression.
Finn tilted his head and grinned. “I won’t be so lucky if her husband catches me.”
“Ah, go on, ye bastard,” the first guard said with a laugh, and waved him on his way.
Finn smiled to himself. The hard part was over. He was in.
His chances of carrying Lady Margaret Douglas out of the palace under the noses of the royal guards and half the Lowland nobility were slim to none.
If the opportunity presented itself, he’d take it, but his goal tonight was simply to study his quarry so he would recognize her and know how best to approach her when she was outside the palace.
Surely the woman had to leave it sometime to visit a shop on King’s Street or to ride in the wood next to Holyrood.
If he was lucky enough to get a chance to speak with her tonight, he might even persuade her to meet him for that ride.
She would not be the first woman to decide to meet him against her better judgment.
When he reached the great hall, it was crowded with nobles dressed like peacocks in colorful silks and velvets.
They were all milling about, presumably waiting for the king to arrive and take his seat at the high table.
Finn moved along the fringes of the crowd, picking up snatches of whispered conversations.
“I thought we were rid of the damned Douglases for good.”
“The Douglases are like the weeds in the garden. They always come back.”
“The queen is furious about losing control of the king.”
“God help us, what kind of king will the lad make? He’s thirteen, and they say he wept like a babe when he was separated from his mother.”
“Perhaps he wept about being put under his stepfather’s thumb. I’d weep too.”
Heads turned toward the doorway nearest the high table, and a murmur traveled through the hall like a wind blowing through a field. The king must have arrived. While Finn was curious to see the lad, finding Lady Margaret in this crowd was a more pressing matter.
He caught the attention of a young serving woman as she passed by. When he took her arm and drew her aside, she blushed to her roots and batted her eyelashes rather furiously.
“Do ye know who Lady Margaret Douglas is?” he asked. “Is she here?”
“Lady Margaret?” The lass’s face fell, and she nodded in the direction of the high table. “That’s who they’re all looking at.”
When Finn turned and followed her gaze across the room, the woman’s beauty struck him like a punch in the chest, knocking the air out of his lungs in a whoosh.
She looked like a faery queen, slender and graceful in a gown that shimmered a silvery blue.
Fair hair the color of moonbeams was piled on top of her head and fell in loose tendrils to frame an exquisite face.
A woman as beautiful as she was must be accustomed to all the attention, but he sensed she was uneasy with it.
She glanced around the room with a distant expression.
In contrast to her fair hair and skin, her eyes were a deep brown.
When she looked his way, he thought her gaze caught on his for just a moment.
That moment made him think of the time a doe looked up and met his gaze through the leafy wood just as he pointed his arrow at her heart.
He had lowered his bow and let the doe go.
For some reason he could not fathom, this lass tugged at his heartstrings the same way.
He had the urge to leave the palace and let her go too.
Finn had known his share of beautiful women. More than his share, truth be told. But this Douglas lass had an ethereal quality that was different from the others. Though she was tall, there was a gentleness, a fragility, about her that made her seem vulnerable—and made a man want to protect her.
Then Finn remembered that he was the man she needed protection from.
He shook his head to break the spell she cast over him.
He knew what highborn women were like. Ach, no doubt she practiced that doe-eyed expression in her looking glass, knowing what it did to men, just as she calculated how low to make her bodice.
The gown revealed enough of her breasts to make a man’s mouth water while leaving enough a mystery to make him hope to be the one she allowed to uncover them.
Finn told himself that if he did not kidnap her, Moray would find someone else to do it.
This was his chance to acquire lands of his own, and he did not expect to have another.
If he failed to even attempt to do as he’d agreed, Moray would see that he suffered more than the loss of that opportunity.
Now that he’d cleared his head of foolishness, Finn took in the talk around him.
“Thought she’d be past her prime, but she’s even more beautiful than before,” a man behind him said. “Heavens, she must be seven and twenty now.”
“Wonder who will be the lucky man she’s married off to this time?” his companion said. “One thing is certain—he’ll have more warriors to support her brother’s ambitions than I have.”
“Sad to think of such a fine lass in some old goat’s bed,” the other said. “But she’s barren, so the husband will be someone who has heirs to spare.”
“Aye. A man can always have beauty in a mistress,” his companion said, “but for a wife, he needs a good breeder.”
“Still, who wouldn’t be tempted—”
“God’s blood, this will be interesting,” the other man interrupted. “That’s Drumlanrig, her former husband.”
The buzz of gossip spread through the hall like a swarm of bees. Lady Margaret must hear it, but her placid expression did not waver. Not a faery queen, then, but an ice maiden.
The more Finn examined her, though, the more he wondered if she was as unaffected as she pretended. Her ivory skin seemed a shade paler. In the end, it was the slight tremor of her fingers against the skirt of her gown that gave her away.
It took inner strength to face this crowd of nobles, who were all hoping for a dramatic scene, and show nothing of her true feelings. While Finn admired her for it, he also tucked away the knowledge that this lass was damned good at deception.
During the feast, Finn kept watch on the high table from his distant seat with the lowest-ranking guests. Music floated down from the gallery, and even at his lowly table, the wine was good. By the sixth or seventh course, he’d had more than enough to eat, but the food kept coming.
When the last course was finally removed, a tall, dark-haired man stood up from the high table. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, and he wore a trim, pointed beard, a bejeweled velvet tunic, and a stiff, self-important manner. This had to be Archibald Douglas, the 6th Earl of Angus, himself.
“The king calls for dancing,” Douglas announced, and clapped his hands. Once the servants folded and moved the lower tables against the walls, he turned to the king and swept his arm out to the side. “Which lady will you honor as your partner, your grace?”
“Lady Margaret!” the king said, his voice cracking.
The lady took the awkward youth’s arm with a smile, but the slight creases at the corner of her eyes looked strained. Unfortunately for the king, his choice of a partner who was half a head taller and as graceful as an angel only emphasized his clumsiness. It was painful to watch.
The moment the king released her at the end of the dance, Lady Margaret disappeared into the crowd.
Finn was taller than most, and he soon caught sight of her standing against the wall and began to make his way toward her.
He was just a few feet away when the room suddenly went quiet.
He turned to see the king standing in the center of the hall with his arms raised.
“With the help of Lady Margaret, I’ve come up with a grand surprise for you, my honored guests, this evening.” He paused a long moment for effect, then shouted, “Stand back! Make room for the lions!”
Lions? Finn had heard that the lad’s father, James IV, kept lions at the palace and even had a house built for them in the gardens. Finn edged to the front of the crowd.
Several women shrieked, and everyone moved back as two lions were brought in on heavy chains with thick leather collars.
Finn had never seen anything like them. Drawings did not come close to capturing the magnificence of the beasts.
When the male roared, the rumble reverberated through the hall and in Finn’s bones. Even a few men screamed.
What a marvelous beast!
Curious to see how the cool Lady Margaret reacted to the lions, he turned to look at her. She had moved from where she had been standing, but so had everyone else when the lions were brought in. Finn scanned the hall, trying to catch sight of her.
O shluagh, she was gone. How long had he been distracted by the damned lions?
He ducked out of the door that was closest to where he last saw her.
Hoping to catch her before she returned to the hall, he half ran down the corridor, glancing into rooms as he passed them.
Though he had not planned to take her hostage tonight, if he found her alone while everyone else was distracted by the lions, he just might be able to sneak her out through the abbey.