CHAPTER 5 #2
He slowed his pace to a walk as he passed a serving woman so as not to draw attention to himself. He did not want to be remembered.
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Margaret found Lizzie donned in her breeches and cap and waiting, as planned, with her horse in a dark corner of the courtyard behind the stables.
“Ye told your father you’re staying at your stepbrother’s house tonight?” Margaret asked. Lizzie’s stepbrother from her mother’s first marriage was a successful Edinburgh merchant. “I don’t want anyone to find out ye had a part in this.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve done this before,” Lizzie said. “My stepbrother and father don’t speak, so neither ever finds out.”
Margaret mounted the horse behind Lizzie and averted her face as they approached the gate. Unfortunately, the guards were more astute than Lizzie’s father.
“Lady Elizabeth, where do ye think you’re going at this hour?”
“This poor servant’s mother is near death and asked to see her,” Lizzie told the guards. “’Tis on the way to my brother’s house, so I’m taking her. We’ve no time to waste if she’s to hold her dear mother’s hand before she expires.”
Lizzie could spin a tale like no one Margaret knew.
“With such an important feast tonight,” the guard said, narrowing his eyes at Lizzie, “I would not expect a servant to be allowed to leave before the guests are abed, dying mother or no.”
“Lady Margaret gave her permission,” Lizzie said. “Ye know how soft-hearted she is.”
“All right. But ye shouldn’t be allowed to go out and about the way ye do,” the guard grumbled as he waved them through the gate. Then he called after them, “You be careful and go straight to your brother’s!”
“We’ll be at Blackadder Castle in a couple of hours,” Lizzie said as they started down the cobblestone street.
“’Tis not safe to ride there in the dark,” Margaret said. “We’ll need to find a tavern where we can take a room for the night.”
“We’ll be fine,” Lizzie said. “My horse knows the road to Blackadder Castle, and he’s faster than any bandit’s horse.”
“Lizzie, ye worry me,” Margaret said, which made her cousin laugh.
“Alison and David will be furious when they hear that your brothers welcomed Wretched William back,” Lizzie said. “David won’t give ye up no matter what Archie threatens.”
Relations between the two men were already tense.
David was still angry with Archie for fleeing the country and leaving Alison vulnerable—even though it was David who had taken advantage of that and laid siege to her castle.
When two powerful magnates with hundreds of warriors at their command have a dispute, it could too easily escalate to bloodshed.
What had she done? Acting rashly was unlike her, but she was so desperate to escape she had not thought through the repercussions. The last thing she wanted was to cause trouble between her brothers and David, especially with Alison so close to her time.
“Let’s leave Alison and David out of this if we can,” she told Lizzie. “Instead of the castle, we’ll go to Thomas’s cottage in the village.”
Margaret knew she could not escape for long. How could she? Running off like this would buy her a few days’ reprieve, at best. But perhaps her bold act of rebellion would persuade her brothers not to attempt to force her to wed again.
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Finn could not find Lady Margaret, so he returned to the great hall, where she was bound to return eventually herself. He relieved a passing servant of a silver carafe and a cup. While he waited for his quarry to reappear, he may as well avail himself of some of the palace’s fine wine.
“Where’s Lady Margaret gone?” The king’s thin, petulant voice a few feet away told Finn he was not alone in his vigil.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Archibald’s subtle nod to a man who bore a strong resemblance to him.
This second man put his arm around the king’s shoulders and led him to a group of bonny, but very young lasses.
While the man talked and the lasses giggled, the king’s gaze continued to search the hall for Lady Margaret.
Finn had the nagging feeling he had missed something, some telling detail he had seen but ignored.
When Lady Margaret failed to reappear after an hour, he drank down the rest of his wine and left.
He paused on the palace steps and drew in a deep breath of the cool night air.
That nagging thought was just out of his reach…
The image of the serving woman he passed in the corridor when he was searching for Lady Margaret came into his head.
The woman carried a tray, wore a servant’s gown and an old woman’s kerchief, and walked with her head down.
He was so intent on finding a lady in a sparkling gown and headdress that he barely saw her.
And yet, somewhere in the back of his mind he had noticed something was not quite right about that serving woman.
It was the hands that clasped the tray. They were not the red and chafed hands of a servant, but the smooth, elegant hands of a noblewoman.
He could kick himself for missing that clue.
As he mulled over the memory, he was certain the graceful walk and slender shape beneath the drab servant’s gown belonged to Lady Margaret Douglas.
Now, that was intriguing. He smiled at her inventiveness.
His amusement faded as he recalled the king’s petulant voice and her brother’s irritated expression when she did not return to the hall.
If Finn’s suspicion was correct and her brother wanted her to initiate the young king into the pleasures of the bed chamber, it was no wonder she left the feast.
Perhaps she used her disguise to escape for a few hours solace in a lover’s arms. Finn certainly was never one to judge a woman for seeking pleasure.
So why did the thought of Lady Margaret meeting a lover unsettle him?
A couple of hours later, Finn returned to the nearby tavern to see if he could learn something useful from the guards about her habits.
He settled in, expecting he’d have to buy a few rounds before he could casually bring Lady Margaret into the conversation, and then buy a few more before he could get them to tell him when she usually left the palace to visit friends or shops in the city.
As soon as he sat down next to some guards, however, he heard them complaining that if Lady Margaret did not reappear by morning, Archibald Douglas would send them to Blackadder Castle with orders to find her and bring her back.
“I don’t relish the notion of asking the Beast of Wedderburn to hand over his wife’s sister,” one of the guards said. “The last time a man crossed him, the Beast tied his severed head to the market cross by his hair.”
“Let’s look in the village near the castle first,” one of the others suggested. “That’s where we found her the last time, after we learned she visits the old man in the last cottage on the road.”
“Aye, we’ll go to the village first,” another said, “and pray we find her there.”
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It must have been near midnight when they reached the cottage. While Lizzie tied her horse in the brush behind the cottage where it would not be seen, Margaret got a fire going in the hearth.
“You can have the bed,” Lizzie said, stifling a yawn. “I’ll sleep in the loft.”
Margaret was too tired to argue and quickly stripped down to her chemise.
When she pulled down the extra blanket Thomas kept on the shelf above his bed, a small leather pouch fell onto the mattress.
She started to put it back on the shelf, but then stopped herself.
It was an ordinary pouch, the kind used to carry coins or a talisman.
She did not know why she felt compelled to open it.
She untied the leather lace and upended the bag into her palm.
As shining bits of black stone poured out, memories filled her head from the night William tore her pendant from her neck and smashed the stone into these tiny pieces.
Her mother had given her the stone, a black onyx, believing it held magic that would protect her and bring her good fortune.
It had done neither.
Two years later, she had left Drumlanrig with nothing but the night shift she wore, a rough blanket, and a handkerchief with these smashed bits of onyx clutched in her hand.
She had told Thomas to throw them away. But dear Old Thomas had known better, that one day she would want them, and he kept them for her.
Rap.
Margaret tilted her head. Was that a knock at the door?
Who would visit Thomas at this hour? She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and hurried to the door. But when she reached it, she hesitated. Could her brothers have already discovered she’d gone and sent men to fetch her?
Rap. Rap. Rap.
She leaned her ear against the door.
“Please, help me!” a frantic voice called from the other side. It sounded like the lad Brian from the village.
As soon as she opened the door, Brian rushed past her carrying his sister.
“Quick, shut the door before anyone sees us,” he said.
“Mercy!” Margaret cried when he turned around and she saw smears of blood on his face and clothes. “What’s happened to you?”
His eyes were wild, and little Ella had her face buried in his neck.
“I saw ye ride in,” he said. “Ye said I could come to ye if I needed help.”