Chapter 16
‘IDIDN’T LIKE THE WAY HE looked at you, Mistress Balfour,’ Margaret says. ‘Far too interested.’
After the meal, they moved up to a large comfortable bedchamber in the western side of the castle. It seems to be customary for unwed aristocratic women to share sleeping rooms.
Elspet craves silence, rest and solitude – tiredness drags at her limbs and eyelids after the rich food and wine and days of little sleep. Although she’s growing more comfortable with Margaret and Beatrix, she wishes she could roll over and disappear into her own thoughts.
Bothwell’s scrutiny of her hadn’t waned throughout the meal, and although he refrained from asking further direct questions, his attention has left Elspet feeling unsettled.
He seemed to look through her skin, straight into her mind and everything she’s trying to hide.
There’s something else which disturbs her – she felt a strange attraction towards him.
Despite his arrogance, she felt curious about this man; she wants to know more.
‘He does seem very perceptive,’ Beatrix says, lying back on her bed. ‘He can’t know anything untoward though. You were marvellous, Lady Alvah.’
Elspet hopes she’s right. It certainly could’ve been worse. Mary, despite all her scrutiny, only seems to be looking for a foothold from which to gain some nugget of gossip. Elspet must be careful around her, but she shows no real perception. Bothwell is different though; he really looked.
‘Atholl and Mary were so enamoured by his arrival, they were distracted from any suspicions,’ Margaret says. ‘I believe you’ve succeeded in convincing them you’re Lady Alvah Gordon, at least for now. What did Bothwell mean about the Earl of Sutherland though? Lady Jean was furious.’
‘I couldn’t believe his audacity.’ Beatrix leans forward, shaking her head. ‘Lady Jean keeps her husband practically locked up these days – that man is dangerous.’
‘What do you mean?’ Margaret is sceptical.
Elspet feels a ranyie pang in her stomach. What’s causing it this time? Beatrix’s talk of the mysterious Earl of Sutherland? Or something else?
There is the sound of a disturbance outside; shouting and the clashing of swords. Elspet heaves her tired body up from the bed, quickly walks to the window and peers out. The shouts grow louder, but the night is pitch dark.
‘What do you mean by this?’ A bellow reaches them from the grounds below. ‘The King will hear of this. I am an emissary of his cousin and I will not be manhandled.’
Her blood runs caal. Henry Colville is back. It was only to be expected but it’s terrifying to hear his voice. She moves to the side as Margaret and Beatrix join her at the window, craning their necks to try to see what is happening on the ground below.
‘Unhand me!’ comes the voice again.
‘Jean’s men have got our friend, the parson,’ Beatrix says. ‘And this time they’re not letting him go.’
‘You thought you could break into my castle with a paltry two men, did you?’
Lady Jean’s voice drips with scorn as she faces the Parson of Orphir, Henry Colville, in the hall of Dunrobin Castle.
Two of her men hold the Earl of Orkney’s soldiers, hands clamped behind their backs, and several more stand behind her, hands ready on their swords.
Colville has been divested of his weapon and stands, bested, his face growing redder by the second.
Elspet and Margaret have followed Beatrix halfway down the great stairway. Their vantage point overlooks the hall below and they watch from the shadows.
‘This is not your castle,’ Colville says, furious. ‘Where is your husband?’
Lady Jean has her back to them but Elspet sees her shoulders rise and fall in a sigh. ‘You are in no position to ask questions. I’ve heard about you, parson, the way you like to get your answers. A man of God indeed. There’s no hypocrite like a Calvinist.’
Colville steps forward. ‘This is a Calvinist country. You can’t just go around—’
But Jean interrupts him. ‘Dunrobin is not a Calvinist country.’
Despite herself, Elspet feels a surge of satisfaction watching Colville’s face.
This man has tortured more than one of her countrymen, Orkneyjar udallers who’d committed no crime except for refusing to hand over their land to the Earl for an insultingly low price.
She doesn’t like to take pleasure in the misfortunes of others but it’s gratifying to see the tables turned on a man capable of so much cruelty.
Her eyes move up from Colville’s furious face to look around.
The staircase is draped with long emerald-coloured tapestries of tall, winding trees.
Above them, the stairs split into two, each side leading to a different wing of the castle, one back in the direction they’ve come, and the other towards the western part of Dunrobin.
Elspet freezes – a figure stands on the staircase above them.
They’re not the only people to have heard the disturbance and come to watch.
She peers at the figure, half hidden behind the tree-covered tapestry.
The Earl of Bothwell stands stock-still, his dark eyes staring.
Elspet’s heart hammers in her throat. He’s not watching the countess and the parson in the hallway below – he’s watching her.
He smiles with raised eyebrows in acknowledgement of her gaze.
What does he make of Colville? she wonders.
Like the Earl of Orkney, Bothwell is the King’s cousin, a grandson of James the Fifth.
Where do his loyalties lie in this exchange?
She wills Beatrix and Margaret to turn and see him too but she is as a statue, unable to move.
His expression, as it was during dinner, is knowing, like he sees straight to the heart of her.
Any satisfaction she felt at the scene unfolding below leaves her as he skewers her with his eyes.
Oh God, is she blushing? This is the least of her worries but her embarrassment is acute.
‘I’ll deal with you in the morning,’ Lady Jean says to Colville. ‘Shut them in the stable and keep watch,’ she instructs her men.
‘Shut us where?’ Colville bellows. ‘You really are insane.’
Elspet’s eyes dart to the Parson of Orphir as he’s bundled off to the stables by Lady Jean’s men, no more than a common prisoner.
Her eyes flick back to the tapestry on the eastern stairway, but Bothwell has gone. She gives herself a shake. For goodness’ sake, she should be far more concerned that Patie’s men have found her than with the Earl of Bothwell. Colville is not a man who will be dissuaded from his mission.