“But you didn’t believe her.”
Hamish blinked. “Of course I believed her. What makes you imagine I’d think the worst of you, Patrick? If you say you never received the letters, I take you at your word.”
A faint pink stained Trick’s neck. “My father must have intercepted them.”
Kendra took his hand and squeezed, feeling tension coursing through him. He didn’t want to be here, talking about this. He wanted to be back in the garden. He’d grumbled as much to her three times on their long trek up the stairs.
“Your father…” Hamish’s fingers tapped an irritated tattoo on the coverlet. “I wouldn’t put destroying her letters past him, I can tell you that.”
Trick set down the goblet of whisky he’d snatched in the great hall and brought along with him upstairs. “I assure you, sir, I didn’t hold him in any higher esteem than you did.”
Sitting on the bed beside his father, Niall sipped from his own glass of spirits. “Da, do want to tell Patrick why Mam summoned him?”
Trick’s gaze snapped to his brother’s. “Did she not just want to see me, then? Had she another reason?”
“Aye,” Hamish said, “and it’s a long story I have to tell you. A story about the first King Charles and his ill-fated visit here to Scotland.”
“What could that have to do with—”
“Just listen.” Looking toward the closed door to ensure their privacy, Hamish settled back against his pillows for the telling. “Charles was born here, as you know, but left when he was yet a bairn, and we Scots heard tell he rather fancied himself an Englishman.” He took a small sip of the green concoction Rhona had left him, then grimaced and held out a hand for Niall’s drink. “Still and all, Charles was our king—a Scottish king. The nobles insisted on a second coronation, on Scottish soil with the Scottish crown jewels. Thirty-five years ago, in the eighth year of his reign, he finally assented to the visit.”
Intrigued, Kendra leaned forward. “Had he not been home in all that time?”
“He didn’t think of it as home, as you will soon see.” Hamish drank, closing his eyes for a long, contented moment as the whisky slipped down his throat. “Excitement was rampant,” he said after smacking his lips. “Everyone threw themselves into the preparations. Roads were fixed and bridges were repaired. Thatched roofs were replaced with shingles, lest the king should think us poor. All in all, a great deal of money was paid out to improve and decorate the Royal route and show we were as good as the English. We hoped to appeal to his Scottishness, so he’d let up on us and allow us to live as we saw fit.”
He paused for another sip. “But it soon became clear that he wanted to forget his origins. He arrived here for a month-long tour with a baggage train two miles long. Fifty wagons, two bishops, dozens of courtiers. Along the way, they stopped to lodge with our Scottish nobles, bankrupting them one by one with all of their costly demands. On a whim, Charles would change his itinerary, bypassing the places that had been so carefully prepared and making it clear he wasn’t impressed with the preparations anyway. He treated us as inferiors when we hoped he’d relate to us as the Scot he was by birth.”
Trick’s thumb kept teasing the palm of Kendra’s hand, and his lips quirked when she shivered in response. He didn’t seem to be paying attention to the story at all.
“When the coronation finally took place, it wasn’t the traditional Scots one that had been planned, but an elaborate religious ceremony instead. A Church of England ritual. The people were aghast to learn such Popishness and blasphemy had taken place in a Scottish kirk.”
Apparently listening more than she’d guessed, Trick grimaced. “I expect they were angry as hell.”
The older man nodded. “His actions incited a rebellion that eventually led to his end. But I get ahead of myself.” He wetted his papery lips. “After the coronation, his last scheduled stop was at nearby Falkland Palace. All the local nobles were invited, and your mother went, of course, along with her family. Every able-bodied commoner was drafted to help with the banquet, myself among them, although I wasn’t even Niall’s age yet.”
“Did the banquet go badly?” Kendra asked, pulling her fingers from Trick’s.
“Not at all. We all thought it a roaring success, the entertainment more impressive than any we’d ever seen. But by then Charles had tired of Scotland—no doubt as much as we had tired of him—and at three the next morning, he woke the household and announced that he’d decided to leave immediately. Everyone at Falkland scrambled to ready his belongings for travel.”
“What sorts of belongings?” Kendra asked as Trick reached over and took her hand again, resting it on his lap and trapping it there with his own hand on top. Neither Niall nor Hamish seemed to notice, but, scandalized, she couldn’t help thinking what was beneath that fabric under her hand.
Nothing.
“You wouldn’t have believed what he’d brought along,” Hamish was saying, his gaze glazed with memory. “My eyes boggled, they did. Besides clothing and furnishings fit for a palace—he slept in his own Royal bed—King Charles traveled with his household goods, personal treasures, jewelry, and his entire kitchen including the Royal plate. Half a ton of silver and gold. Not for him to be eating off plain Scottish dishes or drinking from plain Scottish cups. It was this we were ordered to help pack for his return to London.”
Beneath Kendra’s hand, Trick stirred, and her palm tingled. “I-it must have taken you all night.”
“The smells of the banquet still hung in the air, and we had but a few hours to get it done. Charles couldn’t wait to leave. At first light, he set out. On the journey up they had crossed the River Forth by the bridge at Stirling, but this day the king was too impatient to take the long way around. His men found three boats to cross the firth from Burntisland to Leith and loaded two of them with as much as they possibly could. When it wouldn’t all fit, Charles insisted the rest be loaded anyway, till everything was aboard and the vessels rode low in the water.”
Trick frowned and shifted, draping an arm around Kendra’s shoulders. “Were you there to see it?”
“Nay, but I’ve heard stories. It was storming something awful, that I do remember. The wind blew fiercely, and the waves tossed the boats as they piled the treasure chests aboard. King Charles was rowed to the third vessel while his domestics and servants went with his goods. Twenty-five people on one of those boats…and only two lived to tell the tale.”
“Oh, no,” Kendra said. “What happened?”
“The rest of them ended up at the bottom of the Firth of Forth, along with the treasure. Safe aboard another boat, Charles could see the vessel founder and sink, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing anyone could do to save any of those lives.”
A chilling vision. Kendra leaned against Trick’s side, taking comfort from his warmth. “Charles must have been furious.”
