“Well!” Lona said, closing the door with a bang. “If that don’t beat all! How did you know, ‘Bella?”
“I didn’t, really, but the king said he would not let me go, and so I suspected I would find myself under guard sooner or later,” Arabella told her friend.
“What about the secret passage?” Lona said craftily.
“I imagine we will now find it locked from the other side should we check,” Arabella replied, “but go through and see, Lona. Perhaps there is a chance.”
Taking the candle the king had so recently set down, Lona popped into the passageway, disappearing quickly, only to return as quickly. “Locked!” she told Arabella.
“Jamie is no fool,” the Countess of Dunmor said.
“He has no right to do this to you, m’lady, even if he is a king,” Lona said indignantly. “What will the earl say when he finds out? He’ll come after you for certain!”
“No, Lona, he will not. With luck, Tavis will never know of my liaison with the king. He will assume I have been my usual willful self, and he will be very angry with me. Angry enough that I believe he will seek elsewhere for another wife. I could not remarry him under the circumstances, knowing that I had lain with his nephew. He would feel dishonored, though I divorce him in order not to dishonor him. He would feel betrayed by Jamie, and I cannot do that to him, for Tavis has always held the Stewarts above all. He is a man who prizes loyalty. Let him think it is I who have been disloyal to him, not the king. Dunmor is not important like Angus, or Argyll, or Huntley, but Tavis is a Royal Stewart, and I will not be responsible for causing a rift within the clan.”
“Give Greyfaire up, ‘Bella!” Lona cried. “Tis not worth your unhappiness.”
“To Sir Jasper Keane?Never!Not while there is breath in my body, Lona! What of your family? Already that bastard has drained off our youth, leaving the keep to be defended by old men, women and children. The orchards are dying for lack of care, and half the fields lie fallow for want of young men to work them. Greyfaire’s people will go half hungry this winter despite the good growing year, thanks to Sir Jasper Keane, who makes merry at King Henry’s court while my people starve! No, Lona! I will not let Greyfaire go.”
“What of wee Mistress Maggie?” Lona demanded.
“I intend taking Margaret with us,” Arabella said. “I cannot leave my daughter behind.”
Lona shook her head. “The earl is going to kill you for certain, m’lady,” she told her mistress gravely. “That little lass is the light of his life.”
“If he cared so very much about Margaret,” Arabella said tartly, “he would have seen to her inheritance instead of avoiding the issue.”
Lona clamped her lips shut at that, for she knew there was no arguing with Arabella when she set her mind to something. She wished she could speak with her father, who was the wisest person she had ever personally known. She did not think FitzWalter would approve of Arabella divorcing her husband in order to gain King James’ help so that she might recover the rights to Greyfaire for her daughter’s dowry. Was Greyfaire really worth all the misery that Arabella was going to cause both herself and the man she loved? Lona somehow did not think it was, but then she had not been the heiress to Greyfaire Keep. She was only one of FitzWalter’s girls. The nobility thought differently than just plain folks did.
Lona sighed gustily. Fergus MacMichael had been courting her for some months now. She had held him off, encouraging him one moment, flirting with other men the next, to poor Fergus’ distress. Still the young clansman had not given up on her, Lona thought with a small smile. “Get it all out of yerself, lassie,” he had told her patiently before she had left Dunmor to come to court with Arabella. “When we wed I’ll nae put up wi’ yer casting eyes on other men.”
“Indeed,” she had answered him pertly. “You’ve not asked me to marry you, Fergus MacMichael, and I’m not sure I would if you did!”
He had chuckled, a rich, knowing sound that had sent little shivers up and down her backbone. “The day I first laid eyes on ye, Lona, as bedraggled as a wet sparrow ye were too, I knew ye were mine,” he said.
Lona sighed again. He was a man, was Fergus MacMichael! For a minute she closed her eyes and remembered his arms about her, his warm lips upon hers. She wanted to be his wife, and now that she was in danger of losing him, she realized it plainly. Damn ‘Bella, and her pigheaded passion for that mouldering heap of stones called Greyfaire! Could she not see that Dunmor was better? She didn’t have to do this! She could refuse the king and go home. Why did she persist in her stubbornness? Still, she loved Arabella Grey, and she would remain loyal to her even at the cost of her own happiness, Lona told herself. At least she would see Fergus a final time when they went to Dunmor to fetch wee Maggie.
For the next few days they were kept busy packing, for Arabella had decided she would leave for Dunmor Castle as soon as her divorce from Tavis Stewart was granted and her debt to the king paid. The court need only know that Arabella longed for her child, and as her husband was away, had decided to return home. There would be no gossip about a divorce because no one would know about it until the Earl of Dunmor told them himself. She would leave it to Tavis to say what he pleased about the matter. She would not even mind if he intimated that it was he who instigated the proceedings.
Arabella returned from the Great Hall one evening to be greeted by a grim-faced Lona who handed her a rolled parchment. With suddenly shaking fingers she undid the dark purple ribbon holding the tightly bound parchment closed and spread it open upon the table. The written words formally dissolving her marriage to Tavis Stewart swam before her eyes. Several quick tears splashed down upon the parchment before she could catch them, and she wiped at them with her sleeve, smearing the ink in several places.
“Send it back to the bishop, m’lady,” Lona begged her. “Tell him ‘twas all a mistake and that you don’t want a divorce from his lordship!”
“I have the right to use my maiden name again,” Arabella said tonelessly, and then rolling the parchment back up and tying it, she handed it to Lona. “Put this in a safe place, Lona, and see to my bath. I expect the king will be visiting me tonight. In just a few more days we will begin our journey home to Greyfaire. Won’t you be glad to see your father, and mother, and Rowan and your sisters again?”
Lona almost wept with frustration. It was so obvious that Arabella was miserable. She was ruining her whole life, and Lona suspected that she knew it. Why was she deliberately and heedlessly pushing forward with her own destruction when she could, with just a word, save herself?
“Don’t dally, Lona,” Arabella scolded her servant, and then she shivered. “God’s bones, I’m cold!”
Lona moved silently about the room. There was nothing that she could say that would make any difference now. Hurrying to the door, she called the page who was at their disposal these days and sent him off to arrange for bathwater. Within a short period of time, footmen were trekking into the apartments with buckets of hot water run up from the kitchens for her ladyship, the Countess of Dunmor. Since the trip was not a short one, Lona poured several of the buckets into the black iron cauldron she kept over the fire in the dayroom in order to have boiling water with which to reheat the tub when necessary.
Arabella wandered aimlessly from room to room as the work was being done, and when the last footman had departed the apartments, Lona helped her mistress to disrobe, and pinning up her long, glorious hair, settled her in the tub, which was fragrant with the scent of heather.
“All right,” said Lona, sounding more like her own mother than like herself. “What’s done is done, ‘Bella! If you’re determined to go through with this folly, then you had best put a smile on your face, for no man likes a sour woman.”
The sharp words had a steadying influence on Arabella. Lona was right. No one had forced her into this position. She had had the option of giving Greyfaire up. It was she who had decided not to do so. Nothing, she knew, was free in this life, even for Arabella Grey. If the king kept his part of the bargain—and certainly obtaining her a divorce was included in that agreement—then she would keep her part of the bargain.
A knock sounded upon the door, and Lona scurried to answer it. She returned bearing a carved wooden box. “The page wore no badge, or insignia or service, but I think I’ve seen him with the king’s people,” Lona said.
