“Why, my husband, of course,” Annabella told him.
Satisfied, the pastor even helped decorate the hall with pine and holly. He oversaw the bringing of the Yule log into the hall, and agreed with the countess when she appointed the steward, Matthew Ferguson, as the lord of misrule. Each day was a feast, but for the few ember days still observed by the old Church, as the Fergusons were still Catholic. Pastor Blaine found himself approving of those days of prayer and fasting, much to his surprise.
Angus Ferguson could hardly keep his hands off of his wife. Not a day passed, except for those few when her link with the moon was broken, when he didn’t find his cock foraging between her legs at least two or three times daily. He had her in his library on the floor before the fire. One afternoon he pulled her into a deep and dark linen cupboard to fuck. The stables had become a favorite trysting place. Scarcely had the meal been cleared away in the early evening before the lord and lady were gone from the hall.
“Ye’re like a lad wi’ his first wench,” Matthew said disgustedly one afternoon. He had earlier heard Annabella giggling and his brother growling in a dark corner of the hall.
They hadn’t heard him, but it was damned obvious what they had been about when the earl, almost strutting like a rooster, appeared from the dimness. “Can ye nae confine yer lusts to the bedchamber in the evening?” Matthew demanded to know.
“’Twas ye who encouraged me to greater efforts,” Angus said with a grin. “Are ye telling me that ye confine yer lusts to a bedchamber in the evening?” Then he laughed uproariously at the look on his younger sibling’s face.
“I suppose I’m amazed that such a woman can rouse you to such passions,” Matthew said bluntly.
Angus chortled knowingly. “Annabella’s face may be plain, little brother, but the body that God gave her is magnificent. I have but to think of her, and I am ready to fuck. And my sweet wife is a most enthusiastic and willing partner. It is impossible to resist her, and as I see nae reason to, I shall not. I am beginning to believe ye would not be half as sour if ye had a wife to keep ye company these long, cold winter nights.”
“Bah!” Matthew said. “Get the wench wi’ bairn, Angus, and stop enjoying yerselves so damned much.”
The earl laughed. “In God’s good time, little brother. In God’s good time.”
Chapter 6
Twelfth Night was scarcely gone when James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, came to Duin. “I’ve come to take ye both to court,” he told Angus and Annabella. “The queen is wi’ bairn. Darnley is a pig and behaving badly because she will nae gie him the crown matrimonial, and the earls appear restless, which is always a bad sign.”
“And ye would drag us into that situation?” Angus said. “Nay.”
“She needs a distraction and new faces about her. She asks about ye often, Angus, and would meet the man who made her childhood in France such a comfortable one,” Bothwell said.
“How do ye know that?” Angus demanded. “Even yer father didn’t know the cost of Duin’s earldom.”
“Nay, he didn’t. She told me,” Bothwell replied.
“Ye’re that close to the queen, Jamie?” Angus was curious. “Ye play a dangerous game then, and I think ye should not.”
“I am loyal to the queen. No other man in Scotland who knows her can claim that distinction, even her own dear brother, James Stewart, the Earl of Moray, who has a curious habit of disappearing whenever something wicked is about to happen. My father allowed his love for Marie de Guise, and his disappointment at her refusal to wed him, to turn him traitor and brand the Hepburn name. I have spent my whole life attempting to erase that stain upon our family. Whatever Mary’s fate, I will remain at her side, loyal until death.”
“What of the wife ye are to take shortly?” Angus asked candidly.
“Ye’ll come to the wedding, of course,” James Hepburn said, avoiding the query. “The queen will be there, and ’twill be the perfect time to join the court. Remain wi’ her for a few weeks, gain her favor, and then return to Duin. ’Tis simply a courtesy, Angus. Nothing more. Besides, my sister, Janet, will be there. She will enjoy having another ear into which to pour her complaint about this marriage. Until I have a legitimate son, ’tis her wee lad, my nephew, Francis, who is my heir. She’s determined to have my earldom of Bothwell for him,” James Hepburn said, laughing. “She need not worry. This marriage between myself and Jean Gordon is nae a love match. The queen and George Gordon want it. Gordon feels he gains more influence wi’ the queen through me. The queen feels that she gains the loyalty of one of the north’s most powerful earls. The Gordons are now being forgiven for their last uprising.”
“And Jean Gordon?” Annabella asked quietly.
Surprised that she had insinuated herself into the conversation, James Hepburn turned to look at Angus’s wife. Aye. There was something different about her that he could not put his finger upon. “My betrothed is in love with another,” he said. “An Ogilvie, but once the queen decided to unite me with Lady Jean Gordon, the young man was quickly married to another.”
“Poor lass,” Annabella murmured.
“Where’s the wedding to be held?” Angus asked, hoping to cover his wife’s bold words.
“Edinburgh. In the kirk at the Canongate. The queen wanted a Catholic ceremony in the Chapel Royal, for the Gordons, like ye, still cling to the old faith. But I am a Protestant now. The Gordons dinna object, and Knox is quiet for a change.”
“We’ll be there,” Angus said, with a quick look in his wife’s direction, stifling any protest she might make. James Hepburn was his friend. He was obviously in favor with the queen, and he was marrying the sister of the Earl of Huntley, a most powerful northern lord.
“Ye’re nae pleased,” Bothwell said to Annabella.
“I dinna like travel,” she admitted. “But I canna deny it will nae harm Duin for us to go and pay our respects to the queen. We shall have to leave shortly, for yer marriage is less than a month away, and Edinburgh far. I shall barely have time to pack my finery.”
James Hepburn chuckled. “Ye’re a good lass,” he said. “Dutiful and loyal.”
“So ye approve of my lass, do ye, Jamie?” Angus said.
