“She was in love,” Annabella told her sister. “A woman in love sometimes makes foolish choices.”
“Which is as good a reason as I can think of for this nebulous thing they call love having naught to do with marriage,” Agnes said. “Marriage has always been a practical matter between families, and so it should remain. The queen will have Darnley for a husband until death parts them.”
“He’ll drink himself to death sooner rather than later,” the earl said. “And Bothwell says he is riddled wi’ the pox.”
“He is one to talk, considering his amours,” Agnes said boldly.
“Aggie!” Annabella was shocked. “James Hepburn is a fine gentleman, and a close friend of this family. It does not become ye to repeat the tittle-tattle ye have heard from the servants, who no doubt tittle-tattle about ye. Perhaps ye should return home to Rath, for it would seem the freedoms we have allowed ye here at Duin have gone to yer head,” the countess said sternly.
“Ohh, dinna send me back to Rath!” Agnes Baird pleaded with her sister. “I couldn’t bear it, Annabella. It is so dull there, and our parents will be seeking to find a suitable husband for me. Robbie will nae chose a wife for himself until we are all wed, and Da grows anxious for another heir for Rath.”
“Well . . .” Annabella pretended to consider.
“Send the troublesome chatterbox back,” Matthew said mischievously.
Agnes turned on him furiously. “Oh! Ye!” she sputtered. “Ye’re only saying that to irritate me.”
“Please tell me that I have succeeded,” he teased her.
“Why do ye persist in being mean to me when I can see that ye’d rather kiss me?” Agnes taunted him. “Why don’t ye?”
Matthew Ferguson blushed bright red. Her instincts were correct, although he was not of a mind to admit to it yet. What if he did and she mocked him, as she was teasingly doing now? “Ye’re not old enough to be kissed,” he said loftily.
“Hah!” Agnes countered. “I’ll be sixteen in December!”
“Enough,” Annabella said quietly. “Behave yerself, Aggie, and ye may remain at Duin. Matthew, stop baiting her. My sister is nae too young to be kissed, but ye are too old to tease her in such a manner.”
Watching her gently chastise their siblings, Angus Ferguson grinned. What a woman she was, his Annabella!
October was gone with its grouse hunting. November came, and the pigs were slaughtered for the winter, save a few. Then it was December, and they celebrated Agnes Baird’s sixteenth birthday on the feast of Saint Nicholas, which fell on the sixth day of the month. Matthew Ferguson pulled her into a dark corner later, and gave Agnes her first kiss. She surprised him by kissing him back. January came, and then the short month of February.
It was at the end of that month that Bothwell appeared briefly at Duin. Closeted with Angus Ferguson in the earl’s privy chamber, he said without preamble, “Ye must nae be the last to know. Darnley is dead. Murdered. And there are those who would lay the blame at my door, but I swear to ye that I dinna do it.”
“Do ye know who did?” Angus asked his friend, pouring them two dram cups of his own smoky whiskey. He handed one to Bothwell. “And how?”
“I suspect Moray and Maitland had a hand in it. The queen’s half brother did his usual disappearing act before it happened, a sure sign that he was involved,” James Hepburn said dryly. “The queen had gone to the wedding of one of her servants. I was there too. We had visited Darnley earlier, for she will nae have him in the same house wi’ her any longer, and he has nae been well. He was lodged at Kirk o’ Field house. Someone filled the cellar wi’ gunpowder and blew it to smithereens. They found Darnley and his servant in the orchard garden. The servant had his throat cut, but it appeared as if someone had strangled Darnley as he fled.”
“Jesu!” Angus Ferguson swore softly. “And the queen?”
“Shocked and saddened, and totally unaware of how Darnley’s murder can be used against her,” James Hepburn replied. “Now that there is a male heir,theyhave decided to make her unessential. But they can’t dispense wi’ her as long as I am there to protect her, and I will be until my death.”
“The prince?”
“She put him wi’ John Erskine, the Earl of Mar. They are housed at Stirling. They won’t harm the bairn. ’Tis Mary they would be rid of, Angus,” Bothwell said.
“Ye must first defend yerself, James,” the Earl of Duin advised. “Ye canna help her if they tangle ye up in legalities. Maitland, for all his qualities as a good servant, would be the queen’sonlytrusted adviser, as Cecil is to Elizabeth. He is clever enough to manage Moray, but ye are a different animal. Ye’re in love wi’ her, and our queen hae not Elizabeth Tudor’s knack for survival. She is ruled by her heart, and she trusts too freely.”
James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, flushed at Angus Ferguson’s suggestion that he loved the queen. He did love her. He had ever since he had met her at the French court years earlier. But a Hepburn would never be considered worthy of Mary Stuart. He might be a man in love, but he was not a fool. “I have to protect her,” he said. “My honor will nae allow me to do otherwise, Angus.”
“Then first make certain they affix the blame for this murder on someone else, James. Whatever happens, I am yer friend and yer ally,” the Earl of Duin said quietly. “As ye will nae desert the queen, I will nae desert either of ye. I will keep the faith.”
Bothwell swallowed down the remainder of the whiskey in his dram cup in order to have time to regain control of his emotions. Finally he said, “I am grateful, Angus, for I know how much ye Fergusons of Duin prize your anonymity.”
“Send a messenger to me with updates of what is happening, so I may be prepared for whatever comes,” Angus told his friend.
Bothwell nodded, and then with the Earl of Duin by his side, took the offer of a fresh horse, departing to return to Edinburgh.
“What did he want?” Matthew Ferguson asked his brother afterward.
