“Aye,” he agreed, “but she is a Ferguson’s wife, and she does love Duin. What is there for her here now, wi’ yer heir married? ’Tis nae a grand house, Robert. ’Tis just large enough for a small family. At Duin she can live either in the castle or the fine stone house that my brother built for her. She is her own woman, beholden to neither her da nor her brother. Alys seems a sweet lass, but how long will she tolerate her husband’s sister in the same house? Nay, Agnes will come wi’ us.”
“Leave the choice to her,” the laird said.
Angus Ferguson laughed. “Nay, Robert. Agnes is a stubborn young woman. She left Duin to follow after my brother, despite our best advice, despite our pleading that she remain. She is too proud to beg to come home wi’ us. She must be told she is coming and has nae choice in the matter at all. ’Tis better that way for all of us.”
The laird thought a long moment, and then he agreed that perhaps the earl was right. That evening Agnes sat among her kinfolk and finally told them her tale. The color had begun to come back into her cheeks. Her feet, which had been cracked, roughened, and covered with blisters, were now healing. Her little son nestled in his mother’s arms as, sitting up against a pile of pillows at her back, she told them what had happened.
“When James Hamilton murdered the Earl of Moray,” she began, “the Hamiltons were almost immediately besieged by the King’s Men. There was nae place they could hide. Matthew managed to escape and come for me here at Rath. Then we went on again to France, to the village from where old Jeanne had come.”
“Why did ye nae return to Duin?” the earl asked quietly.
“Matthew no longer felt welcome at Duin,” Agnes said, lowering her eyes. “I begged him to go back, but he would nae. He said that in France he would make a new life for us. He had been a steward in a great castle, and he could hire his sword. But we never reached Jeanne’s village. We never got past the port where we landed, Har-fleur. Though we had little coin, we managed to gain shelter in a waterfront tavern. But then Matthew heard some sailors disparaging his queen. They called her a whore. Matthew got into a quarrel wi’ them over it.” Here Agnes stopped briefly, her beautiful blue eyes filling with tears. “He . . . he was killed before my eyes. They slit his throat and left him to die in my arms.” She began to sob softly. Then she continued.
“When they tried to rob him as well, I began to shriek to the high heavens. The innkeeper and his lads came to my defense, and what coin we had was saved. I used most of it to hae him buried in the churchyard, and for the priest to say prayers for him. Then I sought a vessel to bring me back across the water.”
“Ye had enough coin for it?” Annabella said.
Agnes flushed and said nothing for a few moments as they all waited to learn what else she would say.
“Thank ye for seeing that Matthew was properly buried,” the earl said to her. “I regret the pain my brother hae cost ye.”
Agnes looked up, and he could see both sorrow and anger in her lovely blue eyes. “By some miracle I found a vessel going to Leith. I told the captain my husband had just died, and showed him my few coins. ’Twas all I had for my passage, and I told him I would travel on the deck, and eat only the scraps from the table.” She paused, then went on. “He suggested another arrangement, which I at first refused, but after two nights of rain and wind I weakened, for I knew I would get sick and die if I had to endure another night on the open deck. He was a kind man, and I no virgin.”
The laird’s wife grew pale at her daughter’s words. Annabella reached out and took Agnes’s hand in hers. Agnes threw her sister a grateful look and continued onward.
“When we reached Leith I sold my boots for enough coin to purchase bread. I had been able to eat little aboard the vessel, for my belly is nae a good sailor, I fear. I began walking, and I walked and walked and walked until the countryside began to look familiar again. I passed many villages and homes burned out, for they were obviously supporters of the Hamiltons. Three days ago I ran out of both bread and coin. I made certain to shelter secretly in barns, where I was able to steal eggs to eat raw. And then I reached Rath, praise God! There were times,” Agnes said as tears began to roll down her cheeks, “that I thought I should never see home or family again.”
There was a long silence as her words concluded, and then the laird of Rath told his daughter, told them all, “Ye’re a brave lass, Aggie. I’m proud of ye.”
“We’ll gie ye another week to gain yer strength back,” the Earl of Duin told his sister-in-law, “and then ye’re coming home wi’ us, Agnes.”
“Nay!” Agnes quickly cried.
“Aye, ye are, lass,” Angus Ferguson said. “Ye should hae never left us, and yer son needs his mam, but he’s a Ferguson, Aggie, and he remains at Duin, where he hae his family, his grandmam, his cousins, his aunt and uncle.”
“But how can I live?” Agnes said. “I hae no monies.”
“But ye do,” the earl surprised her by saying. “Matthew would hae accessed his gold when ye got to France and were settled. Now it is yers. Ye hae a stone house on lands belonging to him. Ye can live in the castle if ye prefer. However, there is nae question of ye living anywhere else but Duin. We want ye home again, Agnes. Yer son wants his mam.”
Agnes began to weep again, but this time the sound she made was one of relief. She looked up at Angus Ferguson. “I am grateful to ye, my lord. I will gladly come back to Duin, for I love it. It almost broke my heart to hae to leave it.”
“Then it is settled,” the earl told her.
Afterward, as Agnes lay sleeping again, the lady Anne came to where her eldest daughter and Angus Ferguson were seated together by the other fireplace. The flames were blazing brightly, the warmth of the fire taking the chill from the summer’s evening.
“How can I thank ye,” she said to the earl. “When I think how concerned I was when it was decided ye were to marry Annabella . . . Yer family’s reputation for sorcery frightened me. Yet my husband assured me ye were naught but a man who sought his privacy. I was but partly reassured. And then I met ye, and I could see yer deep and abiding affection for my child. Everything I had heard of ye was put to flight, for ye are a man of honor, of principle. Now, seeing yer kindness and forgiveness for Agnes, I think ye are nae a sorcerer but an angel come to earth, my lord. Thank ye.”
The Earl of Duin stood and took the lady Anne’s two hands in his. His handsome face turned to look into her blue eyes. “Let me assure ye, madam, that while I am nae a sorcerer, neither am I an angel.” He flashed her a warm smile. “I have done little, but even fearful ye gave me Annabella, who is the best of all women. I will do whatever ye need for that reason and that reason alone,” he assured her. Then he kissed her two hands before releasing them.
Afterward, when she had gone, Annabella told him, “Ye hae made her so happy, my darling. Thank ye for reassuring her.”
A week later, Agnes settled in a comfortable cart, the Fergusons of Duin began their journey to the southwest. With the good late-summer weather they reached Duin in good time, considering the baggage that followed them along with Agnes’s cart. Agnes had decided to live in her own home. She and her son would live in the castle until the house had been opened up again and the servants returned to serve her.
That first night back, after she had made her rounds through the hall seeing that doors were barred, candles and oil lamps snuffed out, the fires in the fireplaces banked, Annabella went to her apartment. She had dismissed Jean, and now stood gazing out upon the sea, which was silvered by a glowing full moon. Angus came up and began to unlace her yellow gown. He kissed her shoulder and the nape of her neck with slow, heated kisses. Annabella sighed.
“Ye’re happy to be home,” he said.
“Aye, and I never want to go anywhere again, my lord. Duin suits me well. The autumn is coming, the winter will follow, and by midsummer we shall hae another bairn, for I am certain now that I am breeding. If it is a lad, we shall call him Patrick or Ian or Charles or David,” she said.
