Conal Bruce announced that evening that he would be leaving Cleit on the morrow for a few days. “Duncan is going with me. Murdoc will have charge of the keep.
Adair, you may have the run of the keep again, but should you attempt to flee Murdoc has orders to lock you in our bedchamber. Do you understand?”
She glared at him. “Where would I go? Elsbeth continues to assure me that Stanton is no more. All I want to do is sleep in recent days. I am weak from puking, and can hardly eat a morsel. I am hardly able to escape my confinement, my lord.”
“Do you understand?” he repeated.
“Aye, I understand,” she snapped at him. “Where are you going?”
“Duncan and I have business at Hailes,” he replied.
She asked nothing more of him, and he left her sleeping when he departed the following morning. They rode from sunrise until almost sunset. With autumn the days were growing shorter each day. Arriving at the Hepburn’s keep, they joined Patrick Hepburn and Prince James in the hall. The last meal of the day was beingserved, and it was not until after they had all eaten and were seated before the hearth that Conal Bruce set his problem before the prince and his host.
When he had finished his host burst out, “Jesu, Bruce!
Have you not told the wench you love her yet? You would not have this difficulty if you did.”
“ ’Tis not manly to gush about love with a woman,”the laird said, flushing.
“Hell, Jamie is forever telling women he loves them.
He’s already had one bastard, haven’t you, you young devil? Women need the reassurance of the words ‘I love you’ to reassure them that their man actually cares.
There is nothing to it. If you are afraid, do it at the height of passion, Conal Bruce.”
“She won’t believe me at this point,” the laird replied.
“She has waited months for me to say it, but I could not.
She threatened to leave me after her year and a day of servitude was up, and she would have but that my youngest brother blurted out that she was with child.
We have fought bitterly since then. If I tell Adair now that I love her she will not accept my words as truth. But I cannot wait to convince her. Our child must be born legitimate.” He sighed. “I need your help, Your Highness.”
“How can I be of help to you, my lord?” young James Stewart asked.
“The priest tells me that if a male blood relation of Adair’s were found, and he would agree to a marriage between us, then she must accept it. Adair is King Edward the Fourth’s natural daughter. That king descended from Lionel of Antwerp and Edmund ofLangley, King Edward the Third’s third and fifth sons.
You, my lord, also descend from King Edward the Third through his sixth-born child, his fourth son, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. It was Gaunt’s granddaughter, Lady Joan Beaufort, who married King James Stewart the First, your great-grandfather. Therefore you and Adair Radcliffe are related by blood. Her natural fatheris dead. Richard of Gloucester is dead. She had no other male relations. If you would become Adair’s legal guardian and formally agree to a match between us, she would be forced to accept it.”
The Hepburn of Hailes whistled slowly. “I would have never considered you capable of such deviousness, Conal Bruce,” he said admiringly.
“It is worthy of a Florentine,” the prince agreed.
“Actually I cannot take credit for the thought, Your Highness. It was my brother Duncan Armstrong who brought it to me.”
“It matters not,” the prince responded. “While the connection between your lady and me is tenuous at best, it nonetheless exists. I know a priest in Jedburgh who is conversant with the law. Let us see what he has to say about the matter. We’ll ride out tomorrow morning.” He turned to Patrick Hepburn. “What say you, my lord?”
The Hepburn nodded. “There is a lass in Jedburgh I would be delighted to visit once again,” he said with a wicked grin. “My wife need not know.”
The following day the four men, in the company of twenty of the Hepburn’s clansmen, rode into Jedburgh.
While Patrick Hepburn’s men drank in a nearby tavern, and the Hepburn himself was entertained by an old friend, the laird, Duncan, and the prince sought out the priest, whom they found in a small religious house on the town’s edge. Seeing the young man, the brown-robed priest’s eyes lit up with pleasure. He knelt and, taking the royal hand, kissed it in a gesture of respect.
“How may I serve you, Your Highness?” he asked as he rose back to his feet. He invited them to sit, and offered them small cups of wine.
“This is Conal Bruce, the laird of Cleit, who is my friend, Father Walter. He has come to me to help him solve a difficult situation which may require your knowledge of the law.” The prince explained how Adair had come into Conal Bruce’s possession, and that nowthat she was with child he wanted to wed her. “But the lass is recalcitrant, good Father. She will not accept the laird’s offer, but she must for the bairn’s sake. Her close male relations are dead; however, the lady and I are related by blood. A feeble thread binds us, but nonetheless it does exist. Could I be made this lady’s legal guardian so that I might arrange the match between this relation and the laird, if for no other reason than the sake of the bairn’s immortal soul?”
Father Walter thought for several long and silent minutes. Then he said, “Explain to me the line of descent for you both, Your Highness.”
