Adam Hepburn laughed softly again. “What a charming innocent you are, Alix Givet. Your laird loves you, and eventually he will admit to it. Will that make you happy,ma petite?”
“Mais oui, my lord,” Alix whispered.
The meal over, the queen’s musicians began to play from a little gallery at one end of the hall. The music was sprightly, and Alix found her foot tapping to it.
“Madame, shall we dance?” Adam Hepburn asked the queen.
Marie of Gueldres smiled and clapped her hands. “What a lovely idea!” she agreed, and arose from her place at the high board. She led them to the floor, and clasping hands, they made a circle. David Grant and his wife joined them. Together they circled first one way and then another to the music. Then the circle broke briefly as they paired and danced as couples. At first the queen danced with Adam Hepburn while the Grants made a couple, and Malcolm Scott took Alix in hand. The gentlemen bowed. The ladies curtsied. The women were twirled several times and then lifted up to shouts from the men-at-arms seated at the several tables in the hall.
They joined hands again, circling, broke apart as pairs once more but this time with different partners. The laird partnered the queen while David Grant danced with Alix, leaving Adam Hepburn with Eufemia Grant. Alix was flushed and laughing as the queen’s captain lifted her up to the shouts from his men-at-arms. They circled a third time and then danced together again, Alix with Adam Hepburn now. Finally the music ceased and the dance was ended.
Malcolm Scott made his way to Alix. He took her by the arm, and while the others began to chat among themselves, the laird took her from the hall. His face was dark with his anger. “I thought you were different from other women, but you are no better, Alix Givet!” he snarled at her.
“What is the matter, my lord?” Alix cried softly. “What have I done to offend?”
“Do you think I would not notice you shamelessly flirting with both Hepburn and Grant as you danced with them?” the laird demanded. “Did you think I did not see you at dinner with Hepburn, your two heads together? You swore to be honest with me, Alix!”
“And I have been. I am,” Alix responded. “I was not flirting as I danced. I was having a happy time much like I had at my godmother’s court. Did you expect me to put on a dour face when I danced with others? Am I only to smile at you, my lord?”
“Aye, damn it!” he almost shouted, and then he was kissing her hungrily, pushing her up against the stone wall of the corridor in which they stood. “You are mine, Alix!Mine!Both Hepburn and Grant were admiring you with their eyes. I saw it!”
Alix, reaching out, caressed his handsome face. “Colm, I am yours. I want no other, and that is the truth. I cannot stop other men from admiring me, and it is pleasant to be admired. But I do not encourage any man but you, my lord, and you know that to be a truth. I am not Robena Ramsay,” Alix told him boldly. He was jealous! She almost laughed aloud at the revelation. He was jealous! Did he love her? Or was it simply that he thought of her as his possession? She would never know until he told her. “Let us go back into the hall, my lord, before we are missed. The queen has not ended the evening yet, and we cannot depart until she does.”
He groaned low, pulling her against him. “I need you, Alix,” he told her.
“As I need you, my lord,” she reassured him, “but it is not to be until we return home to Dunglais. Now let us return to the hall.”
Malcolm Scott slept restlessly that night. Sothiswas love. The desperation. The longing. The frustration. The burning need. He wasn’t certain he liked it, and yet he seemed to have no choice in the matter. Alix had been correct, of course. She had not been flirting; and both Hepburn and Grant had simply been having a good time as any man dancing with a pretty girl would have. Yet seeing her with other men had enraged him. He had never felt that way with Robena. He had always enjoyed watching her and seeing the effect she had on others.
It was not the case with Alix. He understood now he had married Robena Ramsay because he had believed it was time to take a wife. He had liked her at first for she seemed a pleasant enough lass. But he had not loved her. Not like he loved Alix. When she had run off with his half brother it had been his pride that had been hurt, not his heart. But if he ever lost Alix he knew it would kill him. He loved her. God and his Blessed Mother help him.He loved her!Now what the hell was he to do?
When the next day dawned the Laird of Dunglais had his duty to the queen to consider first and foremost. He ate oat stirabout, hard-boiled eggs, bread and cheese with Adam Hepburn, who then took him to see the fortification work now in progress.
“Our Jamie meant to fortify all of the shoreline of the Firth of Forth,” Hepburn informed his companion. “Since it opens to the sea it opens Scotland, particularly Edinburgh, to any enemy seeking to invade.”
“It’s an entry to the lowlands as well,” the laird noted.
“Aye, it is,” Hepburn agreed.
They climbed to the stone battlements that were now being finished and connected the east and west towers of Ravenscraig.
“You need at least two cannon openings on the land side as well,” the laird said.
“There are four facing the water as you will see,” Hepburn told him.
“The queen will have to set up a foundry here in Scotland. She cannot rely on her uncle entirely. He may cast her first weapons, but she will need to be independent of him eventually. If he dies, if he decides not to aid her, she must be able to fend for herself. She must be able to make her own ammunition. You need a reliable supply of ammunition. You can’t control the quality if you don’t make it,” Malcolm Scott said. “And you’ll need a goodly supply of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal for it. Saltpeter will be the most difficult to obtain, as it is in short supply. But large stones, the rounder the better, can also be used as ammunition.”
“I never knew any of this,” the Hepburn said.
“Jamie loved his guns, and frankly so did I,” the laird said.
“Is your keep armed?”
“Dunglais? Nay. I don’t have the means for it, but if I did I wouldn’t bother. I have no neighbors for miles, and the only conflict we see is nothing more than ordinary border skirmishes,” the laird told his companion.
“Six cannon are enough artillery for Ravenscraig?”
“Why would you need more? Especially if you build up other cannon forts along the coastline,” Malcolm Scott said.
