He still dreamed of her, the duplicitous bitch! Her breasts rising and falling above the gold edging on her bodice were so damned tempting. That coquettish little French hood that framed her face so perfectly enticed him to creep closer. But then suddenly the king and queen were there. And James Stewart was actually talking to her—talking to that border vixen as if they were friends! Her husband came to stand by her side, and together they conversed with smiles and pleasantries with the royal couple as intimates. Ewan Hay couldn’t believe his eyes. How had Mad Maggie Kerr become a king’s friend?
Brae Aisir’s mistress would become the most powerful woman in the Borders, and Maggie’s husband would be the most powerful man. No! It was he, Ewan Hay, who should be that man. And he would have been if James Stewart had given Maggie to him. If only the king had listened to him and then given him the wench to wife, he could have been a happy man. He, instead of Fingal Stewart, would have taken over the Aisir nam Breug. The usurper had no right to Maggie or the land. They should have been his. And they were going to be! Ewan Hay was going to find a way to gain everything that belonged to Brae Aisir—except, of course, Fingal Stewart and his spawn.But how?
James V had a good grip on his throne. While not well thought of by his nobility, he was loved by the people and had strong allies in the church. But his determination to eradicate anyone connected with his former stepfather, his mother’s second husband, Archibald Douglas, the Earl of Angus, made him enemies. James, however, could not put his wretched childhood in Angus’s care behind him.
He had no memories of his father, James IV. But his father had been well liked by all. From all accounts, the fourth James Stewart had been a courtly, educated, dashing prince who had taken his father’s throne from him in a coup at the age of fifteen. He had had several beautiful mistresses, a family of bastard sons and daughters, and the devotion of all who knew him. And he had died at Flodden Hill in a battle against the English in spite of having an English princess for a wife. And with him had died more of Scotland’s nobility than could be counted. Among the thousands dead were the heads of fourteen important families, a bishop, an archbishop, several abbots, and nine earls.
And James V had been only eighteen months old at the time. His uncle, England’s King Henry VIII, wanted physical custody of him. His mother quickly remarried to protect herself and her children. Her choice had been pro-English, but Archibald Douglas, the Earl of Angus, used young James to rule for himself. He did everything he could to see that James was raised ignorant, and debauched. But there were those about the young prince who protected him, and kept him from the worst of Angus’s machinations. And his mother found her second husband quickly lost his charm. She divorced him finally, despite her brother’s exhortation to remain with him for the sake of her good name, and married a third time to Lord Methven, another error in judgment.
By this time, James V had escaped the clutches of the Douglases, taken up his power, and begun wreaking his vengence. Lady Janet Glamis, sister of the Earl of Angus, he burned at the stake on Castle Hill in Edinburgh for the crime of attempting to poison him. The charges were false. He made the Earl of Morton turn over his earldom to the Crown and pressed the heir to the Earl of Crawford to renounce his claim to that title in favor of the king. He came down hard on the border lords who favored the Douglases, bringing them to their knees and under his thumb. He compelled the lords of the Western Isles to his will. James V was not well liked. But he was feared.
But now happily wed to his beautiful and charming queen, he began embarking upon architectural projects to make over some of Scotland’s castles into replicas of the fine châteaus he had seen in the Loire Valley of France. The wealth he had confiscated, the wealth he gained each year, and the generous dowers of his two French queens allowed the king to indulge himself while offering employment to his subjects.
At Brae Aisir life took on a comfortable routine. The Borders were relatively quiet for the moment. Old Dugald Kerr’s health seemed miraculously restored. Maggie wondered if her grandsire’s former frailty had been a sham to get her wedded and bedded. She had returned from St. Andrews to find that despite her good intentions, she was pregnant once more. A second son, Andrew Robert, was born the following April.
The queen was formally crowned consort in February 1540. In the spring of that same year King James launched a naval campaign against the lords of the northern and western isles who were once again becoming unruly. Late in the previous year, a chieftain in the northwest, one Donald Gorme, had claimed the lordship of the isles, and rebelled. To Fingal Stewart’s surprise, the king invited him to join this expedition. Maggie was not happy to have her husband go off to what would surely be a short but nasty war. What did the northwest of Scotland have to do with them?
“What do ye know of the sea?” she demanded to know.
“Naught,” he replied calmly. “Archie, pack my things, and tell Iver to choose a dozen men to accompany us.”
“Yer going to go?” She was astounded.
“Ye know my family’s motto. We’ve never refused a royal command,” Fin said.
“His message is aninvitation,” Maggie pointed out.
“When a king invites ye,” Dugald Kerr said, “ye go, lass. It’s a polite way of commanding. The king hardly trusts the border families as it is. We’re counted among the faithful because of the past behavior of the Stewarts of Torra. Fin has no choice. He must and he will go.”
“Yer capable, more than capable, of managing the Aisir nam Breug,” Fin said to his wife. “ ’Twill be like old times for ye,” he teased her.
“I find I like new times better,” Maggie muttered.
The two men laughed.
“Never did I think I would see the day when ye would be tamed, lass,” her grandsire said, “but ye surely have been.”
“I am nottamed,” Maggie snapped. “But running a household, along with caring for a fussy old man, and two wild lads, is a great deal of work. Now I must add care of the traverse to it? Well, if I must, then I must.”
“Ye’ll do it, and do it well,” Fin told her.
“I’m going to bed,” Maggie told him. “I’m going to need as much rest as I can get if I’m to be burdened with all this work.”
Fin grinned. “I’ll go with ye, madam,” he said, following his wife from their hall and up the stairs.
Dugald Kerr chortled, well pleased. Two great-grandsons, and from the looks of it, Fin would get more bairns on his granddaughter.
“Listen to him chuckling,” Maggie said as they climbed the stairs. “If he were any smugger, I couldn’t bear it.”
“He’s happy because we’re happy,” Fin replied as they entered their bedchamber.
“We are happy, aren’t we?” Maggie said softly.
“Aye, we are,” he agreed, pulling her into his arms. “And why do ye suppose that is, madam?” He kissed her mouth gently. Then he tipped her face up and looked into her warm hazel eyes.
“Because ye love me, of course,” Maggie said mischievously.
“I’ve ne’er said it. I thought it was because ye loved me,” Fin responded.
