“Nay, but I must pay my respects to Jamie. We may not even stay overnight before pushing on toDun Broc.”
“Good,” she said. “I don’t want to go to court, Alex. I want to get toDun Broc.I grow more and more anxious to see my new home. I remember you once told me that the castle stood on cliffs above the glen; that it soared with the eagles! I have never forgotten that. You made it sound so beautiful.”
“It is beautiful, Velvet, and ye will see it first at the prettiest time of the year to my mind. The birches will make the mountainside appear to be covered in molten gold, and the mountain ash and rowan trees will be heavy with their red and orange berries. Ye will be happy there, Velvet, I promise ye.”
She took his hand in hers, and, raising it to her lips, she gently kissed it. He looked startled, and she smiled. “ ’Tis just my way of thanking you, Alex, for your kindness and your patience.” Then she closed her green eyes and seemed to fall asleep, yet she did not release his hand.
Gingerly he shifted himself onto the bed next to her, but lay on the outside of the coverlet. With a sigh Velvet put her auburn head upon his shoulder. He did not sleep. Indeed he lay by her side, awake, his mind boiling with a thousand thoughts. In the few days that they had been together again he had come to realize once and for all that he loved her. It pained him yet that she had given herself to another man, but he understood it even as he understood her difficulty in resuming their full married relationship. In her mind Akbar was yet her husband, and he the interloper. He wasn’t sure how to overcome such a hurdle, but then he realized it was Velvet’s battle to fight, and not his. She must be clear in her mind. He was ready. He understood how hard it must be for her.
Still, it was uncomfortable for him to face the plain fact that she had only lived with him as his wife for three months whereas she had lived as Akbar’s wife for sixteen months. God’s bones! Could she ever love him again? He found himself silently praying that she could.
The fine dinner that was served at the Earl of Bothwell’s board that night caused his cousin to remark, “For a condemned man, Francis, ye eat well.”
“Ye know my love of good living, Alex,” came Bothwell’s laughing reply.
“Aye,” said Cat Leslie, “I worried myself sick when he was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle, only to learn that he was living better than the castle warden himself, the rogue!”
One of the men in the hall now took up his pipe and began to play while several others raised their voices in song. Alex and Lady Leslie began to explore their degree of kinship, for his mother had been a Leslie. Bothwell stood up, pulling Velvet with him.
“Come and walk about the hall wi’ me, lass,” he said, seeing her beginning to grow sad from the music, an ancient Border tune that dealt with unrequited love. He led her away from the high board and slowly moved down the room, her hand tucked securely in his arm. “I will listen, Velvet lass, if ye want to talk,” he said quietly.
“There is little to say, Francis. I have come home to Alex.”
“Yet yer heart isna wi’ him. Why?”
“Oh, Francis, I am so confused! I believed him dead. I loved again, but then I learned he was not dead and I had to come home. I love Alex even now, but I cannot, it seems, stop loving Akbar. To give myself to another man when I was a widow is far different than the position in which I now find myself. I want to begin anew with Alex. I must! Yet I cannot stop thinking of Akbar, of India, of.… ” She stopped, looking stricken when he finished the sentence for her.
“Yer bairn.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “How did you know?” Her eyes were filled with tears.
“It is the only thing that could possibly bind ye so tightly to another man, Velvet.”
“Alex must not know! It would hurt him so to learn that I had given another man a child, and yet not borne him one.”
“Then gie him one, Velvet.” Stopping, he drew her into a little alcove, and, taking out a silk handkerchief from his doublet, he gently wiped her tears away. “Did the bairn die?”
“Nay. She is in India with her father. He would not let me take her. He said she was all he had left of our love. I didn’t want to leave her, Francis! She wasn’t even a year old, my Yasaman!” Then she began to weep.
“Velvet!” The urgency in his voice penetrated her sorrow. “Velvet lass, ye mustna grieve so. Alex will see yer face and know that something is wrong. What will ye tell him?” Frantically he mopped her cheeks.
In the midst of her grief Velvet suddenly found humor. “I could tell him you spurned my overtures, Francis,” she said, starting to giggle through her tears.
He grinned at her, both delighted and relieved. “Ye’re a bad lass!” he teased her, and Velvet began to laugh. Pleased, he stuffed the dampened silk back into his doublet, and then he turned serious once again. “Yer secret is safe wi’ me, Velvet, but heed my advice and get yerself with bairn as soon as possible. Ye’ll nae forget the other, but ye’ll be so busy with the new bairn ye’ll nae have time for too much remembering.”
“Alex has been so very patient, Francis. He has promised not to force me, and he has kept that promise.”
“Are ye telling me, lass, that ye’ve nae made love since yer reunion? Christ, Velvet! Ye’ll nae get yerself wi’ a bairn that way!”
“I couldn’t,” she quavered, her lower lip beginning to quiver again.
“Ye damn well can, and tonight ye will! The longer ye wait, the worse it will be for ye, and my poor cousin has been patient long enough!”
“He consoled himself quite nicely while I was away!” snapped Velvet. “So did ye!” Bothwell shot back.
“I did, didn’t I?” Velvet considered. “Dear God, Francis, I’ve been wallowing so much in my grief over Yasaman that I’ve never stopped to consider that life goes on. Alex and I have chosen to remain together after all our difficulties. No one forced us. Oh, Francis! I have been so unfair to him, haven’t I?”
“Nay, Velvet, ye haven’t been unfair to Alex. Ye simply needed time to come to terms wi’ yerself. Now, I think, ye have.”
