“I came back to prove my innocence.” He looked at her. “I need your help.”
He held his face impassive, but she knew how much those words had cost him.
“Why would I help you? I thought I betrayed you?” She couldn’t keep the twinge of bitterness from her voice.
Nothing flickered on his expression. “And I thought you claimed otherwise?” he challenged.
He sagged backward, falling from his knees to the ground, but she made no move toward him. Any compassion she might have felt for shooting him paled beside the danger his return could bring. He’d nearly destroyed her once before, he would never have the opportunity to do so again.
And now it wasn’t just her life at stake.
Her eyes narrowed. “Now you wish to listen to me?” She laughed harshly. “You are ten years too late for that. You should never have come back, Duncan. The only thing waiting for you is a noose. And I’ll be happy to help them put it around your neck myself.”
Chapter 2
Ten Years Earlier
Stirling Castle, Stirlingshire, late summer 1598
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Jeannie Grant stood between her father and aunt in the middle of the great hall of Stirling Castle, feeling the tension gradually ease from her neck and shoulders. A short while later she even found herself smiling—reallysmiling—at one of the courtiers she’d been introduced to and realized that she was actually having fun.
Had she worried for nothing?
When her father, the Chief of Grant of Freuchie, had insisted she accompany him to answer King James’s summons, she’d resisted, anticipating the worst. Veiled looks. Sly remarks. Whispers like the ones that had followed her when she was a girl.
But her mother’s fall from grace had happened eight years ago and many, many scandals ago. With the inevitableness of dawn, new misfortune had risen to take its place. Indeed, they’d arrived earlier to find the castle buzzing about one of the queen’s ladies in waiting who’d been sent from the court in disgrace.
Jeannie didn’t know the circumstances, but she could never take pleasure in another’s pain. She’d spent almost half her life living under the shadow of her mother’s scandal. Janet Grant had run off with a “BloodyEnglishman” (her father didn’t separate the two) when Jeannie was just nine years old.
She’d learned all too well how scandal and gossip engulfed everyone they touched in misery—even the innocent. Especially the innocent.
With her father and aunt locked in conversation with an old acquaintance, Jeannie took advantage of the free moment to catch her breath. She looked around the glittering hall, the massive room crammed to the wooden rafters with colorfully clad courtiers—a veritable feast of silk and satin for the eye. Her mouth twisted. So much for the “small gathering” her father had promised.
She gazed toward the crowd at the far end of the room, still waiting for her first look at King James and Queen Anne. But thus far she’d been unable to catch a wide enough opening between the silk wall of hooped skirts and puffy slops worn by the courtiers surrounding Scotland’s royal couple.
Above the din of voices she could just make out the gentle strum of the lute and the haunting melody of her favorite song—despite being written by an Englishman—“Greensleeves.” The familiar words floated through her head:
Alas, my love, you do me wrong,
To cast me off discourteously.
For I have loved you well and long,
Delighting in your company…
She fluttered her fan a few times in front of her flushed cheeks, stirring the stagnant, warm air. Four enormous chandeliers hung from the ceiling, laden with masses of candles, casting a magical glow across the room. But as beautiful as all those candles were, they also made the room hot. Still, the heat and noise only added to the feeling of excitement surging through the hall.
“And this must be your daughter,” a man said.
Automatically, Jeannie turned to greet the newcomer; her gaze meeting the twinkling gray eyes of a distinguished-looking gentleman of middling years, perhaps a few years older than her father’s eight and forty. He was short, not much taller than her handful of inches over five feet, and built like a barrel. His white hair had thinned and receded up top, but he more than made up for the loss on his face. His impressive mustache was long and thick, curling up into two perfect points on the ends. He reminded her of a sea lion, albeit without the gruffness. The jovial smile on his face belied any thought of that.
“Aye,” her father said. “My eldest daughter, Jean.” Her father turned to her. “Daughter, I’d like you to meet an old friend, the Laird of Menzies.”
Menzies. Castle Menzies was in Perthshire, near where her mother had grown up.
“Not so old that I can’t admire a beautiful lass,” the laird said with a chuckle, taking her gloved hand and offering a gallant bow. He shook his head and said softly, “I’d recognize that hair anywhere.”
