“What happened to your Aunt Margaret?” he asked, knowing it could not have ended well.
“The four Drummond sisters were all visiting their father at Drummond Castle when the tragedy occurred,” she said. “Though it could never be proven, we believe my mother’s sisters were poisoned at breakfast. In any event, all three fell ill and were dead by supper.”
“Ach, I'm sorry, lass.” He brushed her hair back and kissed her forehead.
“My mother took a walk by the river that morning instead of joining the household at breakfast,” Alison said. “She found a large black quartz beside the river. When she picked it up, an old woman appeared through the mist and told her the stone held magical powers.”
David raised an eyebrow. This sounded like fanciful imaginings to him. No one ever seemed to meet these mysterious folk on a clear day.
“The old woman told my mother that she would bear four daughters and instructed her to give each daughter a piece of the stone,” Alison continued. “She said that there would be a time when each of us would be in dire need of whatever luck and protection the stone could bring us.”
“I suppose the old woman disappeared into the mist?”
“Aye,” she said in a hushed voice. “When my mother looked again, the woman was gone.”
“Hmmph.”
“She feared the old woman could be a fairy in disguise bent on causing mischief, as they so often do,” Alison said. “But when she saw the fate that befell her poor sisters, she knew that she had narrowly escaped the same death and that the stone held good magic.”
Alison's piece of the “magical” stone had not brought her much luck—first Blackadder, and now him.
“I lost it the day I wed Blackadder,” Alison said, absently rubbing her finger over the opaque black stone. “I only found it again after I had the bed taken out.”
David lay back and stared at the ceiling, thinking of that burned bed again and what a damned shame it was that Blackadder died before he had a chance to kill him.
“Why did your father choose Blackadder for your husband?” he asked, though he should not blame her father for showing such poor judgment, when his own father and uncle had not seen that Blackadder was a snake.
“My grandfather was chieftain of the Douglases for fifty years, and he was the one who deemed a marriage alliance with Blackadder would be of value,” she said. “My father agreed to it because he and my mother preferred Blackadder to the alternative my grandfather proposed.”
“There was someone else he wished ye to marry?”
“Not marry,” she said, giving him a sidelong glance. “My sisters and I bear some resemblance to our aunt, the king's great love. Our grandfather hoped that would lead the king to make one of us his mistress.”
“He was willing to put you in that kind of danger after your aunts had been murdered?” The thought infuriated David.
“The king was wed to Margaret Tudor by then, so there was no danger—or hope—that the king would want to marry one of us,” she said. “It was the fervent wish of both my Douglas and Drummond grandfathers, however, that the king would take one of us into his bed long enough to bear a royal bastard.”
Did they care nothing for the lasses? Making their granddaughter the king's whore was not even the worst of it. While a royal bastard did bring a great many advantages to both the child and his family, the royal blood that ran in the child's veins could also endanger them due to the threat the child posed to the king's legitimate heirs.
“My grandfathers decided their best hope was my sister Maggie,” Alison said. “And I was married off to Blackadder.”
David pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head. What a miserable family she had, on both the Drummond and Douglas sides. He wished he could have protected her from all of it.
“Ye see why my mother wanted to give us a bit of magical protection?” She held the pendant up and smiled.
Ach, it did something to his heart to see her hold the pendant as if all she had against the evils of this world was a wee bit of stone.
“Ye have my sword, and my life if need be, to protect you,” he said, holding her chin and looking into her eyes. “I'll allow no harm to come to you or your daughters.”
He ran his gaze over her ivory skin, red lips, and violet-blue eyes framed by sooty black lashes. After barely leaving their bed for a week, he still could not get enough of her. He longed to taste her skin again, to hear her sighs, to feel her legs locked around him as they moved together.
He should have gone with Brian to Hume Castle to see how their clansmen in that area were faring. Brian was more than happy to go, as he was courting a lass in one of the villages there, and David had plenty to keep him busy here. But the real reason he did not go was that he did not want to miss a night with Alison.
For the first time, he had a glimmer of understanding of how his father could be so foolish over his second wife. He recognized the danger and saw how easily it could happen. But he had learned from his father’s mistake that vulnerability in a laird endangered the entire clan.
He could enjoy his bride, but he must never allow Alison to become his weakness.
***
