Amanda Scott (33 page)

“Thank you, your eminence,” Fiona said, standing to make her own curtsy.

He nodded, and Anne hustled Fiona out of the hall and up the stairs.

When they entered Fiona’s bedchamber to find Molly busily tidying the room, Fiona breathed a sigh and said, “You need not
stay, Anne, if you’d liefer return to the hall. Molly will look after me.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Anne said. “Now that you have so kindly provided me with an excuse to leave, I certainly do not intend
to waste it by returning. But you do not really have a headache, do you?”

Reddening, Fiona nibbled her lower lip. “Don’t be angry.”

“Of course, I am not angry, love, but how daring of you!”

“I don’t want to marry him, Anne.”

“I don’t suppose you do.” Anne said sympathetically, “although I cannot imagine why you don’t want him. He is a wonderful
man.”

“I am sure he is, but I don’t want either of them.”

“Betrothals are not easily broken,” Anne warned her. “And most girls have no choice. You must obey your mother or stand up
to her, Fiona. You know that.”

Fiona raised her chin.

Anne saw Molly’s eyes widen and felt her own mouth drop open. Her gentle, biddable cousin looked as stubborn at that moment
as Anne herself had ever felt.

“Fiona?”

“I won’t do it,” Fiona said, stamping one little foot. “I shall enter a nunnery, and the sisters will just have to take me
with or without my fortune. You do not think they really would turn me away, do you, Anne?”

No, Anne did not believe any self-respecting nunnery would turn away an heiress of Fiona’s worth. More than likely, they would
believe that in the long run, particularly if she took her vows, they would win complete control of her fortune.

“But think of the scandal, love! You would not like that.”

“I shouldn’t like it at all, but if I am in a nunnery, I shan’t have to bear it.”

Anne frowned. “Fiona, you are babbling absurdities. You know you will never have the nerve to defy your mother, let alone
Cardinal Beaton, in such an outrageous way. Do you think he will allow you to enter a nunnery or that any abbess, no matter
how greedy or stout-hearted, will dare defy him?”

Fiona shrugged. “Why would he want to stop me? ’Tis the Kirk—
his
Kirk—that will claim my inheritance. Would he not rather keep it than see it go into the Chisholm coffers?”

Her logic was unassailable, but Anne had a suspicion that Davy Beaton, having decreed what was to happen, would not be so
understanding of Fiona’s defiance, no matter how he or his Kirk might profit from it. One needed no great power of discernment
to see that he was a man wholly accustomed to being obeyed and one, moreover, who would not let defiance of his decisions
pass lightly.

“You need not look as though I were contemplating suicide,” Fiona said with a smile. “I warrant it will all come right in
the end, but I’ve never been allowed to express my wishes in any of this, and I want them all to know I loathe being pushed
like this to marry. First it was Sir Eustace, and now it is his nephew, and although I am sure Sir Christopher is all that
is kind, I do not know him, and even in his kindness, he has scarcely spoken more than two words to me in all the time he
has been here. I want a husband who will value me and love me, Anne, at least enough to speak to me without treating me as
if I were an infant or an idiot.”

That declaration struck a respondent chord in Anne. Did she not want the same thing in her husband, despite the rarity of
such men? She certainly knew, if others did not, that Fiona had opinions of her own. The younger girl did not often dare to
voice them, however, and this fierce rebellion seemed out of character for her. Clearly, this matter was of vital importance
to her.

Gently, Anne said, “Even if you mean everything you say, love, I cannot imagine how you can succeed in escaping Mute Hill
House and traveling to a nunnery, nor do I think the nuns are allowed to accept young women without their mothers’ permission
or that of a legal guardian. They would just send you back.”

“I don’t care,” Fiona declared. “At least I will have shown them all that I am not a toy they can simply present to someone,
to fondle or destroy as he pleases.”

“But how will you manage it?” Anne asked, appalled by the image her cousin had presented.

Fiona smiled. “I have a plan.”

If anything could have surprised Anne more than her cousin’s defiance, it was this. Having only come to know her during the
past several months at Mute Hill House, she could not say that Fiona had never before devised a plan of her own, but she certainly
had shown no ability to do so while Anne had lived with her. Fiona had simply followed where others, particularly her mother,
had led her.

“But how do you imagine your plan could succeed?” Anne asked. “Your mother need only learn where you have gone to bring you
back again, and in disgrace, Fiona. Do not forget that. You would face severe punishment.”

“She won’t be able to follow straightaway,” Fiona said.

“Faith, why ever not?”

“Because she will not know where I have gone,” Fiona said. “I don’t mean to tell anyone, not even you, Anne.”

“But there are very few nunneries hereabouts,” Anne pointed out. “Indeed, I do not know of any nearer than Melrose. And how
will you get away? You cannot simply go to the main gate and order the men to open it. They won’t do it, and even if by some
miracle, someone did let you ride out, you would have to take an escort, and the escort would see exactly where you went.”

“Well, they won’t, because I won’t take one. I’ll go during the wedding, when everyone is distracted by the ceremony on the
church porch.”

“But—”

“No, let me finish,” Fiona begged. “I know you must think me mad, and had Mother not decided to ask Janet Beaton to serve
as my chief attendant, no plan could have succeeded. But she did, and when she did, I began to think and scheme as I never
have before. My plan is simple, though. You will just take my place.”

Anne stared at her in disbelief. “I told you that was a crazy plan when you suggested it the first time. You
must
be mad, Fiona.”

“Perhaps I am,” Fiona agreed. “I certainly would be if I let them force me into this marriage without making the least push
to defend myself.”

“But why now, when you have never made such a push before?”

“Perhaps because I have never cared so much before,” Fiona said softly.

Something in her expression gave Anne to understand at last that her cousin was determined to go through with her plan, however
mad it was. But there was at least one hitch. “Much as I’d like to help, I cannot take your place, Fiona,” she said reluctantly.
“Everyone would know me at a glance. You know they would.”

“Not if you wear the veil,” Fiona said. “You will recall that, last time, until just at the last moment, my mother insisted
I wear one. This time I’ll insist upon it. I shall tell her I don’t want to have to pretend to enjoy seeing everyone stare
at me.”

“But even if I wore the veil, I’d have to take it off at some point.”

“Not until the very end of the ceremony, at the presentation,” Fiona assured her. “That is what Mother told me last time,
and by then it won’t matter.”

“To you, perhaps,” Anne said grimly. “Why, we’d be married then, Fiona! Just what do you suppose they would do to me for such
a deception, especially if I were so daft as to wait until the presentation before revealing myself?”

“Nothing very much, I’m sure,” was the airy response. “His eminence can simply annul the marriage, and I do not suppose for
a moment that Sir Christopher would allow anyone to harm you merely for helping me. Not if he is as kind as you say he is,
and I should think you must know him better than I do. He has certainly talked with you more, and has even walked with you
at least twice in the garden.”

Briefly, Anne wondered if Fiona were jealous or suspected that she harbored deep feelings for Kit. She could scarcely deny
them if asked, because she could imagine no finer husband for herself and had been wishing from the moment she realized Fiona
did not want him that he were free to ask her instead. Indeed, she had no doubt that her primary reason for doubting Fiona’s
sanity was her own belief that anyone must be mad not to want Kit. He had only to look at her to make her whole body sing.
She knew he liked her, perhaps even harbored similar, deep feelings for her, but likewise she knew what he would think of
such a deception and how he would view the resulting scandal. For her own sake, she had to dissuade Fiona.

“Really, Fiona, such a plan is doomed to fail, and it is quite unnecessary,” she said. “You need only tell them that you do
not
want
to marry him. Scottish law protects women from being forced into unwanted marriages. You know it does.”

“Not in this instance, because I asked Mother about that only yesterday, and I should warn you that she is vexed with you
for telling me it was all I need do. She explained that if one party to a betrothal is not of age, like me, the betrothal
is utterly binding on both parties. Even so, I believe Cardinal Beaton can overset any betrothal if I can just make him want
to, so I mean to give him good cause even if they catch me before I get well away. If he refuses to annul it, then I shall
tell him I want to enter a nunnery, and you will see then how quickly he will help a great heiress who wants to dedicate herself
and her wealth to the Holy Kirk.”

“But why do you not go to him and tell him that now?”

“Because I want to avoid the fratching if I can, Anne. Surely, you understand that. Only think how they will all carp at me
and scold. I couldn’t bear it!”

Anne could easily imagine it. At this point, she would not put it past Olivia to take a switch to her beautiful daughter to
force her to marry the Chisholm power and wealth. And if Olivia did such a thing, Beaton certainly would not stop her.

“I simply cannot do it, Fiona,” she said at last. “You must realize that it is too much to ask of anyone. Think of the scandal
it would cause.”

“If you won’t do it, then Molly must,” Fiona said flatly.

Molly turned white. “Nay, mistress! I’d be a-quaking in me shoes, knowing your mam would ha’ me flogged, sure as anything.”

“You must, Molly. Go away, Anne,” Fiona added. “If you will not do this tiny thing for me, I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“It is
not
a tiny thing,” Anne said. Nevertheless, deciding she would accomplish nothing by staying, and hoping Molly might still succeed
in talking Fiona out of her foolish plan, Anne went to her own room.

Thinking furiously and paying no heed to anything beyond her own tangled thoughts, she was passing the service stair when
a sudden hiss made her jump.

Stopping, she looked around, half expecting to see the ubiquitous fox, although the noise was certainly unlike any she had
ever heard from one. At first, in the shadowy stairway, she saw nothing, but then a movement from the darkest shadow shifted
into the shape of a man, and she recognized the jester.

“Mercy, Jake, what are you doing in this part of the house?” she demanded. “Did I not order you to stay away from here?”

“Aye, my lady, so ye did,” the jester said, nodding. “But—”

“If you have thoughts of giving Mistress Fiona another lesson on the lute—”

“Nay, mistress,” the lad said hastily. “’Tis yourself I were waiting for.”

“Me! But why?”

“Because ’tis my belief ye’d no like anything bad tae happen tae Kit— that is, tae Sir Christopher,” the jester said evenly.

Alarmed, she exclaimed, “I don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone!”

“Aye, but I’m telling ye summat may happen tae Sir Christopher. I ken fine ye heard wha’ happened when he returned tae Hawks
Rig.”

“Yes, I did. You told my cousin, and she told me.”

“Aye, ‘tis so, and me ears be still burning from wha’ Sir Christopher said tae me about me loose tongue and what he’d do did
I wag it again about his affairs, but I’m thinking I’d rather have him skelp me good than find m’self watching his burial
because I held me tongue.”

“His burial!” Anne’s stomach lurched as a shiver shot up her spine. Clapping a hand to her midsection and ignoring the shiver,
she forced herself to concentrate. “What makes you imagine such a horrible thing?” she demanded.

“Sir Eustace, that’s what,” the jester said. “He’ll be planning tae kill him, or I dinna ken the man. It were bad enough afore
the cardinal made his decision, sithee, but Eustace could play the part o’ the good uncle whilst he thought he’d win free
in the end. Mayhap ye didna see his smirk when his eminence said he’d decided. Or how that smirk turned tae fury when he said
the first betrothal must stand.”

“I did see how angry he looked,” Anne said. “But I did not see you.”

“Nay, for I were up in the minstrels’ gallery. There be a place where a man can hunker down there and see all that goes on
in the hall without being remarked himself. I ha’ found it useful even afore today.”

“Mercy, do you spy on us?”

“I’ve done nowt tae concern ye, m’lady,” he said earnestly. “I ha’ me own reasons for taking interest here— aye, and at Hawks
Rig, too.”

“What possible reason could you have?” she said indignantly. “For a jester to spy upon the household where he entertains is
despicable.”

“Aye, if I were nobbut an ordinary jester,” he said with an impish grin.

“Are you not then?”

“Oh, I’m a canny jester right enough, but I’m also Kit Chisholm’s good friend, and there be nowt I can think of that I wouldna
do for the man.”

“Did you know him in the Highlands then?”

“Nay, I’m Border born and bred, same as yourself.” He hesitated, then added in a rush, “He said he’d told ye about the ship,
mistress.”

“He did not tell me much,” Anne said, remembering how he had flung the words at her in the yard as he was leaving, the night
they met. “Only that he’d been on a prison ship, condemned to it for life.”