Bond of Passion (3 page)

“A very bold man, but then so many of these borderers are,” the dowager queen remarked to the little priest. “The woman who weds him will have to be a strong lass.”

But Angus Ferguson wasn’t thinking of marriage at that point in his life. By late August, when the little queen departed for France, he had his earldom, and had briefly attracted the interest and envy of his neighbors. But when the gossip that his earldom had been created as a balance to the Hepburns was bruited about, everyone laughed. The Fergusons of Duin, magic or no, were not a match for the earls of Bothwell.

And as Angus had hoped, the slight furor had subsided as the business of survival took precedence. The border wars were over. Henry VIII was dead and buried. His son, Edward VI, was crowned, and while his protector, Seymour, was tempted to follow Henry VIII’s policies toward Scotland, Mary’s removal to France made the efforts futile. The young king died two months short of his sixteenth birthday. He was replaced for nine short days by his cousin Lady Jane Grey, as the Protestants attempted to block Mary Tudor from inheriting her throne. Mary prevailed, but five and a half years later she too died, leaving England’s throne to the now twenty-five-year-old red-haired daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth Tudor.

Elizabeth spent the first years of her reign consolidating her position as England’s queen, and dodging suitors. Her only interest in the poor country to her north was the fact that its young queen, who would be queen of France one day as well, was now calling herself Queen of Scotland
and England
. Mary based her claim on the fact that her grandmother had been Henry VIII’s sister, Margaret, wife of James IV. Elizabeth, she said, was merely Henry’s bastard by the Boleyn whore. The fact that the English Church had given Henry his first divorce, that Anne had been crowned queen, was incidental to the young girl in France who parroted what her French relations told her.

But then England became less important to Mary, for her father-in-law, Henri II, was killed in a jousting accident. She and her young husband, Francis, suddenly found themselves the rulers of France. France took precedence over both Scotland and England.

In Scotland the Reformation was in full bloom. In no other country in all of Europe had Protestantism taken hold as hard as it did in Scotland. The clans in the north, and certain families, like the Gordons of Huntley and the Leslies of Glenkirk, held fast to the old faith despite the fact that the Reformed faith was declared law, and Catholicism outlawed under the influence of Master John Knox. Marie de Guise, a broad-minded woman who had allowed all faiths to flourish, even sheltering English Protestants from the Inquisition of Mary Tudor, was suddenly reviled for her faith.

Weary with the responsibilities she had shouldered for twelve years, Marie died, leaving Scotland in the hands of her daughter’s half brother, James Stewart, the eldest illegitimate son of James V. In France the frail Francis died at the end of the same year. It seemed to Mary Stewart, now Stuart, that her mourning would never end. France’s new ten-year-old king was a figurehead behind which his mother, Catherine de’ Medicis, stood. She wanted the young dowager queen gone to her French estates, in obscurity. Instead Mary Stuart returned to Scotland to take up her throne there.

Elizabeth would not give her cousin safe passage through England should her ship founder coming from France to Scotland. The lord high admiral of Scotland, James Hepburn, the fourth Earl of Bothwell, had come personally to escort his queen. John Knox preached virulently about women rulers being against God’s law, and he preached against Mary Stuart in particular. But Mary came home nonetheless, the swiftness of her passage surprising everyone, so that nothing was in readiness for the queen’s arrival. The fact that the port of Leith and all of coastal Scotland was shrouded in a thick fog, a fog that lasted for several days, but gave weight to John Knox’s words of doom.

Mary, however, took for her closest advisers her half brother, James Stewart, whom she remembered with great fondness. Marie de Guise had wisely gathered her husband’s bastards into her own daughter’s nursery. James, the eldest, had been the big brother to whom the tiny queen turned in her troubles. Now he stood by her side as her chief minister, murmuring in her ear along with the man who had served her late mother as secretary of state, William Maitland, the laird of Lethington. Mary had chosen to reappoint him to serve her in the same capacity.

While Mary persisted in maintaining her own Catholic faith, she proclaimed the law of the land to be freedom of worship for everyone in Scotland. It was a clever move, for it robbed John Knox of a major complaint against the queen, although her persistence in worshiping in the old Church infuriated him almost to apoplexy. Mary, unlike her predecessors, traveled Scotland visiting the Highlands, the Lowlands, and the borders, getting to know her people as no king since James IV had. The only place she did not journey to was the lordship of the isles.

Angus Ferguson met her when she spent a single night at Duin one autumn. She was hunting and it was grouse season. He was astounded by her beauty, charmed by her intellect and wit. She rode astride, something she had learned since her return to Scotland. The Scots, it seemed—John Knox in particular—were shocked by her show of leg when she rode sidesaddle. The hunt had been successful, and the roasted birds were served for the evening meal.

“You are indeed the handsomest man in the borders,” the young queen told him. “What a pity you have no royal blood in you, my lord, else I should consider you for a husband. Unlike my cousin Elizabeth I am eager to wed again, and have bairns.”

“I am, of course, devastated by my unsuitability,” Angus Ferguson answered with a smile, “but a simple border lord such as myself could never be worthy of such a queen.”

She laughed, but then she grew serious. “Who in Scotland is worthy of me, my lord?” she said softly. “Mayhap I should seek love instead.”

“Remember, madam,” the Earl of Duin told her, “that it is yer son who will one day rule Scotland, and more than likely England too. Elizabeth loves her freedom, I think, too much to put herself into any man’s keeping, so choose wisely when ye marry again.” Then he smiled at her once more. “If truth be told, madam, I doubt there is any man anywhere who is truly worthy of ye.”

Mary Stuart laughed softly. “You are a dangerous man, my lord,” she said. “And when will you take a wife for yourself so Duin may have an heir?”

“I shall wed a wife when you wed another husband, madam,” he told her teasingly, and they both laughed.

The queen had departed the next day, and he had not seen her again. Now here it was, several years later, and his friend James Hepburn, the fourth Earl of Bothwell, who stood high in Mary Stuart’s favor, had suddenly appeared at Duin. As he was not a man to just visit, Angus was curious, but he waited for Jamie to state the purpose of his visit as they sat in the hall playing chess and drinking the rather excellent French wine Duin always seemed to have.

“The queen is getting married,” Bothwell finally said. “She’s chosen badly, I fear, but there seems to be no stopping her. No one can reason with her. Not James Stewart, not Maitland. No one.”

“Who is it?” Angus Ferguson wanted to know.

“Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley,” Bothwell replied. “He’s her cousin, and a Catholic, raised in England. Elizabeth Tudor suggested him, and her horsemaster, Dudley. She didn’t expect our queen to pick either. Dudley, of course, was an insult, and I’m not certain Darnley isn’t either.”

“What’s wrong wi’ him?” Angus asked. “He’s obviously got the proper amount of royal blood, which makes him suitable. Wasn’t his mam Margaret Douglas, daughter of James IV’s widow, Margaret Tudor, by her second husband, Archie Douglas, the Earl of Argyll? And his sire Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox?”

“Aye, that traitor,” Bothwell snarled irritably.

“What’s wrong wi’ him then?” Angus repeated.

“He’s a weak-kneed pompous fop with a lust for power,” Bothwell said. “A tall, gangling lad with golden hair and blue eyes. He’s younger than she is too, but she’s besotted by him. He has the brain of a flea, and a crude wit.”

“Be careful, old friend,” Angus warned. “Ye sound like a man in love who has been overcome by a rival.”

To his surprise James Hepburn flushed guiltily, but before Angus might say another word, Bothwell spoke. “Enough of the queen’s folly,” he growled. “That property ye’ve been trying to purchase from the laird of Rath, I think I have a way for ye to get it, Angus.”

“How?” The Earl of Duin was curious. The land in question bordered his, and when its previous owner had died he had attempted to purchase it from his heir, a laird whose lands were in the eastern borders. Robert Baird, the laird of Rath, would not sell the property, despite the Earl of Duin’s offer to name his price. For several years now he had been trying to obtain the land, which was particularly good pasturage.

“It’s time ye wed,” Bothwell said. “Would ye agree to that?”

“Aye,” Angus said slowly, “I’ll be thirty-five come August.”

“Rath is married to a Hamilton. They have a son and four daughters. The eldest lass is twenty. Robert Baird won’t let the others wed until she is wed.”

“What’s wrong wi’ her?” Angus asked bluntly.

“It’s the damnedest thing,” Bothwell said. “Her mother is a beauty. Her three younger sisters are beauties, but Annabella Baird is as plain as porridge.”

“She’s ugly then,” Angus said.

“Nay, not at all. Her face is oval in shape. Her eyes fine. She has a straight nose and a nice mouth, but there is nothing to commend her but her hair, which is the color of midnight, long and thick. It is her finest feature, but ugly, nay. She is not ugly,” Bothwell tried to explain. “But while her sisters are beauties they are ordinary lasses. Annabella Baird has wit and manners. I was introduced to her at a summer games last year. I liked her.”

“Ye didn’t seduce her, then?” Angus teased his friend.

James Hepburn laughed. “Nay, not a proper laird’s daughter. She needs a husband. Ye need a wife, and ye want that land her father possesses. I will wager I can get Robert Baird to give his daughter that property as her dower portion, along with whatever else he was putting aside for her.”

“I’ll take her for the land,” Angus Ferguson said. “I don’t like having unprotected acreage on my borders.”

It was then that another man in the hall spoke up. “Ye can have any woman ye want,” Matthew Ferguson said. He was the earl’s bastard half brother. Matthew had been born six months after Angus. His mother had been in service to the earl’s late mother, the lady Adrienne. “I have made inquiries, Angus. The girl is respectable, but as Lord Bothwell has said, she is plain of face. Ye could have a great beauty as yer countess.”

“A plain woman will suit me very well,” the earl said. “She will be grateful to have a husband, and eager to do her duty, which is to give me sons. She will be obedient and bring no shame to the Fergusons, Matthew.”

“I suppose ye’re pretty enough for all of us,” his half brother teased with a grin, ducking the swat Angus aimed at him. But then Matthew grew serious. “Ye’ll be kind to her, won’t ye? As ye’ve said, she’ll be grateful to have a husband, but even plain women have dreams of happiness.”

“I’m nae a monster,” the earl said, feeling a trifle offended. “Ye must remember, Matthew, that while some will find love in marriage, the truth is that marriage is an arrangement between families to the mutual benefit of both. Rath wants a good husband for his eldest daughter, and he will get it in me. I want a bit of land that Rath possesses. Taking his lass to wife is no great hardship. We both profit. I’ll treat Annabella Baird with the kindness and the respect she will merit as my countess.”

“Ye’ve a soft heart, laddie,” James Hepburn said to Matthew. “Be careful it doesn’t get ye into trouble,” he warned the younger man with a grin, “and listen to yer brother. He’s a practical man, wise enough to take a plain virgin in exchange for something he wants. A man’s mistresses can be pretty.”

Angus Ferguson laughed. “It will be fun to introduce my bride to the joys of the marriage bed. Is it not said that all little cats are alike when you pet them in the dark?”

“It depends on whether they purr or scratch,” Bothwell responded with a grin.

“Either way will delight me,” Angus answered with a chuckle. “I suppose I should meet Robert Baird face-to-face before I wed his daughter.”

“I’ll send word to him. He can meet us at Hermitage Castle,” Bothwell said.

The Earl of Duin nodded in agreement and turned to his younger sibling. “I’ll want you to go to Rath and act as my proxy, Matthew. The few remaining inhabitants of our brother Jamie’s monastery are about to depart for France, as they are no longer welcome in Scotland. The abbot has already gone. He left Jamie to conclude the necessary business. I sent to our brother, and he will go with you to make certain the marriage contracts are drawn up properly and to officiate at the ceremony. Then you will all return to Duin, where this union will be blessed before our clan folk.”

“I am honored to act for you in this capacity,” Matthew Ferguson responded.

He and Angus had been very close their entire lives. His mother, Jeanne, had been the confidante and tiring woman of the earl’s mother, Adrienne du Montverte. It was rumored that Jeanne was her lady’s cousin, a poor relation, raised with the du Montverte heiress. Neither woman had ever confirmed nor denied the rumor. Pregnant with her first child, Adrienne had begged Jeanne to service her husband’s lustful nature so she would be spared this task while she carried her child. She was a delicate girl, and very much afraid of losing this first child whose birth would cement her place in her husband’s life.

But Jeanne was reluctant, despite her love for her mistress. “What if I am rendered enceinte by the master?” she asked Adrienne. “Will you put me out on the road with my helpless
bébé
, madam? Or will you insist that I wed some farmer to cover my shame?”