Not Mine to Give (28 page)

Kate stood before Duncan and looked up into his face. “It does not matter now.”

Duncan ignored her. He removed the Ferguson plaid from over her shoulder, then pulled her toward him. Kate placed her cheek against his chest. She wrapped her arms around his waist and begged him again not to do this. Her plea came out as a poor whisper.

He lifted the long knife from its sheath and cut the material of her gown at the back of her neck and ripped it to her waist. Kate pushed her face hard against Duncan’s chest when he held the material open.

The sharp intake of her father’s breath hissed in the chamber. Duncan kept her back exposed for what seemed an eternity, then wrapped the plaid back around her shoulders to cover her. Thank heaven he held her close for a moment before he released her or her weakened knees would have taken her to the floor.

“Bolton did that?” Kate’s father asked. The harsh tone to his voice accented his anger.

“Aye.”

“Why? Why would he flog her?”

“He wanted the crown and thought to force her to tell him where she’d hidden it.”

“But she was his betrothed.”

“He did na know it was Kate he was whipping, although I do na think it would have stopped him. He thought it was your other daughter, Elizabeth. He was desperate to have the crown. He still is.”

Katherine stepped back from Duncan’s warmth and pulled the plaid around her shoulders. Her gaze concentrated on the stone floor beneath her feet. She could not look at her father or at Duncan.

“Do you have the crown, Katherine?”

The flat line of her father’s voice sent a shiver down her spine. She touched her hand to her stomach to keep down the little food she’d eaten. “Yes.”

“The Ferguson has not taken it away from you? He doesn’t want it?”

She closed her eyes. The lump in her throat refused to move. The pain in her chest refused to ease. “Yes. He wants it.”

“Then why do you still have it?”

Katherine braved a look at Duncan’s face. His unblinking gaze stared without warmth at an insignificant spot just above her head. His lips tightened to a straight line and a strained muscle in his jaw knotted. “My husband promised he would not take the crown from me. He would never break his word.”

Katherine’s father paced before the hearth with his hands behind his back then came to a halt and turned to Duncan. A concentrated frown covered his forehead. “How did you think you would get the crown from my daughter, Lord Ferguson, if not by force?”

Duncan didn’t answer and her father repeated his question, this time a little more pointedly. “Did you think if she loved you she would give you the crown?” He waited. “Did you think Katherine so weak she would betray England for love?”

“I was mistaken.”

The pain in her chest seemed more than she could bear. Her loss more devastating than she could manage. He didn’t think she loved him. All these months, and he didn’t know how she felt about him.

Katherine’s father paced a few steps away from his spot near the hearth, then halted and faced them. “You were mistaken because you were not able to diminish your wife’s loyalty to England? Or, you were mistaken because you couldn’t force my daughter to love you? Which one, Lord Ferguson?”

“That is a question only your daughter can answer.”

Katherine clutched her hand to her throat to ease the dryness that threatened to choke her. “You know the reason I can not give you the crown, Duncan. You know.”

“What is it, Katherine?” her father interrupted. “Do you not love your Scot?”

Katherine choked back a sob. “Yes, I love my Scot. But I gave my word, Father. I swore before God I would give the crown to no one but you. I took a sacred vow.”

“To whom did you swear this, Katherine?”

“To the Ferguson priest the night he brought me the crown.”

“And you can live with my daughter’s decision, Lord Ferguson? You can take Katherine as your wife for the rest of your life, knowing her actions not only betray the Ferguson name, but all of Scotland? You can still love my daughter even after—”

“She’s my wife. I have sworn to care for her. It’s a debt I owe. I am honor bound to fulfill it.”

“But can you love her?” The volume of his voice increased. The harshness in his tone became more pronounced.

“I can na demand that she break her vow. My sin would be as great as hers.”

“But will you love her?” Katherine’s father shouted.

“She will have my name,” Duncan roared to the heavens. “I have given her that.”

Katherine reached for the edge of the trestle table to steady herself and leaned against it. The blood thundered in her head and a hurt more devastating than she could imagine stabbed her in the heart.

“Katherine, get the crown.”

The harshness in her father’s voice startled her. She’d heard a similar tone often, but never had it been so forceful. Never had it been so unyielding.

“Now!”

Katherine ran from the room, her legs so weak they barely supported her. Her hands shook so fiercely she could hardly keep a grasp on the crown as she carried it back down the open staircase. She made her way across the rushes on the stone floor and shuddered.

She refused to think on Duncan’s words. She closed her mind to what they meant. He’d given her his name but would give her no more. His love he would deny her forever. It was a cold, empty existence that lay before her.

Duncan stood in her way. Before she could give the crown to her father she had to pass him. She lowered her gaze, fighting the urge to look into his eyes and ask his forgiveness. She took her first step. His pull on her was too great and before she reached her father, she looked up. The hurt and the
pain she saw was too great.

“What was the vow you gave the priest, Katherine?”

She swallowed twice before she could answer. “I swore I would give the crown to no one but my father, the Earl of Wentworth.”

“Then give me the crown.”

Katherine took a step nearer her father, then stopped. God help her. How could she do this to Duncan?

“Give me the crown, Katherine. You took a vow.”

Katherine tried to swallow the torment that wanted to cry out from the depths of her being, but only a tiny, pitiful moan echoed in the silence. Huge tears of agony streamed down her cheeks, dropping to the floor, one after the other. She could not stop them. Her loss was so great she did not care.

“Give me the crown.”

Katherine looked into her father’s eyes and saw the willful determination she’d recognized from little on. She took another step toward her father and held out her trembling hands.

She gave him the crown.

“You have now honored the vow you gave the priest. You have done what God and man demanded you do. Your soul is not in peril.”

The void she felt when her father lifted the crown from her arms consumed her entire body, causing the most agonizing torture to the hollow spot where her heart should be. She had done the one thing her Scot could never accept. She had saved her soul and lost her heart.

“Now, come stand by me and face your Scot.”

Katherine shook her head. She did not want to look into
Duncan’s face and see his anger. She knew what she had done. She could not bear to see his hurt and disappointment.

“Face your
Scot.”

Katherine turned around but could not lift her gaze to face the humiliation in Duncan’s eyes. Violent waves of fear crashed inside her head, shaking her world, drowning her in weary exhaustion.

“The choice is now yours, Duncan Ferguson. If you want the Bishop’s Crown, it’s yours for the taking.” Her father held out the crown in his right hand and grasped Katherine’s arm with his left. “You can choose either the crown or my daughter. One will return with me to England. The other will stay here with you.

“The choice is yours. I will give you one, but not both.”

…

Duncan stared at the Englishman in disbelief, then looked at Kate. The horrified expression on her face wrenched at his heart. The shock and hopelessness plain for all to see.

“You can na expect me to make such a choice. Kate is already mine. Now that she has given over the crown, there’s nothing to stop me from taking it from you.”

“Yes, there is. Your Scottish pride will not let you steal it from me. I came to you in good faith, alone and unarmed. To take it from me now would be a cowardly act. Your conscience will not allow it.”

Duncan steeled himself to control the violent rage that wanted to erupt within him. His chest heaved with deep, burning gasps of air, and still he didn’t have enough air to breathe. “My father gave his life to protect the crown for Scotland. You can na expect me to choose one over the other.”

“Yes, I can. I will not give over both the crown and my daughter and go back to England with empty hands. You can choose Katherine and lose the crown, or you can keep the crown and lose my daughter.”

Duncan looked into Kate’s face and saw the total dejection she did not try to hide. The haunted emptiness in her eyes appeared even more devastating when surrounded by the pale shallowness of her skin.

“Choose, my lord. I find it equally as unforgivable to give my daughter to an Englishman who would beat her, as I do to give my daughter to a Scot who will not love her.”

Every breath of air left his body. Hot pokers ripped into his chest and made a lethal stab through his heart. He reached out his hands. He wanted to hold the crown that had cost his mother and father and sisters their lives. He wanted to see what it felt like to have what he had dreamed his Kate would give to him.

He closed his eyes and let his head drop back onto his shoulders. He couldn’t move. He had lost. Everything he had fought for since he’d come back to find the crown gone and his family slain was within his grasp, yet further away than ever.

He could not keep the crown and lose Kate.

He placed the crown back in Kate’s father’s hands and turned around to hold Kate next to him. To hold her in his arms and keep her close, without a crown to separate them.

Kate was gone.

“By the Saints! No!”

Duncan looked toward the doorway. Kate was just running to the steps that would take her away from him.

“Kate. Stop.”

She did not slow down but continued through the wide doorway and up the winding stairway. Her footsteps padded down the long hall and a door upstairs slammed shut with an irrevocable finality. All was deathly silent. Duncan knew Kate had fled because she doubted his love and didn’t want to face him after he’d chosen the crown.

Duncan turned to face Kate’s father. “You will have your crown, milord. You above all know how priceless your daughter is. A thousand crowns from England could not even begin to equal her worth.”

The earl raised his shoulders and filled his chest. “I’m glad you realize Katherine’s value. She has always been more than special.”

“That’s strange, coming from you. She doesn’t think you love her. She thinks you love only Elizabeth.”

“She’s wrong. I love both my daughters equally but in different ways. Elizabeth was always so much like her mother I could refuse her nothing. Katherine was so much like me I could grant her nothing.” The earl lowered his hand and placed the crown on the table near him.

“Have you seen how bright and curious she is?” The earl didn’t wait for Duncan to answer but ran his finger over the satin material covering the crown. “And how brave and reckless?”

Duncan remembered how Kate faced Bolton in the dungeon and knew exactly what her father meant.

“As she grew, she became more wise and worldly than a
great number of the men with whom my king surrounded himself. I feared for her and found I did not know how to suppress her independent nature. She was more like a son to me, and yet, being a woman, her talents would never be realized. Her brilliant mind would become a dangerous threat to the men who made up my world.

“I thought it best if I could rid her of her outspokenness and teach her acceptable submission. But she still voiced opinions few of my peers were brave enough to utter. I chastised her and sent her to her chamber without meals for her stubbornness and willfulness.”

“And you put her in the pit to punish her.”

“Yes. I didn’t realize how terrified she was of the darkness until it was too late. The damage had already been done.”

Duncan read the regret on Kate’s father’s face and felt a softening toward him.

“She always thought she was a disappointment to me and I didn’t know how to show her otherwise.” The earl looked up and Duncan saw the sadness in his eyes. “She thinks she has disappointed you, too, because she would not give you the crown. How are you going to show her otherwise?”

“Do na concern yourself with that, milord. Kate will know soon enough I could never exchange her for the crown. She will know how much she means to me.”

“Then you had best tell her right away. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about my daughter, it’s that she is a very caring person with a heart softer than is good for her. When she’s been hurt as deeply as she has been hurt by the choice she thinks you’ve made, it’s hard to tell what she might do.”