The Beauty of the Mist (13 page)

John was what she was after. This Maria was only a nuisance, and Caroline would sweep her away like so much dust. She was Caroline Douglas, and she would not let herself be distracted by such a petty creature.

John Macpherson was what she wanted. And John, she knew–like an old glove.

Maria fought back her embarrassment, and cut in on her aunt’s sharp words. “Isabel. Please. I saw an opportunity to keep us from returning to Antwerp. So I took it.”

“But at what price?” Isabel snapped. “Where is your head, child? Don’t you see the consequences of such an arrangement? Oh, Maria, how could you be so naive?”

Maria sat down heavily on the edge of her aunt’s bed.

“I wasn’t going to do anything wrong. He didn’t ask me to do anything dishonorable.” Her chin dropped to her chest, and she was certain that whatever it was that had climbed to her throat was sure to choke her. “Sir John made an innocent offer. One that I jumped at, thinking of us, seeing it as perhaps our only possible path to freedom.”

“Innocent?” Isabel exploded. Seeing her niece cringe, she paused, forcibly quelling the urge to continue her tirade. As she regained her composure, Isabel took in the sadness in her niece’s face and tried to ignore the pangs of guilt creeping in and replacing her anger. The older woman shook her head. Once again, she could see the reason why the Lord had seen to it to not provide her with a husband, or bless her with a child. She was unfit to be a mother. Unfit and full of bad advice.

Looking at the distraught young woman, she considered the mess she’d made of Maria’s life. After all, it had been Isabel who sent her off to the Highlander’s cabin today. It had been she. Isabel the Foolish and another of her brilliant ideas. Now it was up to her to talk Maria out of it. Foolish, foolish woman, she thought. Nothing more than a foolish old woman. Clearing her throat, Isabel tried to weave a note of gentleness into her tone.

“It was wrong of me, Maria, to suggest that you go to him. Even if things had gone differently, even if he’d agreed to take us there with no further conditions, Denmark offers us only a temporary refuge.”

“Perhaps so. But it is a refuge. Denmark is one more step away from Charles.” Maria took heart in the softening in her aunt’s words. “Isabel, please don’t think the worst. Let me go through with this. I just can’t go back to Antwerp. I can’t face my brother. You know, better than anyone, what this means. Aunt, I have broken every rule; I have done the unthinkable. I have escaped Charles’s grasp, running from his palace, from his city. I have sailed away from him, only to find myself escaping a ship under attack. And I have...”

Her words faltered, and she reached in, placing her bandaged hand on her aunt’s arm. Isabel’s face revealed nothing of what she might be thinking, and the elderly woman kept her gaze firmly on her niece’s injured hand.

“Please listen,” the young woman continued, her voice stronger. “What I have been asked to do by Sir John is nothing compared to what I have already done for the good of my family. This Scot is an honorable man, Isabel. He doesn’t know a thing about us, and yet, see how well we’ve been treated. I believe he means what he says. I believe he wants no more from me than what I have told you.”

Isabel slowly raised her gaze to Maria’s face. “You’ve just said all I need to know to prove to you the error in this path. Think of what you’ve just said–he doesn’t know a thing about us. Not a thing.”

Maria watched her aunt closely. “So?”

“Maria, he doesn’t know you are a queen. He doesn’t know you are promised to his own king. He doesn’t know you are sister to Emperor Charles, the most powerful ruler in the world.”

“I don’t understand. What difference does any of this make? These are the things we don’t want him to know.”

“Of course we don’t, but think of what it means. In his eyes, we are no different than any other poor soul he might find drifting in the sea. He has no reason to believe that we are anything other than what we tell him we are. He is freed from any constraint other than what normally constrains him. And as a man, those constraints are practically non-existent, believe me. His mission, his loyalty–these things are irrelevant in his thinking right now.” Isabel lifted Maria’s chin slightly. “This Scot sees a beautiful woman, that’s all. A woman with no attachment, vulnerable and available for his use. I’m surprised he hasn’t forced you into his bed already.”

Maria shook her head. “You are placing more weight in this than there is. You talk as if his actions must all be motivated by vice and malice.”

“Nay, I’ve said nothing of malice.” Isabel corrected her. “Your Sir John is just being a man. And interestingly, a man you are quick to defend, my dear.”

Seeing Maria flush crimson, Isabel pressed on. “Let me guess what you see in him. And you
have
looked at him, Maria. What woman could avoid it? Let me guess. You have seen charm in his manner, nobility perhaps. You have seen confidence in those dark blue eyes. In the way he moves, in the way he talks. I know you have, child. We both have. And I can’t remember when I’ve seen a better looking man than this one.” Isabel paused, thoughtfully. “But he is a hunter, Maria. One of those the Lord has given license to take whatever he wishes. He has no need for innocent companions. He can have whomever he wants.”

Isabel pushed herself up in the bed, wincing slightly at the weight she put on her aching shoulder. Leaning gently back against the pillow, she sighed before focusing her attention once again on her niece. “And there is nothing innocent, Maria, in what he is after.”

Maria looked up as Isabel took her hand.

“Listen to me, child. Women throw themselves into the arms of a man like him. That’s what he is used to. No loyalties, no love, no conditions, just pure surrender. That’s what he is accustomed to and that’s what he’ll expect from you.”

Maria stood up and stalked to the table, fighting all the while the anger that surged through her at Isabel’s words. His bed. All her aunt thought he wanted her for was his bed.

Maria’s thoughts went back over the brief encounters they’d had. The Scot was always at ease, always unaffected. The man seemed to be, at least, perfectly at ease with himself–and with her. John Macpherson was everything Isabel had described and more. Much, much more.

Eyes blazing, lips set in tight lines, Maria turned to her aunt. The young queen’s anger was burning within her. Anger that she felt toward Isabel, for being able to see what she herself had been blind to. Toward the Highlander, for his unbridled charm and his forward manner. Toward herself, for being so naive.

But deep within her, tucked far back in the recesses of her mind, Maria sensed a needlepoint of light that refused to go away. It poked at her anger, and at her aunt’s assertions. After all, so much of what Isabel had said was speculation. Speculation based on the observations of a few brief moments when they were taken aboard the
Great Michael
. And even though Maria had, in her heart, already resigned herself to rescinding the agreement she’d come to with the ship’s commander, she still saw it necessary to defend him–and his honor. That little needle of light demanded it.

“He is a user of women, Maria. That sums him up. I know. I’ve seen more than my share.”

“How can you judge him so harshly? After all, consider what he has done for us. We must be fair, Isabel–not condemn him solely because of one woman’s weakness.” Maria’s voice could not hide the disappointment she was feeling at her aunt’s harsh words, but also disappointment with herself. “Isabel, my inability to carry out a simple, well rehearsed discussion is the cause of these things that you speak of. Honestly, beyond that failure on my part, nothing–not Sir John’s words, his actions, nor even his request of me–nothing has given either of us any hint of the lack of character you describe. He has been nothing but civil, courteous, and gallant. And he is not the unfeeling seducer you imagine.”

“There is no purpose in discussing this with you,” Isabel shook her head, straightening the blankets on her lap. She knew there was merit in what the young woman said, but she was too old, too tired, and too stubborn to want to dawdle over the fine points of this. “There is no point in arguing, since you wouldn’t know the difference. You are an innocent, Maria, unworldly and completely unschooled in the matters of heart and the ways of men. So let us just end this right now.”

“I object to that, aunt,” Maria said in a steady tone, unwilling to give the older woman the final word. “I might not have had the days of courting that other women have. And it is true, I have not been in the company of a great number of men. But I do know as well as you matters that pertain to the heart. And as to the ways of men, no one alive has had their life dictated more severely by the ways of men. And, Isabel, I know the difference between right and wrong.”

Seeing her aunt ease herself further beneath the bedclothes, Maria knew that their conversation was rapidly coming to a conclusion. “Aunt Isabel, John Macpherson is not a wicked man.”

“I never said he was,” the elder woman chirped quickly. “In fact, in my younger days, meeting someone as handsome and as gallant as he is would have been the answer to my dreams. But, as a young rebel, I never concerned myself much with consequences...or with the opinions of future subjects.”

Maria watched as her aunt sank more deeply in the bed, the elderly woman’s eyelids once again showing the effects of the medicine.

The young queen walked to her side and pulled the blanket up to her chin. Like so many conversations with Isabel, this one would have no resolution nor end.

Then, suddenly, Isabel’s eyes sprang open once more. “Maria, your arrangement with the man...it is off. Understand? It is off!”

Maria nodded heavily. “As always, you know best.”

As he made his way toward the stern of the ship, John glanced up through the heavy fog at the ice beginning to coat the rigging. The light streaming from the lantern hanging amidships seemed to push at the cold shroud enclosing the ship, and reflected defiantly off the glistening droplets clinging to the lines above. There had been no change in the fog that surrounded them, but the temperature had been steadily dropping for hours. And that was a promising sign.

John peered out into the mists.

“Aye, m’lord. Adrian said you were looking for me.”

John swung around and faced his navigator. “Aye, David. Fetch your charts and meet me in my cabin.”

David nodded at his commander’s order. But as he turned to go, the pilot paused, a grin tugging at his lips. “It wouldn’t be that the idea of standing fast here for a week has lost its charm, m’lord? All it took was spending one dinner in the galley with the lot of them.”

John rubbed his face with his hands and pulled his cloak around him. It was true, he had spent the past few hours in the company of the delegation in the ship’s galley. But surprisingly, the time had been passed fairly pleasantly and with no complaints. “It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Sir Thomas dropped anchor beside me and we passed the time talking of land routes and charts. It wasn’t bad at all.”

“And what was Lady Caroline doing during all the while?” David needled.

“Thank God, she was doing naught that I know of. She wasn’t there. Sir Thomas said something was ailing her, but I didn’t think to pursue the matter.” Not interested in this line of discussion, John turned in the direction of his cabin. “Run and fetch the charts, lad. Sir Thomas is to meet us there shortly.”

“You are telling him our route, Sir John?” David whistled. “”Well, this is a first.”

John faced the navigator. “David, the man has attached himself to me like a growth. If he were any closer, I’d have to wear him as a kilt.”

“Aye, I can see you’ve a problem.” David shook his head gravely, struggling to hide his mirth. “Well, I’m glad it’s you he’s interested in and not me.”

“Aye, I’m certain you are. It does make Mistress Janet’s time a wee bit more...free. Eh, Davy?” John looked on wryly as the young navigator shrugged his shoulders and gazed noncommittally into the mist. “The man does know quite a bit about land routes into the Netherlands, though. I thought I’d show him the maps and get his opinion, in case we need to send a man overland.”

David started to say something, but stopped, nodding with a resigned shrug and heading off to do as he was told.

“David,” the Highlander called after him.

“Aye, m’lord.”

“You don’t have to be nice to him.”

John’s hand froze in mid air as he reached for the latch of his cabin door. His eyes narrowed at the realization that the door itself was ever so slightly ajar. Laying his hand on the hilt of the razor sharp dirk that hung from his belt, the warrior eased the door open a crack.

The only light in the long corridor came from the flame of a solitary wick lamp, but as John peered into the cabin, he could see that someone had lit a candle. But from the angle that the small opening afforded, he could see no one inside.

There was no way David could have gotten there before him. And Sir Thomas, John decided, would have waited outside. Other than the ship’s navigator, no one would even consider violating the sanctity of the master’s cabin. Thinking of the valuables and the chest carrying the men’s pay, John’s face darkened at the thought that one of these nobles would have the audacity to enter his chamber.

The Highlander drew his dirk and pushed the door open further. Whoever it was, would pay.

The shadow of the damask bed curtain hid her face, but the transparent lace-edged shift concealed nothing else. Stunned momentarily by the sight of the woman stretched enticingly upon his bed, John stood motionless on the threshold, his eyes taking in the perfection of the full, round breasts, the nipples showing darkly through the gauzy material. His gaze traveled appraisingly along the intruder’s long and shapely legs, the clinging shift doing nothing to hide the womanly charms.

“I didn’t know if you were ever coming back,” Caroline said softly, her long, blonde hair falling forward as she leaned into the light.

The lines of John’s face grew taut and grim at the realization of who it was that had invaded his private domain. Fighting the anger that was gathering in his chest, the Highlander suddenly saw Caroline’s face change with a start as she stared past him into the corridor. He whirled, ready to counter the blow from her husband. But the blow never came.