Love Wild and Fair (38 page)

Susan arrived and modestly set up a screen for her mistress to dress behind. The Gordon valet assigned to serve Lord Bothwell rushed to cover the earl’s private parts as he rose from the tumbled bed, but Susan’s
flaming
cheeks told
him
that he had been too late. Unable to resist, Bothwell winked at the little maidservant. She almost swooned.

“Damnit, Francis! Stop teasing Susan! Ye’ve made her all thumbs. No, child. The pendant!”

Bothwell had dressed in a kilt, and Cat’s gaze swept him. “Damn me, Francis,” she said teasingly. “Ye’ve the handsomest pair of legs I’ve ever seen in a kilt.”

He grinned wickedly at her. “And ye, madame, hae the handsomest pair of—” He was stopped by her warning look, and he laughed and said, “Well, ye do, my darling!”

She laughed helplessly. “Yer a most impossible man! Take me down to supper.”

They descended from their tower to the hall below, where George and Henriette Gordon waited for them alone. The Earl of Huntley had been sure that Bothwell and Cat would not welcome company, so there was none.

George Gordon, called the Cock of the North, was related to the king. Cat had met him at court. He had wisely kept his wife from court. Henriette Gordon was petite, with soft hair the color of a daffodil, and enormous golden-brown eyes. She was elegant, and educated, and had charming Gallic manners and a warm heart. It did not take long for her to become friends with Cat Leslie.

Knowing that Bothwell would be with them through the winter, she had asked Cat to stay. Then she ascertained that though Cat’s boys were no longer at home, her daughters were, and she invited them to Huntley for Christmas and Twelfth Night. When Cat demurred because she did not want to leave Meg alone, Henriette said she would invite the dowager as well.

The end result was that Bess, Amanda, and Morag were coming for the holidays. But Meg had been asked to Forbes Manor to stay with her youngest son, Michael, and his wife, Isabelle. She did not often get to see them, and she felt that this was the perfect opportunity. There was, she wrote, one complication. The twins would have to go to Huntley. Meg did not want them left alone at Glenkirk with the servants.

Bothwell was wild with excitement. “Our bairns!” he said. “I shall get to see our bairns!”

“Ye canna admit to their paternity,” she cautioned him. “The world has never doubted that Patrick Leslie is their father. I will allow no one—even ye—to endanger them.”

It was a new side of her that he saw—this fierce and protective mother. He put an arm about her. “Fate has nae dealt kindly wi us, has it, Cat?”

“We’re together now, Bothwell,” she answered him.

The unspoken questions—"For how long?” “Until when?"—lay between them, but neither Cat nor Francis could ask those questions.

So while the autumn deepened about them, they accepted the Gordons’ hospitality. It allowed them a tranquil place to rest in their last months together. For just a brief time they might forget the public controversy that raged about Francis Stewart-Hepburn and the private one that raged about them both. When the future arrived they would face it courageously. But for now, they basked in their good fortune.

G
REEN and gold September gave way to a rainbow October. The trees about Huntley were clothed in their traditional brilliant colors. November was a gray-and-brown month, startling in contrast to the beauty of the previous month. The first snow fell late, on St. Thomas’ Night, and the Leslie children arrived that day.

They had come, Bess riding a gentle brown mare, the other children and their attendants in carriages, escorted by Conall and fifty men-at-arms. Twelve-year-old Bess Leslie strove to appear grown-up. She wore an elegant riding habit of claret-colored velvet, a matching cloak trimmed in sable, and a small hat atop her dark, neatly braided hair. Cat had never seen her eldest daughter with her hair up.

“She is
très chic,”
murmured Henriette.

“And very young yet,” replied Cat with a catch in her throat.

“She does not approve of you,” laughed Henriette behind her plump, beringed white hand. “The young—especially young virgins—are so terribly intolerant.”

“Aye,” smiled Cat in agreement. “I was at her age. Poor Bess! She likes Francis. She canna help it, but she loves her father, and feels it is disloyal to him to be polite to Bothwell. She canna understand why I no longer care for her father, and I dare not tell her the truth, so I evade her questions, which only hurts and confuses her more.”

“She would be more hurt, my friend, if she did know the truth. Come, Cat, do not fret. Let us go and meet your children.”

Bess’ serious young face lit up the moment she saw her mother. Forgetting dignity, she tumbled off her horse into Cat’s arms. “Mama!” Cat hugged the girl to her. Then, releasing her, she admonished gently. “Bess, yer manners! Make yer curtsy to Lord and Lady Gordon, and Lord Bothwell.” Blushing a rosy color, the girl turned and curtsied beautifully to the other adults.

Henriette Gordon kissed the girl on both cheeks and welcomed her warmly, and George Gordon murmured an appropriate welcome. But then Bothwell stepped forward and, taking the young girl’s hand, raised it to his lips and kissed it. “I am delighted to see ye again, Lady Elizabeth,” he said. His blue eyes twinkled at her. Damn him, thought Bess. I
dinna
want to like him—but I
do!

And for the briefest moment, Bess caught a glimpse of the man that so fascinated her mother.

Amanda and Morag Leslie descended the carriage to make pretty curtsies to their host and hostess. Cat kissed each of her daughters in turn. At last the Kerr sisters exited the second coach, each clutching a twin.

“Ahhh,” said the Countess of Glenkirk. “Look, everyone! My littlest bairns.” She drew back the cover from Jane’s bunting, revealing auburn curls peeping from a lace-edged bonnet, and dark lashes resting on pink cheeks. The baby slept. Ian, however, was wide awake. Cat was startled by the familiar expression in his dark-blue eyes.

“Art awake, lovely?” she crooned at the boy, and took him from Sally. “Now here’s my wee laddie.
Madame et monsieurs. Je presente le seigneur
Ian Leslie.” She turned. “Here, Bothwell! Ye take him while I get my Jane from Lucy.” She briskly handed him the child, scolding him, “Christ, Francis! He’s nae wet! Dinna drop him!” Taking the baby girl from Lucy, she said, “Let’s go indoors. Tis too raw out here for the bairns.”

Francis Hepburn, looking nervous but pleased, followed her. He was admiring the clever way in which she had arranged for him to hold his son. Bothwell sat down by the fire in the Great Hall and held the child in a sitting position on his knee. “Hello, Ian, my small son,” he said softly. The child looked back at him seriously and then, reaching a fat fist up to the bending man, grabbed a handful of hair, and yanked. “Owwwww!” roared the Earl of Bothwell, but a small chortle from the baby turned his outrage to mirth. “Yer a wee devil, lad,” he chuckled, but Cat knew he was pleased with the boy.

“Best to gie Ian to his nanny now, Francis,” she said quietly. He obeyed her. “What do ye think of his sister, my lord?” Bothwell looked at Jane, who was now awake, and smiled down at the baby girl. To his delight the child smiled shyly back. “She looks a bit like ye,” he said. “Aye,” replied Cat, “but she’s got red hair. Meg says her coloring is Stewart, but the Leslies have red hair too.”

For just a moment longer Bothwell gazed hungrily at the two children. In his secret heart he cursed James Stewart. His son and his daughter would grow up Leslies, never knowing him or their true heritage.

He wanted these children desperately. Sadly he watched as the Kerr sisters removed the twins to the Gordon nurseries.

Christmas Day dawned cold and gray. Bothwell, who had always moved back and forth between old and new kirk as politics dictated, attended mass with the Gordons’ Catholic household. As he knelt with his mistress on the cold stone floor of the estate church he wondered again why there was this battle over the way to worship. Did God, if there was a God, really care?

Looking at Cat’s face, he revised his thinking. Aye, there was a God. The only trouble was that God seemed to be on the king’s side, though why God should approve of James was beyond him. It showed a great want of taste.

In Scotland, New Year’s and Twelfth Night were the gayest celebrations of the winter season. On New Year’s Eve there was to be a great celebration with a feast that had kept the cooks busy for three days. The 31st of December was bitterly cold, but clear. Cat and Francis had gone riding.

Returning late in the afternoon, they found the stableyard deserted. Everyone, from the lord to the lowest retainer, was out gathering wood for tonight’s midnight bonfire. Neither Cat nor Bothwell was stranger to the art of horse care. They led their mounts into the stable, unaware that Bess watched from the loft above.

Several hours after her mother left that morning, Bess had decided that perhaps she would like to ride. After an hour, the cold having forced her back, she returned to find the grooms gone. Leading her mare into its stall, Bess unsaddled the animal, rubbed it down, and fed her. Then, curious, she climbed to the loft to see what she could see. From the loft of the Glenkirk stables you could—on a clear day—see all the way to the loch, and to the towers of Sithean.

From the loft of the Huntley stables she could see nothing but hills and more hills. Disappointed, she was about to climb down when she saw her mother and Lord Bothwell enter the stables leading their horses. Elizabeth Leslie could not have said why she remained hidden in the Huntley’s stable loft that day rather than announcing her presence.

The adults below her talked quietly to each other about ordinary things, of the celebration to come, and of what they would be giving the children. Bess learned that her mother and Bothwell would be presenting her with a longed-for strand of pearls plus a bracelet, earrings, and matching brooch of pearls and diamonds. At Twelfth Night she was to have a lynx cape, and a necklace and earrings of garnets.

“She grows so fast,” sighed Cat “We shall soon have to arrange a suitable match for her. George and Henriette have suggested that their second son, Andrew, might suit Bess.”

“She’s going to be a beautiful woman,” agreed Bothwell. “Keep her from court”

Cat nodded. “I will hae no problem there. Bess is like her grandmothers. She prefers being a country mouse. She will make the man she marries an admirable wife.”

Bess preened silently in her hiding place, pleased that her mother should have such faith in her. Then Bothwell leaned over and said something Bess could not hear. Her mother laughed and, grabbing a handful of hay, tossed it at the earl. The chase was on, and the two adults romped back and forth until they collapsed laughing in a pile of hay in the empty stall directly below Bess.

The young girl could not see what was going on beneath her unless she peered over the edge. Lured by assorted sounds, she carefully lay on her stomach and looked down. Bess had only the vaguest idea of what went on between a man and a woman. What she saw below enlightened her somewhat.

Her mother lay on her back in the hay, the pale-violet velvet skirts of her riding habit turned up. Cat’s long, shapely legs, sheathed in knitted purple lace stockings, were spread, and between them Lord Bothwell labored back and forth. Bess could see nothing of great note, for both Bothwell and her mother were kissing passionately while breathing roughly, and murmuring unintelligible things to each other. Then her mother cried out quite clearly, “Oh, Bothwell! I adore ye!” and all was quiet but for the sounds made by the horses.

So
that
was lovemaking! Strangely, she wasn’t shocked. It was a curious matter, and it did clear up things she had overheard the maids speaking about when they thought she wasn’t listening.

Lord Bothwell stood and adjusted his kilt, then pulled Cat’s skirts back down. Bess saw her mother sit up, and was amazed at how lovely she was—all rose with her tawny, tousled hair. “Damn, Francis! That was nae wise. What if someone had come in?”

“They would have left rather quickly, I imagine,” the great border lord laughed. “Besides, madame my love, I dinna hear ye complaining,” he finished teasingly.

Cat laughed helplessly. “I have always wanted to be ravished in a haypile,” she admitted, and he echoed her laughter.

But slowly, Cat sobered.

“I dinna think I can bear it, my love.”

“Hush, my darling. Dinna think about it. Let us enjoy the time we have left.”

“Let me come wi ye, Francis! Please let me come wi ye!”

“Cat!” His voice was patient, and very tender. “Sweeting, we hae been through this before. We canna be responsible for the destruction of all the Leslies. Then too, my love, I am a poor man now. James has everything I own. How would we live?”

“Surely Jamie has forgotten me now that Prince Henry has been born. Tis said he fair dotes on the bairn. Surely he would hae compassion on
our
children? As to our living—oh, Francis! I am a very wealthy woman in my own right. Just a word to my bankers, the Kiras, and my investments and gold can be placed anywhere in the world!”

Bess was shocked to hear her mother talk of abandoning her family, especially when she had promised to return to Glenkirk. She strained to hear what Bothwell would answer. She did not have long to wait

“Never!” he spat “Never would I allow a woman to support me! As to James softening his stand, ye may disabuse yerself of that notion, madame. James has not altered his stand! At least my children are half Douglas, and allied by blood to a great family which will protect them. But ye Leslies intermarry. Who will protect them? Unless we obey Cousin Jamie he will destroy them! Christ, my love! My sweet, sweet love! I hate the thought of losing ye, but I cannot build a life wi ye on the ruins of Glenkirk and all his family.”

Bess could see her mother’s face clearly now, and the tragic look was almost too much for the girl to bear. Cat stood very straight and, composing her face into a mask of passivity, said, “I am sorry, my lord, for adding to yer pain. What is it about ye lords of Bothwell that turn sensible women into irresponsible ones? Mary Stewart lost both her kingdom and her only child for love of yer Uncle James. And here am I ready to sacrifice my entire family for ye.”