The Beauty of the Mist (40 page)

“Please, John. Please have them send someone else!” she cried out in near panic. “Don’t let it be you!”

Her words stabbed at his pride. His eyes flashed with anger as he stepped into the room.

“I can assure you, your grace. There would be no purpose served in recounting the events of our...time together to the King.” He stared right through her, trying not to be softened by her moistening eyes. “All that occurred between us I have buried deeply. So you need not fear your secret being revealed by me.”

Her voice was raw with emotion. “Do you think I only fear for my safety?”

“What else does a viper feel–or a whore, for that matter.”

“A...whore?” her voice was barely a whisper.

“My apologies, your grace,” John answered coldly through clenched teeth. “I only use the term to indicate what a low point my bed must have proved to be compared to those you are accustomed to. But it
is
such a poor word. Wench is not much better. How does a courtesan sound to you? Of course, you must have heard such a colorful array of words! In Scotland, we say harlot...swyver...bawd! What is the word in Hungarian, your grace?”

Looking into his fiery blue eyes that aimed at piercing her soul, Maria felt her insides crumbling, her will shattered by his wrath. When she spoke, her words came through haltingly as sobs threatened to choke her.

“There...there were never any lovers. Never...not until you stepped into my life. And then there was...only you.” She took a shaky breath. “So call me a cheat...a liar...a coward...a fraud. But don’t call me what I am not.”

John turned his head. He had to get away from her. He needed to close his eyes and ears to her. Like an enchantress spreading her spells, he could feel himself being drawn in. Looking at the floor, he extended his hand again. “The letter, your grace. This is finished.”

Maria listened to his cold voice, then stepped back, holding the letter to her breast.

“You must listen.” she pleaded. “This may be the last time we ever meet.”

“There is no more to say.” John took a step toward her, his hand still extended. She wants to ease her conscience, he thought. Well, damn her. He carried the pain day and night–so should she. “I care to hear no explanations. Your letter!”

Ignoring his command, Maria turned and moved to her desk where she picked up the open letter she’d written to him. She saw his brow furrow angrily as she placed it in his hand before drawing back.

He glanced at the neat script. It was addressed to him.

John, I must speak of love…

Maria’s words tumbled out. “John, I know I could never hope to regain your love, nor even your respect, but it is crucial for me to tell you the truth.”

John looked again at the first line, and then crumpled the parchment in his hands.

“You’ve never spoken the truth!”

“I was running away from
you
when you first found me at sea,” she said quietly, moving to the window across the room. “How could I speak the truth when I was a fugitive, running away from a royal command, trying to evade the very delegation who plucked me from the sea?”

“You were going to see your mother.”

“That was just a story fabricated by my brother to avoid any difficulties. He did that to preserve the family’s honor. To smooth the path for this wedding.”

“Then I must say he is quite good at covering the truth. You have given him ample opportunity to hone his skill, I should think.”

“Cut me as you please,” Maria whispered. “But at least listen to what I have to say.”

“The others are waiting for me in the yard,” John said shortly.

“I think they will wait for you,” she answered. She gazed at him from across the room. “Do you remember how hesitant Isabel and I were when you first found us? If what Charles told you was the truth, what reason would we have for hiding our identities?”

“Perhaps to protect the lover you were running to?” John leaned heavily against the casing of the door. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up. “I don’t know, but the disappointment of that journey must have been devastating.”

She bit back the bile that was rising in her throat. Maria reminded herself that it was better to endure the stab of his tongue than to have him walk away before she was done with what she had to say.

“It was devastating to be saved, but not because there were any lovers waiting for me. It was because once again, my freedom, my will, my ability to breath on my own was snatched away from me.” Her hands trembled as she gazed down at the King’s sealed letter. “You don’t know how it feels to be caged like a bird all your life– never taking flight, never so much as seeing the sky.”

John looked way as she turned her sparkling eyes on him.

“John, they planned my life before I was even born. By the age of three I was betrothed to a boy of two. Do you know what is like to grow up without parents and have every day of your life dictated by the articles of some treaty?”

“That’s the price of royal blood,” he said as curtly as he could.

“Aye, the price,” she whispered sadly. “But I mistakenly thought that I already paid the price. I married Louis when I turned seventeen. He was just a boy of sixteen.”

John watched a sad smile creep across her face. He watched her delicate hand reach up and quickly stab away a tear.

“You were the first man that ever made love to me, John,” she murmured quietly, her eyes fixed on the letter in her hands. “He took me. As an act of duty, he came to my bed. I think he saw that–as you say–as the price he had to pay for his royal blood. But after the pain of the first night, I felt nothing. And he felt nothing, either. A few short moments in my bed was, for him, just another of the rituals we were both brought up to endure. I suppose he wanted an heir, but I couldn’t give him any.”

John ground his jaws together, fighting the sudden urge to go to her, to hold her. The Highlander shift uneasily in the doorway.

“They raised me to be a queen. To bear children for a king. That was it,” she shrugged her shoulders despondently. “The one thing that I was expected to do...and I couldn’t even do that. Louis became frustrated. He found...other things to keep him occupied. I would hear of...his other life, of conduct that was not befitting a king. I would hear of him, but I saw nothing of him. If I were the plague, he could not have avoided me more completely. For two years, John...” Maria stopped, gazing up at him.

He couldn’t look away. The pain in her eyes tore at his heart and pierced his will.

“I was faithful, John. Please believe me, I was. I never thought to be any other way. Not even once, even after hearing endless tales of his wildness, did I even think of retaliating.” Maria paused, looking deeply into his eyes. “Do you know, John, what it is like to be alone...completely alone...for two long years?”

“I am not your husband, your grace,” he said quietly. “There is naught you need to prove to me.”

“But I do, John. I do.” She placed the letter on her desk and wrapped her arms around her waist. “Louis, never loved me, nor even cared for me. But he knew me well. He trusted me. And yet you...you said once that you cared for me. But you don’t trust me.”

“I have reason for my distrust.”

“You do,” she nodded sadly. “I gave you the reason. There is no one at fault but me.”

John watched the way she moved to her chair and sank into the seat. He wondered how simple it would be just to walk to her, to gather her into his arms, to put behind them all that had been said...and done. But instead, he simply stood and listened to her.

“Louis died in the battle of Mohács, fighting like a common soldier against the Turks.” She stared at her hands. “It was a suicide, many said. He was outnumbered by many thousands. But still, the sadness, the lack of love in his life, the unfulfilled desire for an heir–for something he never had, for something I could never give him–all this drove him to his death. And it was no hero’s death. He drowned, John, being dragged across a marsh, escaping, wounded, from a foolish battle
he
chose to fight. And he was only twenty years old.”

Maria lowered her head, and John watched her tears run down her face.

“Many lads die in a battle,” the Highlander said quietly. “And it is not for their wives or their mothers to carry the guilt for an act of war.”

These were the first gentle words he’d spoken. She looked up, trying to comprehend the change.

“I had a reason for telling you of my marriage,” she continued. “You mentioned the price that we all have to pay. Sometimes the price is too high for a life we have no voice in choosing. But you see, I was foolish enough to think that I had paid the price. That my time in Hungary had purchased my freedom. But I was wrong.”

“You are talking of your upcoming marriage to King James.”

She nodded to the window. “I left Hungary after Louis died. There was nothing for me there. Charles sent a cousin to rule the country–what the Turks left for him, at any rate. But suddenly, I had a future. If I were to move to Castile and live with my mother, the rest of my life might be spent sheltered and guarded in her castle, but I knew I could be happy with that. I saw people I loved again. Nieces and nephews, cousins, Isabel. Then, little more than a year later, my brother summoned me to Antwerp. I was to be married again...to another boy in a country Charles saw some use in having. It was too much for me to bear. I saw more years of loneliness ahead. I could not obey any longer. I had to get away.”

She looked up, returning his gaze. “All my life has been sheltered. Men have never meant anything to me. My marriage was a disappointment–nay, a disaster. Never in my life has a decision been made that considered
my
feelings. Never has my brother thought what is good for me...or anyone else in the family. His decisions only encompass what is good for the power of the Habsburg dynasty, for his expansion of his Holy Roman Empire. So I ran away.”

Almost against his will, John believed every word she spoke. But still, knowing his mission, she had allowed him to take her into his bed. His face grew dark.

“Once you came aboard the
Great Michael
, you should have kept away.”

“I tried.”

“But not hard enough.”

“You courted me, John,” she whispered. “You wooed me.”

“You could have stopped me,” he said harshly.

“I could have...if I was strong enough. If I were more experienced with men. I could...if I wasn’t in love...”

“Stop,” he snapped roughly. “You shouldn’t have come to my bed when we reached Antwerp.”

“When we made love, I thought I would never see you again. When we loved at Hart Haus, my plan was to go to Castile.” She picked up the letter she had written to James from her desk. “It was wrong of me–I know that–but it was like a dream for me–a memory that I will carry all my life. We all need that, don’t we? A moment of happiness? A memory to carry with us?”

“But you didn’t go to Castile, after all. Isabel’s letter said you were ready to go. But when the time came, you found you couldn’t turn your back on the power that awaited you at your brother’s side. You went back to him. You left me with noth...” he stopped abruptly. He had held back his emotions up to now. Maria was to be his Queen, the Highlander reminded himself, and he was on his way to rescue his King. And they would marry. It was not for him, John thought bitterly, to rebuke her for doing the very thing that she had been brought up to do. And what would have happened if she did go to Castile? Would he ever have gone after her?

As much as he wanted to deny it, he knew he would have gone...if he thought she loved him as much as he loved her. He would have gone to the ends of the earth.

But she was marrying his King.

“I am sorry, John,” she whispered quietly as she walked toward him.

John could still feel the weight of her crumpled note in his hand. Without drawing attention to his action, he slipped it into a deep, inside pocket of his cloak. He watched her as she came to a stop only an arm’s length away. His eyes roamed her face, so pale, so innocent. Her green eyes sparkled with her tears. His arms ached to reach for her, to gather her to him. A moment of happiness. He wanted to give her a lifetime of happiness. But she had chosen this instead. She hadn’t gone to Castile, she’d returned to the Palace of the Habsburgs.

“Here is the letter.” She held out the sealed parchment. Johns large, rough hand reached out, but rather than taking the letter, his fingers closed around her hand. Their eyes locked. They couldn’t speak the words, but each grieved a terrible loss.

“Did it have to be you? Delivering this letter?” she whispered. There was the slightest of pressures, a caressing by his thumb on her skin, and he withdrew his hand, taking the letter.

“The King trusts me,” John answered simply. The feel of her soft skin beneath his fingers–that was a memory he would carry in his heart. “And he’ll follow me, as he may not follow others.”

She smiled bitterly. “You didn’t betray your King, John. I did.”

“You were only hoping for a dream,” he answered, turning and disappearing into the darkness of the hall.

Falkland Palace

The three riders had spurred their steeds recklessly on through the driving gale. The winding road, the stone and thatch huts that huddled sporadically by the wayside, groves of trees and the hedgerows, all blended together in the furious blur of darkness and rain. Then, just before they’d reached Glenrothes, the storm had passed, and the stars and moon had pushed brilliantly through the scattering clouds.

Twice already, they had been stopped since crossing the Leven. Angus had spread his Douglas men a much greater distance around Falkland than had been reported. John had only expected a concentration of soldiers immediately around the Palace. Angus was expecting something, John decided, pushing his horse ahead of his companions. Hopefully, he was not expecting this.

John glanced over at his mud-covered companions as they thundered into the forest that stretched from Falkland to the Lomand Hills. Their own mothers would not recognize the two Border Scots. One of them, Gavin Kerr, was a hulking giant of a man, broader of shoulder than his own brothers, and one of the few trusted friends of Ambrose Macpherson. The other, Gareth Kerr, was the smallest of the trio, a cousin to Gavin and another devoted fighter for the Stuart crown.