The Captive Heart (43 page)

“So it has been said,” Bishop Kennedy replied dryly. “You may go now, my lords. And give the queen my compliments.”

“Sly old fox,” Adam Hepburn muttered when they were well out of the bishop’s hearing. “He plays a crafty game. If he thought he could control any of the princes without the queen’s interference he would put one of them on young James’s throne instead. He is a constant worry to her.”

“She does not look well,” the laird remarked.

“She is not, but none know it but me. She strives hard to hide it from them. She fears showing any sign of weakness will endanger the king. Her children are her life, but especially her eldest. She knows better than any what her husband would have wanted from them. She would live long enough to see young James reach his majority, where hopefully he will not be influenced by others. The boy is vulnerable, and try as she might, the queen cannot teach him the fine art of compromise. It is his greatest weakness.”

“He is young yet,” the laird noted.

Adam Hepburn shook his head. “He is stubborn,” he answered.

That night in the great hall of Ravenscraig Castle the Laird of Dunglais sat at the first table below the high board with Adam Hepburn and observed everything. The young king had grown proud of his position. His brothers had grown more unruly. He had two younger sisters. Mary, the elder of the two, was a pretty little girl who seemed to enjoy flirting and chattering. Her younger sister, Margaret, was quiet and serious. She watched everyone and everything with sharp eyes but said little, although he could tell she understood all that went on about her. But then she was very young, he considered.

In the morning Malcolm Scott bid the queen, Adam Hepburn, and Ravenscraig Castle farewell to return home to Dunglais. Because the weather was fair and the days long, they needed no shelter at night and the three riders were able to travel more quickly. Reaching Dunglais halfway through the second day they watched as the drawbridge was lowered so they might travel across it.

Alix came out into the courtyard to greet her husband, for a man-at-arms on the wall had seen him coming and called down to a servant, who ran into the great hall to tell his mistress. She was followed by Fiona. The laird slid easily off of his horse and swept her into his arms, his lips touching hers in a hard kiss. “Welcome home, my lord,” she said, and kissed him back gently.

The laird then bent down to kiss his daughter. “Have you been a good lass, Fi?”

“I have, Da!” Fiona assured him. Then she ran off, for Fenella had told her that one of the hounds had delivered a litter of pups that very morning.

Linking her hand into his arm Alix walked with her husband into the keep. “What news?” she asked him. “Can the bishop of St. Andrew’s help us?”

“The letter from St. Andrew’s was false, as we anticipated,” the laird said as they walked into the hall. “The bishop will send an inquiry to York as to the validity of Sir Udolf’s dispensation.”

“Yet what if it isn’t, but those who granted it see the query and tell St. Andrew’s that it is valid?” Alix asked worriedly. “I am fearful to trust anyone now, Colm.”

“If the dispensation is valid St. Andrew’s will not uphold it, and we are married in the eyes of God, the church in Scotland, and the law. If Sir Udolf pursues this matter further, I will kill him, lambkin. I will have no other choice. We cannot spend the rest of our days living in distress over this man. Now, I must go and find Father Donald.” He kissed her brow and set her down by her loom.

That night as they lay abed he realized, though they had been apart a brief time, he had missed her. He sat in their bed, the firm yet soft pillows against his back, Alix, her back to him, between his legs. His hands were filled with her delicious round breasts. He played with them, teasing at the nipples by pulling them out as far as they could go, rolling them between his thumb and forefinger. “Your belly is small yet,” he noted. “You were so certain of the first. Is it a son or daughter you give me this time, lambkin?”

Alix sighed with the pleasure his hands gave her. As much as she had enjoyed nursing young James, she had relinquished those duties over to a wet nurse Bab had found in the village. The woman, Bab had said, was a veritable font of nourishment, and so she had proved. Her son was content, and Alix was able to enjoy her husband’s attentions more fully. “I don’t know yet,” she told him. “It is too soon, and the bairn has not yet spoken to me.”

He placed a kiss on her shoulder, and then his tongue traced a path to the curve of her neck. He licked up the soft column to her jaw, and then reached out with his teeth to nibble upon her earlobe. “You are a most tasty morsel, my love,” he told her. And then his tongue traced the interior of her ear, tickling it. “Did you miss me?” he murmured into that small ear. His fingers tightened about her breasts, and he squeezed them gently.

Alix leaned her head back against his shoulder, looking up at him. “Did you miss me?” she countered. “Was the fair Mistress Grant there to tempt you?”

“I did not see her,” the laird answered his wife. Then he bent and kissed her lips, running his tongue lightly over them. “And if I had, she would have been doomed to disappointment as she previously was, for there is only one woman in the world I want to fuck, lambkin. And you well know who that woman is.”

Alix squirmed about to face him, kneeling as she did. Her small hands reached out to fondle his cock, which was already stirring restlessly in anticipation. She reached beneath him to cup his love sac, rolling it about her palm as she bent her head to take him into her mouth. “Ummmm,” she murmured as her fingers teased at his sac, while her other hand caressed his length, sucking him all the while to encourage his burgeoning within the warm, wet grotto of her mouth.

Malcolm Scott closed his gray eyes and groaned with the pleasure she was giving him, remembering the first time he had taught her this skill. Shy at first, Alix had soon shown a great talent for this particular form of lovemaking, to his delight. He groaned again as she gently nipped and nibbled at the tip of his cock. “Lass,” he said in a thick voice, “you’ll kill me if you go much further with this delicious torture.”

She released him from the captivity of her mouth. And straddling him, she sank slowly down to recapture him within her sheath. “Is that better, my lord?” Alix purred.

He grinned up at her. “This is better,” he told her, rolling her over onto her back. “Much, much better,” he said as he began to thrust deep.

“Ahh, Colm, my love,” Alix sighed happily, letting him sweep her away. She clung to him, her nails delicately scoring his back as they pleasured each other. Their mouths fused together, and one kiss melted into another and another and another until they were bruised and swollen. Her teeth caught at his lower lip, nibbling gently. Her tongue pushed into his mouth to dance with his while the rhythmic drive of his body against hers set her head spinning as she felt herself beginning to soar.
“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!”
Alix cried out.

He smiled triumphantly. She always cried out in French when he particularly pleased her with his passion. He redoubled his efforts, his mighty cock flashing back and forth within the heated tightness of her womanly sheath.

“Colm!
Mon Cœur! Je t’aime! Je t’aime!
Ohh!
Je meurs! Je meurs!
” And Alix’s slender body shuddered with lust fulfilled even as her husband flooded her with his love juices, his big frame shaking with pleasure.

He remembered through the haze of desire her condition, and rolled quickly to one side so he would not crush her or the bairn. “I love you, lambkin,” he told her. “I have never loved any but you, nor will I ever love any but you.”

“You are my life and my love, Colm Scott,” Alix told him as she curled into his embrace and quickly fell asleep.

He drew the coverlet over them and lay quietly thinking. He didn’t want to have to kill Sir Udolf Watteson. But if Yorkminster’s dispensation turned out to be authentic then he would have no other choice. It wasn’t that the Englishman loved Alix. The laird didn’t believe he did. He considered Alix his by right of possession, like his sheep or his dogs or his horses. She had been his son’s wife, and therefore belonged at Wulfborn. She would be the means of giving him an heir in exchange for the heir he had lost. The very thought of Sir Udolf touching his sweet lambkin, kissing her sweet lips, thrusting his cock into her, made his blood boil.

And then Malcolm Scott knew with a strong instinct that overcame him and filled his mind. In the end he would have no other choice but to kill Sir Udolf Watteson. If the dispensation was proved true, the Englishman would come for Alix, yet he would not, could not, let his wife, the mother of his children, go. But if York ruled the dispensation had been obtained by means of fraud, and was therefore not valid, the laird suspected Sir Udolf would ignore it and come for Alix anyway. Aye, he would have to kill the Englishman, for Sir Udolf would give him no other choice. He was a man obsessed by Alix Givet and could see no other woman but her.

And so they waited for word of what was to come.

 
The bishop of St. Andrew’s was not on the best of terms with his English brethren, but one of his secretaries, a young Franciscan, had an English mother. Calling Brother George to his privy chamber, James Kennedy explained the situation to him.

“If the lady wed her laird knowing the dispensation was being sought, there may be fraud on her side,” the young priest said. He was tall and slender with a tonsured head, pale skin, and fine dark eyes.

“She was honest with the laird’s priest. He vouched for my word in the matter,” James Kennedy said.

“ ’Twas bold of him to do so,” Brother George remarked.

Bishop Kennedy laughed. “Aye, it was, but Father Donald was once my chief secretary and greatest confidant. He knew how I would feel about the matter. Even if the dispensation were genuine, I should not honor it. A man attempting to marry his late son’s wife smacks of incest in my opinion. Disgusting!”

“Just what is it Your Grace requires of me, then?”

“Have you any contacts at Yorkminster, Brother George? We need to know if this Sir Udolf has a genuine claim on the Laird of Dunglais’s wife. There are bairns involved in this muddled matter. The laird’s son and heir chief among them. I would not have the wee lad declared bastard, nor the child the laird’s wife now carries,” the bishop said.

“I have a cousin who is a priest and serves at a church in York itself. He would surely know people within the cathedral precincts,” Brother George replied.

“Go to York, then, for me and learn the truth of this. I do not think the archbishop would give such a dispensation. While Sir Udolf sent his own priest to disburse bribes where he could, he has not the kind of monies that would be necessary for such an enormous favor. There is some wickedness afoot here, Brother George. Root it out for me, and then return to St. Andrew’s.”

Brother George departed St. Andrew’s and rode for Yorkminster. After several days he finally reached the walled city, entering it and seeking out St. Cuthbert’s Church. There he found his cousin, Father Henry, who greeted his relation warmly.

“I had heard you were in the service of the bishop of St. Andrew’s,” Father Henry said. His father and Brother George’s mother had been siblings.

“I am, and I have come discreetly for him in a matter that may involve Yorkminster. Queen Marie has requested of the bishop that he learn if a certain dispensation to wed had been issued by the archbishop or if said dispensation was fraudulent,” Brother George explained.

“What makes you think the dispensation was fraudulent?” Father Henry asked.

“It is said to allow a minor baron to marry his son’s widow,” Brother George said.

“Is she rich?”

“Nay, far from it I am told” was the reply.

“I have heard rumors of bribery among the archbishop’s minions,” Father Henry said. “Such a thing is not unheard of. And those without means and influence are apt to fall victim to the less than honest in the minster.”

“I’m certain the archbishop would not want a scandal, and the young woman involved is the goddaughter of Margaret of Anjou,” Brother George murmured.

“And she has no fortune? Are you certain?” Father Henry was surprised. A goddaughter of an English queen surely was a woman of wealth.

“She was the daughter of the queen’s physician. They were left behind at Wulfborn when the old king and his family fled north into Scotland. The physician died shortly after his daughter married the lord of Wulfborn’s son. Then the groom died. There were no other children, and the lord took it into his head to wed his son’s widow. She resisted and fled into Scotland. Her husband’s people found her almost dead on the moors. Nursed back to health, she caught the laird’s heart and they were wed. The laird had been a widower with one daughter. The child adores her stepmother, I have been told, and now there is a son and heir, and another child on the way.”

“The archbishop would never countenance a match between a father-in-law and his son’s widow,” Father Henry said. “I will gladly help you, Cousin, to get to the bottom of this matter.”

Brother George reached into his robes and drew out a small leather pouch. Taking a gold coin from it, he said, “My master would show his appreciation of your efforts with more than prayers. I can see your church needs certain repair, Cousin.”

Father Henry did not demur. He took the gold coin. “This will repair the steps to the sanctuary and buy us a pair of silver candlesticks,” he said. “I thank you, Cousin, and I thank your bishop. Come now and join me for supper.”

The English priest was as good as his word. He went personally to the cathedral and began making discreet inquiries. A cousin on his mother’s side was a nun and served as a housekeeper in the archbishop’s household. She was a small, plump woman with a motherly face. He took Brother George to meet Sister Mary Agnes.