“My clan had no part in this attack,” Alex said.

“I would prefer to hear that from your chieftain.” Albany stood and began pacing in front of Alex. “I assume he is here with you in Edinburgh, as ordered?”

“I am our chieftain’s cousin,” Alex said. “I’ve come in his stead to assure you—”

“I am not assured.” The regent stopped pacing and fixed his piercing blue eyes on Alex. “I summoned your chieftain, not his cousin.”

“He would have come himself, but he was badly injured at the time he became chieftain and has not yet fully recovered,” Alex said, knowing that a partial truth was always more credible than a complete lie.

“Or he is laying siege to Mingary Castle with the other rebels.” Albany’s face was growing red. “I will not tolerate it! Make no mistake, the clans in the Western Isles will be brought to heel.”

“My clan has no dispute with either the Crown or the MacIains,” Alex said, wishing he had arrived before the news of this latest rebel attack.

“I need proof,” the regent said, his eyes narrow angry slits.

“If my clan were fighting, I would be with them.” Alex spread his arms out. “As ye can see, I’m here.”

“While your chieftain is at Mingary with three hundred warriors, raping and pillaging with the rest of these traitorous heathens,” Albany shouted.

“We don’t hold with rape,” Alex said, offended.

Being called traitorous heathens, however, didn’t bother him overmuch. A Highlander’s only true allegiance was to his clan, and though Highlanders were as good of Christians as anyone, they didn’t let that interfere with the old customs more than they had to.

“If your clan is not in league with the rebels, then I expect your chieftain to send warriors promptly to fight them.”

“He will as soon as he can spare the men,” Alex said. “For now, my chieftain must keep his warriors at home to protect our clan from the MacLeods, who have already stolen some of our lands, and from the pirates, who are raiding all up and down the Western Isles. In fact, Your Grace, we could use some assistance ourselves.”

Judging from the regent’s thunderous expression, he didn’t like Alex’s suggestion.

“Perhaps the MacDonalds of Sleat need a chieftain who is willing to fight for the Crown,” Albany snapped. “I’ve been told that Hugh MacDonald would do so if he were chieftain.”

Alex usually held his temper, but the regent’s veiled threat to support Hugh in a bid to take the chieftainship from Connor had it rising fast.

“We call him Hugh Dubh, Black Hugh, because of his black heart,” Alex said. “He is one of the pirates terrorizing innocent folk, and you’d be a fool to trust him.”

The courtiers observing their exchange gasped as one.

“I will use whoever and whatever I must to put down this rebellion.” Albany’s voice was soft now, but his fists were clenched so tight that his knuckles were white. “Tell me, does your chieftain have a son or a brother?”

“His brother is dead, and he has no son yet.” A prickle of unease began working it’s way up Alex’s spine.

“You are his closest kin?”

“I’m as close as any, after his sister in Ireland,” Alex said.

“Then we’ll have to make do with you for a hostage,” the regent said. “You shall be our guest at Edinburgh Castle until your chieftain commits his warriors to fighting the rebels.”

The urge to escape pulsed through Alex. In a flash, he knew how he would do it. He saw himself pulling his hidden blade and springing on the regent. With his dirk at Albany’s throat, he could use him to get out of the palace. From there, it would be easy to escape the city.

Alex was quick, and he was bold. He knew he could do it.

There was nothing he would hate more than to be locked in a confined space for months or years. He would rather fight a hundred battles, die a dozen ugly deaths.

And yet, a man must make the sacrifice that is needed, not the one he would choose for himself. If serving as the Crown’s hostage would buy Connor time for the clan, Alex must let them take him.

Albany waved his hand at the guards and shouted, “Seize him!”

CHAPTER 19

My, don’t ye look lovely,” Glynis’s aunt Peg said, clasping her hands together in front of her. “The gown fits ye like a glove.”

Glynis ran her hands over the soft wool. It felt strange to be wearing her mother’s clothes. Bessie, the slight, middle-aged maid, had found the trunk with her mother’s things in the attic.

“Ye are just her size,” Bessie said, as she fastened the last button at the back of Glynis’s neck. “And just as pretty.”

“My father always said how much I was like her.” And he never seemed to notice the look of irritation on her stepmother’s face when he said it.

For the first time, Glynis felt guilty, knowing how worried her father must be about her. They had always had a close bond, though their fights since she left Magnus had strained it badly.

“I’ll never understand what possessed my sister to run off and wed that wild Highlander,” Aunt Peg said, touching the back of her pudgy hand to her forehead.

“He was devilishly handsome,” the maid said in a voice too low for her aunt to hear.

Glynis did not believe that was the reason her mother had followed him across Scotland, though her father must have been handsome as a young chieftain.

“It was because he loved her so much,” Glynis said.

She felt a sting in her eye, thinking of her father’s daily visits to her mother’s grave. How many times had she spied on him there as a child and heard him having a discussion with his long-dead wife? If Glynis had grown up expecting to have love in her marriage, it was her father’s doing, however inadvertent.

“Love doesn’t put food on the table,” her aunt said. “Henry’s left his shop to take us on our errand, so we must not keep him waiting.”

Glynis had a hundred questions she wanted to ask about her mother, but her aunt had had little to say on the subject when she inquired earlier.

In far too short a time, Glynis found herself on the High Street again. The city was nothing like the soft, dreamy images she had of it. Her nursemaid, Old Molly, had told her stories about her parents falling in love here when her father was called to court. According to Old Molly, her father had been a lost man from the moment he first saw her mother on this very street. How had he noticed her in the midst of this chaos?

“Is it always like this?” Glynis asked. The constant noise of voices, carts, and clanking bells made her head throb.

“Aye,” her aunt said. “Exciting, isn’t it?”

“There’s no place like it, except for London,” her aunt’s husband said. Henry was a squat, bald-headed man who seemed as mild and pleasant as her aunt.

As Glynis followed them through the doorway of yet another shop, she had to turn sideways to avoid a woman carrying a large basket. They had visited half a dozen shops, and her aunt and uncle had not purchased anything.

“What is it you’re looking for?” Whatever it was, Glynis hoped they found it soon.

Glynis felt an elbow in her side and looked down to find her aunt beaming up at her with a smile so big that her eyes nearly closed above her plump cheeks.

“A husband,” her aunt whispered in a giddy voice. “Henry says two of the unmarried merchants are interested in ye already—and we’ve only been out an hour!”

*  *  *

Blackness settled over Alex’s soul as the door clanked shut behind him. In the dim torchlight coming through the door’s iron grate, he took in his cell. He was in the undercroft that carried the weight of the castle and rested on the black rock on which it was built.

The curved ceiling was too low for him to stand, so he sat on the uneven rock floor and held his head in his hands. His freedom was everything to him. Sailing, fighting, swiving. That was his life. His cell didn’t even have a window.

He had known it might come to this when he agreed to come to court for Connor, but he hadn’t let himself think about it. Most hostages were kept in better quarters—apparently he’d made a poor impression on the regent.

As the hours ticked by, Alex wondered how he would keep his sanity in the months to come. He felt the weight of the tons of stone above him.

He heard muffled footsteps and assumed they were bringing him his first meal. But when a guard with missing teeth unlocked the iron grate to his cell, he was empty-handed.

“Ye have friends in high places,” the guard said. “Follow me.”

Alex leaped to his feet and nearly banged his head in his hurry to get out. Feeling like a rat, he followed the guard through the tunnel-like corridor between the cells. Impatience thrummed through his muscles as the guard fumbled with the keys at the last door. Finally, it opened, and Alex stepped out into a burst of sunshine that was like entering Heaven.

A tall, dark-haired Frenchman with a white scarf around his neck was waiting there. By the saints, it was the White Knight, Antoine D’Arcy, Sieur de la Bastie.

“You are free, Alexander,” D’Arcy said.

Alex didn’t quite believe it until D’Arcy signaled to a man standing behind him, who came forward to hand Alex his claymore and his dirks.

“God bless ye, D’Arcy,” Alex said, as he strapped on his claymore. “Ye can consider the debt ye owe me repaid.”

“Saving a man from prison is not equal to saving a man’s life,” D’Arcy said.

“It is to me,” Alex said and squeezed D’Arcy’s shoulder. “How did ye do it?”

“It was fortunate I was in the hall and saw the guards take you,” D’Arcy said, as they started walking in the direction of the castle gate. “I told the regent that you and your chieftain had fought the English with us in France, and so you could not be traitors.”

Why fighting the English should ensure their loyalty to the Scottish Crown was something of a mystery to Alex, but he didn’t say so. “The regent accepted that?”

“I told him I would defend your honor to the death.”

Despite all he’d been through, Alex had to fight a smile. D’Arcy lived for the old knightly virtues that seemed naïve to a Highlander.

“I suspect that your being rich, titled, and famous throughout France for your fighting skills may have been persuasive as well,” Alex said.

“Of course,” D’Arcy said without the slightest bit of humor.

D’Arcy had horses waiting for them in the castle’s lower courtyard next to the massive stone gatehouse. As Alex rode through the gate, he eyed the iron spikes of the raised portcullis above his head. He blew out his breath when he reached the other side.

“Albany asked ye to come to Scotland?” Alex asked.

“He needed help persuading the queen and her English faction to give up the regency,” D’Arcy said. “We had to lay siege to Stirling Castle before she would hand over the royal children.”

They continued talking royal politics as they rode down the hill. Even the city air smelled good to Alex.

“What will the queen and her new husband do now?” Alex asked.

The handsome Douglas chieftain had wormed his way into the queen’s bed in a bid for power almost before the king’s body was cold.

“The queen fled to England to her brother, King Henry VIII, but her husband…,” D’Arcy paused, lifting an eyebrow, “… accompanied her as far as the border and turned around.”

Alex laughed. “There’s true love for ye. I suppose the Douglas was afraid of being labeled a traitor and losing his lands.”

“I’m glad your clan is not part of this rebellion,” D’Arcy said. “I’d rather not face you and your cousins and that big fellow Duncan in battle.”

Alex grinned, recalling the last time they had practiced together. It had been a hard fight, but it had ended with D’Arcy on his back and the point of Alex’s blade at his throat. To his credit, D’Arcy had conceded with his usual grace.

“You’ll find that rebellions are like mud in the Highlands,” Alex said. “Everywhere ye step, more squishes through your toes.”

“Albany is intent on putting an end to them,” D’Arcy said. “He and the Council have appointed Colin Campbell, the Earl of Argyll, as Protector of the Western Isles, and they’ve given him authority to put down the rebellion ‘by sword and by fire.’”

“Ach, ’tis dangerous to give that much power to the Campbells,” Alex said.

“Albany is aware of the risk,” D’Arcy said. “But as the Scottish Crown has no army of its own, he must rely on chieftains who can command large numbers of men to enforce the Crown’s authority. In this case, that is Colin Campbell.”

Alex had come to Edinburgh to appease the Crown, but it was the Campbell chieftain who now wielded immediate power over the clans in the Western Isles. Fortunately, the Campbell chieftain owed Alex a favor for rescuing his sister. He hoped he could use it to benefit his clan.