Page 39 of The Wild Rose of Kilgannon (Kilgannon #2)

I went to the Tower in the morning, but it was afternoon before I saw Alex.

I was kept waiting three hours in the captain’s quarters.

The captain, who I’d seen be brusque with others, fussed over me with tea and pillows and told me that Alex’s trial would begin the first week of October, and that Alex and I would have several hours undisturbed. His kindness confused me.

Eventually I was led upstairs, not to the little stone room where we had met before, but to a comfortable room in Beauchamp Tower, overlooking the courtyard, furnished with couches and a table laden with food and whisky.

And in the corner, a bed. I wandered to the window, wiping the glass clean, but there was nothing to see this cold gray day but the courtyard where Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey had been beheaded.

Small comfort to know it had been almost two hundred years ago.

I left the window and waited in a chair, my hands folded in my lap.

When at last the door opened and Alex was let in I leapt up.

He was pale and wary, but alone and unchained, and I threw myself into his arms. But I didn’t kiss him.

His lips were bruised. He held me to him as he said my name over and over.

I smiled at him, my smile becoming rigid as I noted the circles under his eyes, the bruises creeping up his neck, the dried blood in his hair and the stiff way he moved.

I stepped back from him, afraid of doing more injury.

Damn them , I thought, and struggled to keep my tone mild. “How are you, my love?”

He smiled gingerly. “I am well, Mary Rose, all things considered.” He held me at arm’s length as he examined me. “How good ye look, lass. How are ye? And the babe and my boys?”

“They are well. We are all well.” We talked first of the children, then of my family, and of Angus and Matthew and Gilbey. I told him I’d heard about Murdoch’s trial. And then of my meeting Edgar DeBroun and everything that he’d said. Alex nodded.

“He told me he’d seen ye. He said ye defended me strongly.”

“I simply told him the truth.”

He gave me a wry smile. “They’re no’ interested in the truth, lass, only in revenge. Especially DeBroun. He tells me I can buy an easier death if I tell them what they want to ken.”

“Do you know where Duncan could be? Or the others?”

Alex shrugged. “Any fool kens they’re in hiding. I dinna ken where. Why does DeBroun think I would tell them even if I kent?”

“To ease your suffering.”

“I’m no’ suffering. My body is taken care of well enough.”

“Alex, how can you say that? Look at you. You look as though…Alex, how do they question you? Are you…?”

“Tortured? No, lass, they dinna torture me.” He touched his jaw gently. “Well, sometimes, aye, when they’re frustrated, they batter a bit.” He grinned. “And sometimes I bring it on just to stop their questions. It willna kill me. By the trial naught will show. They’ll see to that.”

“Can you not tell them something?”

“Tell them something?” His voice was tight. “What I suspect is not what I ken. What I ken is of no value to them.”

“But you do know something.”

“Mary, I ken what I’d do if I’d taken to the heather, but I ken nothing that could benefit the English. We have heard nothing from the outside except for what ye and Angus and Gilbey have told me. No, lass, I have nothing to bargain with even if I had a mind to bargain.”

“And you would not bargain in any case.”

He grinned at me. “I can see ye do ken me well.”

I was silent as he roamed the room and stopped in front of the table, looking at it and then pouring a glass of whisky.

He turned to me with a wry laugh. “Whisky,” he said, holding the glass up to the light as he always did, then draining it in one gulp.

He poured another. “Ye understand why they allowed ye to see me, lass?”

“I am to convince you to tell where Duncan is, or the others.”

“Aye, but ye were no’ successful, despite the enticements.

” He took a sip of the whisky. “Mary, dinna waste yer worry on me. ’Tis Murdoch in the most danger here.

Duncan is his brother and there’s not a spot Duncan could be but that Murdoch would ken.

What I canna figure out is why they care so much about Duncan.

He’s no’ a large part of this. I canna help but think it’s naught but another of DeBroun’s tricks. ”

He paced the room again while I watched, then turned to the window and wiped the glass as I had done, telling me over his shoulder that DeBroun supervised the questioning and that hardly a day went by that he did not visit.

The questions had expanded as the Crown prepared its case.

Now they asked him about events that had no relation to his joining the rebellion, including the man he’d killed in Brenmargon Pass, the man who had attacked him the day Robert had captured Alex.

“Is treason not enough?” I cried “Why are they doing this? The other has no relevance here.”

“Tell that to the lawyers.”

“I cannot. The court will not tell me who will defend you. And Kenneth Ogilvie cannot practice here because he was not educated in England. I still don’t understand that. He’s a solicitor so he can handle your business matters—”

“But he’s no’ a barrister, lass,” Alex interrupted, “so he canna defend me in court. And he’s no’ English, so he wasna welcomed at the Inns of Court. It’s an effective way of keeping the power in English hands.”

I agreed, “Oh,” I said, remembering a message Angus had asked me to relay. “Kenneth arrived yesterday.”

Alex nodded. “Good. He wrote me from Edinburgh when he agreed to come. It’s verra good of him.

Ye ken that Harry has a scheme to keep Kilgannon from being seized by the English?

” When I shook my head, Alex smiled wryly.

“It’s good of Harry to try. And ye ken Harry’s paying all of Kenneth’s expenses?

Yer uncle’s been most generous, Mary Rose. ”

“What is his scheme?”

“Convoluted, lass,” Alex said. “It will come to naught, but nothing ventured…” He waved a hand in the air and sighed. “I’ll do what Harry wishes. Perhaps Kenneth will try to help Murdoch as well.”

“How is Murdoch?”

“They now question him every day. And Morag hasna come to see him. Damn her!” he said viciously. “I dinna think she’d desert him like this.”

“It’s her revenge, Alex.”

He nodded. “Aye, and verra thorough too. She kens what she does. She should be revenging herself on me, no’ Murdoch.”

“She knows this will hurt you, Alex.”

“Aye. I should never have been so harsh with her.”

I raised my eyebrows. “No. It would have been much wiser to let her kiss you in front of your wife. Or more.” I surprised a laugh from him. “And if you’d sacrificed yourself and married her, none of this would have happened.”

He grinned at me. “What could I have been thinking, to marry ye instead, Mary?”

“A weakness of mind, no doubt,” I said, then jumped as the baby moved strongly. “Alex, we have to name this child. We can postpone it no longer. It is a boy.”

He laughed, startled. “How can ye be so certain, lass?”

“I have no idea, but I am.”

“You’re a one, Mary Rose.” He laughed again and then considered. “Why not after yer father? What was his name?”

“Robert.” It was as though I had conjured Robert Campbell into the room, and Alex’s face fell. After a moment he met my eyes.

“Aye. I’d forgotten that.” His voice was toneless .

“What about William?”

“Well, no offense to yer brother, lass, but no child of mine will be named after King William. It’s bad enough that you two were William and Mary. What’s yer brother’s second name?”

“Robert.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Of course. Well, what about yer uncle Randolph? What is his given name?” I smiled and he groaned.

“Dinna tell me. Robert, aye?” I nodded and Alex blinked.

“Damn! I canna believe it.” We bantered names back and forth for a long while and at last, defeated, stared at each other, then decided on a girl’s name in case I was wrong.

“Margaret for yer mother and mine, both Margarets,” he said and I nodded, pleased, for I’d had the same thought. “Margaret Rose MacGannon. Bonnie name. She’ll be a bonnie wee lass.” He nodded, satisfied. “Aye. That’s simple. Now just have a girl.”

“And if she’s a boy?”

“Then you decide, lass,” he said softly. “I won’t be there.” He looked at the whisky in his hand and slowly put the glass on the table before raising his eyes to look at me. So blue , I thought. “We have a bed, Mary,” he said quietly. “Will ye share it with me?”

I nodded, unable to speak, and rose to meet him, pulling his mouth down to mine.

He tasted of whisky and tears and I clung to him, then slipped my hands under his shirt and slowly peeled the material away, and then repeated the process with his other clothing until he was naked before me.

As his skin was revealed I saw the bruises and welts on his chest and back and the burns on his thighs, and I cried with new distress.

Alex dismissed the marks with a shrug. “I’ve been…

what did they tell ye in Edinburgh?…unrepentant?

Aye, that’s it, I’ve been unrepentant and they’re no’ pleased with me. Now kiss me, Mary.”

“Your lips are bruised,” I said softly.

“So they are, lass, but having ye kiss me is the best medicine I ken.” He sat on the edge of the bed, pulling me down next to him.

“Then, my love,” I said, pushing him horizontal, “let me heal you all over.” He smiled and lay back and I kissed his shoulders and neck and traced my fingers across his skin.

“Do you remember, Alex?” I asked, pausing and lifting my head from across his chest. “Do you remember after the attack in the coach, when you brought me to your ship, that you offered to heal each bruise I had by kissing it?”

He laughed softly and ran his hands through my hair, loosening the pins. “No, lass, I dinna remember. Did I do that?”