Page 1 of Seductive Scot
Chapter One
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It
The Past
1286
Fifeshire, Scotland
The Scottish Court was full of snakes disguised in fine silk gowns and plaids. Lady Deirdre Irvine opened the door to Queen Dowager Yolande’s solar, and a hush fell, calculating gazes turning her way. Her spine stiffened with realization: she was the mouse the serpents intended to feast upon tonight. Pushing her shoulders back, she notched up her chin and glided into the room donning her practiced smile. Climbing out of the disfavor created when her father was named a coward after taking his own life five years earlier was tedious and treacherous, but it had taught her a thing or two. She never showed how she really felt to anyone but those she trusted emphatically, and that list was short, consisting only of her younger sister, Maggie. The list had never been long, but it had, until recently, included her elder brother. Lately, Yearger had been acting as if he were keeping secrets, and Deirdre had a bad feeling that he was up to no good.
She made her way down the open aisle to Queen Yolande. She sat at the far side of the room under a large window where moonlight streamed over her, highlighting her smooth, youthful skin. It still felt odd to think of the young queen as a dowager. The newly widowed queen was resplendent in the dark-colored gown she’d been wearing to mark the mourning of her late husband, King Alexander. She looked every inch the frail widow with her pale coloring, sad smile, and the dark smudges under her eyes.
The appearance was purposeful, of course. Not that Queen Yolande had not loved King Alexander. She had loved the older Scot, but the queen was canny and she comprehended how precarious her position was now that King Alexander was dead and she did not carry his child. She would be wed to another in good time to strengthen her family’s position, and portraying herself as socially cunning would lure more politically inclined men to vie for her hand, which would give her French family more men from which to choose her next husband.
There had been a time when Deirdre’s father could have chosen from a bevy of suitors for her hand. She pinched off the irritation that there had never been a time whenshecould have chosen her own husband. It was a woman’s lot to have to rely on a marriage for protection and likely not even to find love in the marriage, but that didn’t mean she liked it. Even with her father dead and her family still struggling under his disgrace, she was well aware that she needed a betrothal and that she was still a game piece moved on the board of life. It was merely that Yearger now worked to position her.
She nodded to other courtiers as she approached the queen, and Deirdre’s thoughts spun. Yearger’s plans for her hinged upon the betrothal that he and King Alexander had arranged for Maggie before the king’s death. But since Maggie had been stolen by a savage Scot from right under their noses just months before, Deirdre’s prospects were not looking good. Yet she didn’t truly care. It had shocked her to realize her own apathy. She should be frightened for herself, for what would happen to her, but she was more worried for her sister. Deirdre would endure a lifetime of hardship if it meant Maggie would be returned safely.
Maggie.
Deirdre’s throat tightened as guilt closed invisible fingers around her neck. Maggie had not wanted to wed Baron John Bellecote, but Deirdre had joined forces with Yearger and insisted, thinking it was the best course of action. The fact that she could have done to her sister the very thing she despised having to endure herself tied her stomach in pulsing knots. And the lie she’d told herself repeatedly to avoid feeling guilty… She sucked in a shaky breath.
I did it for Maggie.
Lie.
It had taken Maggie’s being stolen away for Deirdre to see her own cowardice. She’d done it more for herself than Maggie, and she loathed herself for her selfish actions. She’d been scared of the life she’d face without a husband, and that fear had led her to betray her sister’s trust. The sister whom she loved. The sister whom she’d tried to protect and nurture since the day their mother had died.
If—no, when—Maggie was found, Deirdre would tell her that she would not stand with their brother and force Maggie to wed the baron. Deirdre would aid Maggie in whatever she wished to do, which was likely to become a healer, and she would do all in her power to shield Maggie from Yearger’s anger. And he would be angry. Their brother had worked tirelessly to bring the family back to respectability, to regain some of what had been taken from them, including their landholdings and their castles.
As Deirdre stopped in front of the queen, she noted with whom she was soon to match wits. To Queen Yolande’s right were three men Deirdre recognized as the queen’s appointed advisors since King Alexander’s death. To the queen’s immediate left was someone Deirdre didn’t know, but something about him tugged at her memory. And then she saw his crest. She almost gasped. This was Algien Bellecote, son of Baron Bellecote. This was the man Yearger intended to wed Deirdre to if Maggie was found and her wedding proceeded forth.
Algien’s keen, close-set blue eyes met hers, and a smirk came to the man’s thin lips. He had his father’s same pompous sneer, long aristocratic nose, and oval-shaped face. What did it mean that Baron Bellecote’s son was here? Had he been sent by his father? Had Maggie been found? The need to ask questions was like an itch, but to scratch it might only make matters worse for her and Maggie.
“Lady Deirdre,” Queen Yolande murmured in the same grieved voice she’d adopted since the night King Alexander had fallen off that cliff to his death.
Deirdre dipped into a low curtsy and paused there, head bowed, as the queen liked for her ladies-in-waiting to do until she bade them to rise. She stared at her shoes, soft leather slippers that had been a gift from Yearger before he’d departed with Lady Grace MacKinnish to lead a search party to look for her missing sister, Shona. Part of Deirdre wished she were with Grace. The healer was the only person who could understand the fear of one’s sister being missing. But Grace would likely blame Deirdre for Shona’s disappearance. After all, as head lady-in-waiting, Deirdre had been the one to instruct Shona to take the note to the king which had led him to ride out in a storm and ultimately die.
It was but another thing that weighed heavily on her mind. Yearger had said that Shona had accidentally scared the king’s horse, which caused the horse’s fall and, consequently, the king’s death. Had Shona fled Kinghorn after the accident because she had felt she would ultimately be blamed and punished for the king’s death? Yearger thought so. He’d told Deirdre as much and had ordered her to keep the information about Shona a secret until she could be found.
Deirdre bit her lip. Why had she been called here? Was it about Shona? Maggie?
“Rise, Lady Deirdre,” Queen Yolande said.
Deirdre did so to find the queen staring at her with pity. That look, as if she were about to deliver devastating news, was all too familiar. She’d seen it from her father when he told her, Maggie, and Yearger that illness had taken their mother. She’d seen it again when he’d informed them he’d been falsely named a coward, and they would be losing their place at Court and all their properties but Castle Lochlavine. It remained with them only because it had been a gift from King Alexander to Maggie, his goddaughter, upon her birth. And she’d seen a similar look of pity and fear in the eyes of the servant who had found their father hanging in his room where he’d taken his life.
A large lump formed in Deirdre’s throat, but she swallowed it down, her mind racing with all sorts of horrible, tragic thoughts for herself and Maggie.
“I wish to speak with you regarding Lady Margaret,” Queen Yolande said.
Deirdre’s breath caught at the mention of her sister. “Is there word of her?”
The titters of the gathered ladies-in-waiting told Deirdre there was word and that it was known by the Court. She laced her fingers together in front of her to prevent herself from curling her hands into fists.
