Page 21 of Seductive Scot
“Sorry, Reik. It’s just so damn good to see you. I was afraid, well—”
“Yeah, I know.” It was his turn to clap Rhys on the shoulder and give a hard squeeze. “So? Your wife? Her sister? Her brother? The plot to kill the king? Tell me what I need to know.”
“Maggie just…happened,” Rhys said. “I couldn’t have stopped it if I’d wanted to.”
“But you didn’t want to.”
“Oh, I thought I did at first. I came up with every excuse in the book, but in the end, well…” He shrugged. “You remember what—”
“Don’t,” Reikart said, his chest feeling tight.
Please don’t bring up Amanda. Not now.
To Reikart’s relief, Rhys nodded. “Maggie was supposed to marry a man named John Bellecote. He was the father of the baron we keep talking about. She didn’t want to, but she was doing it because she wanted to get her family’s land and status restored.”
Reikart frowned. “Who took it away? King Alexander?” He knew from his studies that the king would have been the only one who could really do something like that.
“Yeah.” Rhys tugged a hand though his hair. “Her dad was accused of being a coward by Robert the Bruce—the eldest one, not the future king.”
“It’s freaky that we’re sitting here talking about the future king of Scotland’s grandfather. Actually,” Reikart corrected, “this whole conversation is a mind trip.”
“No drugs needed,” Rhys joked, then grew serious. “King Alexander took away all the Irvines’ land—that’s Maggie and Deirdre’s clan—except for this castle, which he gave to Maggie as his goddaughter.”
“I bet you never thought you’d be married to the goddaughter of a king.”
“I never thought I’d be married, period.”
“Yeah,” Reikart said, Amanda coming to his thoughts unbidden once again.
“Anyway,” Rhys said. The look he gave Reikart told him that Rhys could see that his thoughts had been headed in a dark direction, the kind that left him itching for a fight or jumping out of a plane to tempt his fate. “Deirdre had been betrothed back then, and he ended their betrothal, and their brother, Yearger, lost his place in the king’s guard, their family was shunned, and in the end, their father killed himself out of shame. And of course, he hadn’t done the cowardly act Bruce accused him of in the first place.”
“Damn,” Reikart said, thinking of Deirdre. She seemed feisty, as if she’d had to scrap to survive, but what else had she done to survive? “Was there really a plot to kill the king?” It seemed surreal that he was even asking such a question.
“Yeah,” Rhys said, his voice solemn, “there was. And the previous Baron Bellecote, Maggie’s betrothed, had enlisted Yearger to aid him. The king of England was involved, as well. At least that’s what the baron told Maggie before he was killed. Mom pretty much confirmed it.”
“What did Mom say?” Reikart asked.
“She said that on the day the king died, Deirdre, who was the head lady-in-waiting to Queen Yolande at the time, gave Mom a sealed note and told her to take it to the king in Edinburgh. Mom rode to Edinburgh with Yearger and two of his guards, Nigel and Loxton. They gave the king the note, which he read out loud. The note was seemingly from his wife, urging him to return to Kinghorn that night, saying she missed him.”
Reikart nodded, bracing himself for the rest of the tale and their mom’s part in it.
“Mom and Yearger set out for Kinghorn before the king’s party left,” Rhys continued. “Yearger tried to stab Mom on the ride back—”
“Christ. I cannot believe this,” Reikart said.
Rhys nodded. “I hear you. It’s taken me some time to process it all. Anyway, Mom escaped, and that’s when she saw one of Yearger’s guards, Loxton, off his horse and hiding behind a bend in the trail. Before she could say anything, she heard the king and the other guard, Nigel, coming. He was advising the king to ride ahead and ride faster, which he did. But when the king turned the corner, Loxton jumped up, scared the king’s horse, and the horse threw the king and lost its footing. The king and the horse plummeted to their deaths.”
“Jesus. It’s like a bestselling thriller,” Reikart said, stunned.
“Except this is real. We’re not some characters in a book. The king is dead. Yearger is dead.”
“Who killed him?” Reikart asked.
“We got word at Hightower that our uncle Ross did. You’ll meet him soon. Oh, and if you haven’t already guessed, Mom’s brothers are brutal—Granddad, too. Let’s just say you are in a very different time now. It’s do or die, kill or be killed.”
“Have you killed?” Reikart asked, not sure he was prepared to hear the answer.
“No, but I would. I’d kill without hesitation if it meant saving Maggie’s life.”
