His Duty, Her Destiny Read online

  ‘Well, well. So you came by water, Sir Fergus? And was your hurry to bring our purchases,’ he said, rolling his r’s, ‘or was it for your lady mother’s sake? Eh? We took her to the abbey this morning for a wee while and I think it did her some guid. Shall ye show us what ye brought, man, and then be awa’ to her? And who’s the lady, then?’

  The King’s notoriously lavish spending was almost as great as his wife’s, but Fergus knew that to be one of their few points of compatibility. ‘Your Grace,’ he said, bowing, ‘may I have your leave to present the Lady Nicola Coldyngham, daughter of the late Lord Coldyngham? She and I are recently betrothed.’

  The King’s aesthetic dark-eyed face lit up with interest as he leaned forward to scrutinise Nicola from head to toe, though with lowered eyes she caught only a little of the lustful expression she could by now recognise so well in the eyes of men. ‘So…are ye indeed?’ said the King.

  One of the ladies standing behind the Queen’s chair turned to whisper something to her companion, but the Queen stopped her with an imperious hand. ‘Congratulations, Sir Fergus,’ she said in an English as broken by Danish inflections as her husband’s was by Scots. ‘And to you, my lady.’ There was an anxious look in her eyes, Nicola thought. ‘Do you wed soon, Sir Fergus, while your mother is still with us?’

  For once, Fergus chose to be indirect. ‘Your Grace, I have not seen my mother yet. Is she…?’

  ‘Not well, I’m afraid. In fact…’ A glance at her husband must have told her to say no more on that subject. ‘Let us see what you’ve brought, shall we? It was clever of you to bring it by sea. So much quicker. Now, where is it?’ Nicola caught a glimpse of black satin shoes and an ankle’s worth of black stocking. A pair of white ankle-socks were rolled up underneath her footstool.

  With admirable patience, Fergus ordered his men to begin the unloading of the one waggon they had brought, explaining that the rest would follow. But here in advance of the rest were some of the rarest goods she had ordered: forty grey-squirrel skins, bolts of silk, satin, damask and brocade, ermine skins that only royalty might wear, gloves of soft Spanish leather and shoes with little cork heels, gold belts and chains, collars flashing with jewels, rarest unicorn-horn and a silver ball to fill with hot water to warm her hands, church lamps and embroidered cloths, hunting whips and books, velvet-covered saddles and stirrups. Yes, even they were covered with velvet too. Nicola had had no idea that the ship in which she had sailed held such treasures, and soon the chamber was piled so high with a dizzying rainbow of colour that she hoped the men had left them some means of escape.

  But though the Queen and her ladies could not drag their eyes away from the ever-mounting pile of goods, the King’s eyes hardly strayed from Nicola’s fair form and face, and when the end came at last, she was so glad to make an exit with Fergus that she feared she had been less than correct in her manners. ‘Come!’ she cried, taking him by the hand outside the tent. ‘Come away, for pity’s sake. Let’s go and find your mother. Where’s Ramond?’ She pulled at him like a mother with her child.

  ‘What’s up, lass?’ he said, balking a little.

  ‘What’s up?’ she flung over her shoulder. ‘Did you not see him? Sat there, never saying a word…just gawping. What’s the matter with the man? Where is Ramond? We must find your mother.’

  Fergus held her back, stopping as suddenly as a mule. ‘You know something, don’t you?’ he said, his face clouding with concern.

  They were in danger of being overheard amongst so many people, so she came close to him and looked into his eyes. ‘I know what the Queen was about to say before she stopped herself, dearest. Sadly, she thinks her needs are greater than yours, otherwise she’d have let you go to your mother immediately. Now come, we must—ah, there’s Ramond. Look, over there!’ She waved into the crowd.

  Fergus held her again. ‘What did you just call me?’

  ‘Er…dearest, was it?’

  ‘Am I?’ he said. ‘Your dearest?’

  His boyish uncertainty pulled at her innards, and her free hand came up to brush lightly across his lips. ‘Yes, my very dearest. You must know that you are, Fergus Melrose. And there was one of the Queen’s ladies there who couldn’t take her eyes off you. Did you not see?’

  ‘Nah!’ he scoffed, kissing her fingertips. ‘But I’ll tell you something, sweetheart, we’re away from this place as soon as I’ve unloaded the ship and got my mother aboard it. What do you say to that?’

  ‘I say yes to that, Fergus. The sooner the better.’

  Ramond knew exactly where to lead them, and considering that Lady Beth Melrose was a senior lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Scotland, and very ailing, the place where she had been housed was hardly fit for a hound.

  Apart from being very relieved and happy to see her, Fergus was dismayed by the poverty of her accommodation when he knew the royal couple to have wealth in abundance. ‘God’s truth!’ he growled, entering the tent. ‘Is this the best they can do for her?’ Unlike the others, Lady Melrose’s tent was pitched towards the back of the campus near the temporary forge where the sound of the royal farrier’s hammer rang incessantly, and it was obvious to the visitors that, since she was not well enough to be on duty, she had better not take up any valuable space. The canvas tent was shabby and small with no covering over the earth floor and with barely enough room for a pallet-bed, an untidy pile of luggage, a stool, and a lantern on a chest with its candle burnt to the wick.

  In one stride, Fergus was by his mother’s side, dropping to one knee to take her into his arms. ‘Ah…mother mine…dear lady. They told me ye were poorly but I never thought to see ye like this. Is it much worse then, love?’

  Lady Melrose lifted her arms and clung to him, her long slender fingers splaying out across the rich blue fabric, touching and patting the gold collar. She was fully dressed in grey velvet, her head swathed in an old-fashioned wimple of white linen that merged into the paleness of her skin. A light sweat lay upon her brow, and her large once-beautiful eyes were sunk deep into hollow sockets like topaz in sandstone. They glanced over Fergus’s shoulder to the one who stood, shocked and disgusted, behind him. ‘Ah,’ she whispered, ‘so you’ve brought her. Well done, my dear. Well done.’ Her eyes smiled, melting the last cold corner of Nicola’s heart.

  ‘Aye,’ said Fergus, ‘I’ve brought her as I said I would. And you’ll not be staying here. Have ye had no one to tend ye?’

  ‘One of the other ladies comes from time to time. They carried me up to the abbey this morning, to the shrine. I’m sure that will have helped. But come, introduce Lady Coldyngham to me, if you please.’

  Fergus lifted her up to sit against the pillows, drawing Nicola forward to meet her at last. ‘Mother,’ he said, ‘meet the lady I am to marry. Is she not a dream?’

  Dropping to her knees, Nicola took the hand offered to her and kissed the smooth cool knuckles, breathing in the aroma of some sweet perfume meant to mask an underlying smell of unwashed body. They had not done their best for her, those two royals. ‘My lady,’ she said, ‘I have come for your blessing. Do you approve of this connection? Is it what you wanted?’

  ‘More than I ever hoped for, my lady. This is a happy day for me. Of course you have my blessing on your union. Fergus didn’t waste any time recruiting the Coldynghams, though, did he, my dear? Making your noble brother his secretary? That was a bit presumptuous from a minor Scottish laird, I think.’ She smiled, and Nicola noted how her teeth were still good, her lovely mouth wide and laced with fine cobweb lines. She must have been an exceptionally lovely woman, she thought, and a gentle one, lovable and uncomplaining.

  ‘Not so, my lady,’ Nicola said. ‘It was my brother who asked Fergus, not the other way round. But Fergus is right. This is no place for you.’

  Already her son had taken matters into his own hands, telling Ramond to go and find the waggoner who had brought the part-cargo from the ship. ‘Tell him to bring the wagon over here straight away,’ he said. ‘And the men to
o, Ramond. Here, offer him this.’ He held up a bag of coins and threw it to him.

  ‘Fergus,’ Lady Melrose protested. ‘I may not leave their Majesties like this. I need their permission.’

  ‘Permission my foot,’ he said. ‘They’ll not even know you’ve gone until tomorrow and then it’ll be too late. We can have the rest of the cargo unloaded and sent here to keep them occupied, and we can be away on tonight’s tide. I’ll get Ramond to draft a letter explaining that you need urgent treatment. I’ll apologise,’ he said, taking note of her anxious expression, ‘don’t worry. They’ll not do anything drastic. They need me too much.’

  ‘What about the payment?’ she said.

  ‘That’s settled with the King’s agents in London. But getting you away is more important than that. Nicola agrees with me.’

  Nicola was already folding and packing the scattered belongings into a large canvas bag and the small travelling chest, clearing up the mess that had been left since the arrival of the royal party. ‘How long have you been like this, m’lady?’ she said.

  ‘I was unwell when we left Stirling Castle, but they thought I should try to ride. It looks better, you see. But I’m afraid I couldn’t manage more than three days in the saddle, so they put me in one of the waggons. The stomach cramps, you know. They get so bad at times.’

  ‘And did the Queen send food to you?’

  ‘Yes, a little. But I could not eat it.’

  ‘My simples-chest is on the ship. I have things that will help. Rosemary…Lavender…finish this packing, then help me prepare Lady Melrose’s bedding. We shall need it for the waggon.’

  But in only a few moments the cart had arrived, padded with a thick layer of straw that Ramond had begged from the royal field-stables next door, and the deed was executed by the best organised team of amateur abductors on that side of the English–Scottish border. In less than half an hour, the shoddy tent was empty and the Melrose party was on its way to the ship that lay at anchor three miles off, on the Isle of Whithorn, rocking on the swell like a cradle.

  For Nicola to give up her cabin to Lady Melrose was no hardship when she had slept with Fergus each night. Three pairs of hands settled the patient into the clean bed, bathing her and then dressing her in the nightgown she had hardly bothered to use, so far. ‘Heaven,’ she murmured. ‘This is heaven. I can scarce believe it. I had two maids of my own when I went to court, but the Queen has purloined them, I fear. Shall you ask Fergus to send a message to Muir? He should be home by now, and we shall be having a wee bairn any day, God willing.’ Meekly, she sipped at the infusion of powdered marshmallow-root and meadowsweet to relieve her stomach cramps, having allowed Nicola to quiz her about the nature of the problem. Only the best of future daughters-in-law would have remembered to replenish her simples-chest before a voyage, she had said, approvingly.

  ‘I should not say ought against my Queen,’ she whispered to Nicola, ‘but I doubt if she’d have given her bed up as willingly as you, my dear. She prefers to sleep alone, even now.’

  ‘Until she’s recovered from the birth, perhaps?’ Nicola said, intrigued in spite of herself.

  ‘Nay, ’twas the same before. She allowed the King to visit her at nights only till she became pregnant, but then no more. ’Twill be the same for always, I reckon. No wonder he seeks arms elsewhere for comfort. Not like you and Fergus, made for each other.’ She smiled and sipped again. ‘Anyone can see how it is with you. I’m so glad, Nicola. ’Twas what Sir Findlay wanted, too, but I expect you know as much from your father.’

  ‘Yes, m’lady. Shall you rest now? Sleep, perhaps? I shall bring you some slippery-elm food soon. I know it doesn’t taste of anything, so you may like it flavoured with cinnamon, or a sprinkling of fennel or peppermint?’

  ‘Whatever is handy, my dear. You are an angel.’

  Nicola returned to Fergus’s cabin, opening the door with difficulty against the piles of baggage that now scattered the floor. She pushed the map aside that he held in his hands so that she could enter his embrace, silently needing to feel his strength and support. Things, she felt, were coming to a head. ‘Hold me,’ she whispered. ‘Just hold me, Fergus.’ It was the first time she had sought his loving.

  Above the large hand that stroked her hair, she did not see his smile, but it sounded in his voice. ‘Sweet-heart,’ he whispered. ‘My ministering angel.’

  ‘That’s what your mother thinks I am too,’ she said into his soft shirt-front. ‘Two Melroses I have to minister to now. But we have to talk, Fergus.’

  ‘Aye, lass. We do. You have things to tell me, do you not?’

  She lifted her head away to look up at him. ‘What things?’

  He caressed the untidy strands of dark hair. ‘You think I don’t know what’s been burning at you all this time? We agreed we have to set some things straight between us, and I knew you were waiting for my mother to give you more information. That’s what you’ve needed all these last weeks, isn’t it? Information. Well, I think it’s time we talked, all three together. Is it best for us to wait a day or two till she’s better, or is there a reason why we should talk sooner rather than later?’

  She knew what he was asking. ‘Lady Melrose needs at least one night’s rest before we shall know. If she keeps some food down and the cramps lessen, she’ll start to mend. We shall have to wait and see. We cannot press her to talk till tomorrow, I think. She’s very poorly, Fergus.’

  He sighed and was quiet for a while as the ship trembled beneath their feet and the crack of the wind in the big sails tilted them sideways on to the bunk. ‘The wind’s not in our favour,’ he said, lifting her on to the furs. ‘It’s going to take us longer to get back home than it did to get here. But at least we have her safe at last, thanks to you.’

  ‘No, it was your doing, Fergus. You might have insisted on waiting for a cargo to take back. No shipowner likes to sail an empty ship, does he?’

  ‘We’re not empty, sweetheart. Due to my competent secretary, we have a walk-on cargo in the hold.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Listen. You may be able to hear. Shh…’ Above the rush of water and the crashing of waves on the bow could be heard the faint sound of singing. ‘Pilgrims,’ he said, rolling himself up beside her. ‘He found droves of them waiting for a ship to take them down to Wessex. We’ve taken in thirty of them while you were tending my mother. Food and water too. They have instructions to be quiet. And you, sweet lass, have instructions to rest a while till supper.’ He pulled her into his arms, nestling her head against his shoulder.

  ‘Then I must obey, I suppose.’ She yawned and snuggled closer. ‘But I shall not only want you to get me pregnant, as she does,’ she said. ‘I shall want more than that. Much more.’

  ‘Pardon?’ he said.

  ‘Tell you later. Just hold me, dearest one.’

  The time for talking did present itself on the morrow, for Lady Melrose had slept well, tended in turns during the night by Nicola and Fergus, Rosemary and Lavender. They had berthed again at Peel, no great distance away on the Isle of Man, where the passengers were able to stretch their legs and attend to their needs, bringing fresh supplies of food aboard. The patient took some more slippery-elm with goat’s milk, followed by a spoonful of pureed boiled nettles. It was for her blood, Nicola told her, promising a diet more suited to an elderly lady than the one she had been getting at court. After all that, it was Lady Melrose herself who decided that Nicola deserved to know the reason for this contentious promise made by their fathers, for she had already spoken to Fergus about it after her husband’s untimely death earlier that year.

  They had set off for Holyhead on Anglesey with a light squall keeping the sails full and the passengers in their cabins and, as the patient lay back upon her pillows in far more comfort than before, she listened to Nicola’s hesitant and rather searching enquiries which were intended to give little away.

  ‘When exactly?’ said Lady Melrose. ‘I believe you were but a child at the time, my
dear. Do you remember Fergus visiting you then?’

  ‘Yes, I remember. Can you take another mouthful?’

  ‘No, thank you. That was delicious. There was a good reason for it, Nicola. Did you think it might have been a mere whim on their parts?’ She watched Nicola replace the bowl on the table, then stretched out a hand to invite her to sit again on the stool by her side. ‘You need to know, m’dear. Is that not so?’

  ‘It is so, my lady. But…’ She hesitated, sure that Fergus’s mother was unaware of their earlier sad relationship, yet not wanting to pain her.

  ‘It’s all right. You can tell me. About Fergus, is it?’

  ‘Yes. You see, I do remember his visits to Coldyngham Manor, and I remember how I felt about him then.’

  ‘You disliked him?’

  ‘I both disliked and adored him. He was like a god to me then, good at everything, handsome and full of vitality. But I was simply a child with four energetic brothers who looked forward to his visits and…well…you can imagine the rest, can’t you?’

  A frail hand covered Nicola’s arm and squeezed, then slid down to hold her hand. ‘I’m afraid I can imagine only too well. Fergus was a very angry young man then. An eleven-year-old girl would not interest him at sixteen, and nor did he particularly wish to please his father by pretending to be. You were in an unfortunate position, dear Nicola.’

  ‘Looking back on it, though, I can understand how he felt about it. No young man of that age would find it easy to communicate with a child.’

  ‘Fergus would, if he’d tried. He visited Coldyngham Manor at his father’s request, but he made it quite plain to both of us that, while he didn’t mind going there to be with the boys, he had no intention of fulfilling his father’s wishes regarding a future marriage. He said he’d make his mind up for himself when the time came.’