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 naive 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.
