She had tried to put Donald out of her mind over the past months, but time and again the memory of his kiss had come back to her. She had burned his note – but she had come. Was it the excitement she could not resist? Or the thought of an illicit rendezvous? Or was it her longing for Donald himself, for his charm, his good looks, his consideration, his gentleness, and the memory of that kiss?
Donald had exhaled audibly. He took a step nearer and she saw he was holding a frosted white rosebud in his hand. ‘For you.’ He proffered it and she took it with a smile.
Donald looked down at the flower. He wanted to tell Eleyne that she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen; she was so gracious, so lovely, so flawless in spite of the burn marks on her face and hands. He longed to kiss her, to feel her skin beneath his lips. She was so voluptuous compared with the maidens whom his parents paraded before him; so cool and composed compared to the queen’s ladies who giggled and simpered and ogled him behind their hands. Sweet Blessed Virgin, how he wanted her!
He frowned, torn. He must not, could not, think of her like that, she was a perfect wife, chaste, pure, the mother of two little boys, yet here she was in front of him in the moonlight, here in obedience to his summons. He clenched his fists and raised his eyes.
‘This is madness.’ She could feel him, that other presence, her king, her phantom lover, nearby. He was angry. The air crackled with cold impotent fury.
Donald smiled and nodded, holding out his hands to her. ‘I want you,’ he said helplessly.
She almost went to him. She reached out her hand, then lowered it. ‘Donald – ’
‘I’m sorry.’ He made a supreme effort to control himself. ‘I had no right, forgive me.’
‘There’s nothing to forgive.’ She smiled. ‘What woman could be angry with you?’
Reaching up she kissed him, once, lightly on the cheek, then, turning, she fled.
XII
William of Mar was pacing up and down the room when Donald appeared. He swung to face his son. ‘So there you are. Where have you been?’
Donald took a step back at the anger in his father’s voice. ‘With the horses, father.’ His face coloured slightly.
‘The horses or the whore?’ William’s voice dropped to a hiss. ‘God’s blood! If what I hear is true I shall flay you alive, boy!’
Donald straightened. ‘I am no longer a boy, father.’
‘Really? Did she tell you that?’ William’s voice slid into a sneer.
Donald looked his father in the eye. He respected William and had always gone rather in awe of him, but now his temper flared. ‘I don’t know what you have heard, father, or who you heard it from,’ he said with enormous dignity. ‘But I have formed no liaisons of which I should be ashamed and I have done nothing to dishonour myself or any lady at this court.’ He had wanted to – Sweet Virgin how he had wanted to. But he had respected her wishes. He had not followed her; instead he had stood for what had seemed like hours alone in the icy garden, staring up at the moon.
William took a turn around the table, his hands beating sonorous time, fist on palm, as he tried to regain control of his temper. ‘I understand your feelings, Donald, believe me. She is a beautiful woman. She’s almost led better men than you to their doom. You do know she was the old king’s mistress?’
Donald scowled at him. ‘That’s a lie!’
‘No, boy, it started before you were born.
‘But she loves me.’ Donald’s chin stuck out mutinously.
‘I dare say she does, you’re a handsome enough young man and I hear her fleshly appetites are insatiable! No doubt she has used her magical arts to ensnare you just as she did the king.’ He sighed. ‘But you have to leave her alone.’
‘She has not ensnared me. I love her. I have loved her from the first moment I saw her. I have loved her all her life…’
‘I don’t care if you’ve loved her for all eternity!’ William suddenly lost patience. ‘You will not see her again. And you will go back to Kildrummy with me if I have to knock you senseless and tie you across your horse.’ He glared at his son. ‘And to make your decision easier, you may as well know that Lord Fife is taking his wife away from court. A word in his ear was all it took.’
‘You told him?’ Donald was white to the lips.
‘Of course I didn’t tell him. Do you think I want my son and heir gralloched like a slaughtered stag? He has been told that his presence is not required in the government and that it would be as well if he and his wife returned to Fife for the time being.’
XIII
Donald met Eleyne that night in the dark angle of the herb garden wall.
‘What is it?’ She put her hand to his cheek; his note had been so abrupt, so urgent she had been unable to ignore it.
‘My father knows,’ he blurted out. ‘We must have been seen! He has ordered me back to Kildrummy.’
Eleyne’s hand dropped to her side; perhaps it was as well. ‘So,’ she said listlessly. ‘And are you going to obey him?’
He shook his head violently. ‘How could I leave you? But he said… he said you and your husband were leaving.’
She gave a wry smile. ‘We are. Malcolm has been excluded from the king’s council. I thought it was because they did not trust him, but it seems that it is my fault.’
‘If my father knows I love you, your husband will find out,’ Donald said.
Eleyne stood leaning against the wall. The stone was icy. ‘I don’t care that much for what Malcolm thinks.’ She snapped her fingers in the air. ‘But he is a jealous man, Donald. He would kill you if he thought I returned your love.’ The matter-of-factness in her voice made the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. ‘Perhaps it would be better for you to go to Kildrummy and forget me.’ And better for me. The words were unspoken. Before my foolishness leads us both into real danger.
‘No.’
She faced him, scanning his face with serious eyes in the icy starlight: ‘You would risk so much for me?’
‘More, much more, my lady. Dragons, monsters of the deep!’
She laughed. ‘Oh, Donald! And ghosts? Would you brave ghosts?’ The question hovered in the silence.
‘And more still! Manticoras; unicorns; the deadly cockatrice!’ Without thinking he pulled her into his arms, his eyes sparkling. ‘Oh, my darling!’
‘Wait -’ she tensed – ‘someone is coming.’ She pushed him away.
Donald listened, ‘No, it’s the wind.’ He caught her hand and drew her to him again. ‘There’s a storm coming. You can hear the trees in the park outside the walls.’
Was it the wind? Or was it Alexander, watching from the shadows? Eleyne could feel a coldness on her skin, a sense of dread in the air. Then, as suddenly as it had come, it was gone.
She relaxed. ‘Dragons fighting perhaps.’
