Betrayed

James Stewart would have to find another mission for Angus Gordon in order to keep him from the highlands, if he was to keep Fiona Hay there, too. The king put his mind to the problem.

***

In the morning, after Prime, the laird of Loch Brae returned to the king's privy chamber to bid him farewell, but the king said, 'I can't let ye go yet, Angus. I need someone I can absolutely trust to go to England to see that the hostages are being treated well. I am sending Atholl, and he wants ye with him. Ye will also arrange for the English to wait a wee bit longer for their first payment for my maintenance.'

'My lord! I have been away from home for too long. My lass is missing, and I must find her! I have done yer bidding, and in doing so Fiona has been lost to me. Don't ask anything else of me, I beg ye!' He had not slept the whole night through thinking of Fiona. Who had taken her and why? Was she yet alive? He had to know!

'Angus, I need ye, ' the king said again. 'I will mount another search for Mistress Hay, I swear it! But if ye don't go with Atholl, I will not get the truth. One of his sons volunteered to go as a hostage. 'Twas done, I know, to prove his family's loyalty to me. Atholl will surely return and complain to me in order to get better treatment for the hostages, whom I know from my own experience are being well treated by the English. If ye are there to testify to this, then I will not have to bother them about Atholl's complaints. It is also important that the English wait for their payment. It is proving difficult to collect the moneys needed and to maintain my government. If ye do this for me, I will create ye Earl of Brae,' the king said slyly.

'I must find my lass,' the laird said stubbornly.

'We'll find her, Angus,' the king said soothingly, 'but are ye truly certain ye'll want her back? She was taken over a month ago, and if she is alive, who knows what may have befallen her, poor lass. Her captors were obviously the worst of highland bandits and may not have treated her gently. It is a harsh world, I fear.'

'I want my lass back,' the laird said once again, 'and I will find her, my liege. Somewhere, someone saw something.'

'Angus, Angus, don't make me do this,' the king said. 'If ye will not go to England willingly, then I must command ye to go.'

The laird was surprised. 'Ye would do that?'

'Aye,' the king told him. 'I must rule all of Scotland, or I canna rule at all, Angus. We will seek for Fiona Hay again, but while we do, ye will go to England in my service. Atholl leaves in a week. That will give ye time to go home to Brae and tell yer family of what has transpired. Then ye must return, Angus. If ye attempt to defy me I will put ye and yer whole family to the horn. Even my cousin, Hamish Stewart. While ye were gone, I executed Duke Murdoch and his ilk. They were my own kin, but a danger to Scotland for their unbridled ambition. They lie in their graves now, Angus Gordon, because I will be king in fact and not just in title. Can ye understand?'

The laird nodded. Strangely he did understand, but it did not make it any easier to accept the disappearance of his Fiona. 'I'll leave for Brae now,' he said, 'and be back in five days' time, my liege. I will accept yer pledge to seek after Fiona Hay, for if she is not dead, then whatever has happened, she will be my wife. I love my lass.' Standing, he bowed, and departed the king's privy chamber.

James Stewart felt his shoulders beginning to relax even as the door closed behind the laird of Loch Brae. It had been a near thing. He hadn't been certain that his friend would not defy him, risking a charge of treason for the love of Fiona Hay. The king was glad he had not.

***

The laird of Loch Brae sensed he was being spied upon, but he did not look up. Instead he mounted his horse and rode through the gates of the palace at Scone onto the road that would eventually lead him to Brae. Fiona would have taken this very road a little over a month ago. Who had taken his brazen wench and why? He had no enemies that he could recall who would do such a thing. Perhaps it had just been, as everyone seemed to think, a crime of opportunity, but if it was, why had no trace of Fiona, Nelly, and the baggage cart been found?

What a great stubborn fool he had been! Not once, even after Fiona had showed him she loved him, had he told her that he loved her. How that must have hurt her, and he hadn't meant to hurt her. His sister Janet had always said he was spoiled and wanted his own way all the time. He had always denied it, believing those qualities to be hers, not his. Now he realized that perhaps she had been right.

He did not regret taking Fiona Hay as his mistress in exchange for ihe cattle she had stolen from him. But after a few months he should have married the lass. He suspected he had been in love with her all along, from the moment she had ushered him into her tumbling-down tower house with such dignity and grace. She was every bit his equal, and he had always known it.

But he had never told her. Instead he had played a cruel game with her-taunting her, embarrassing her before all of Scotland, and pretending that he didn't care when the truth of the matter was he damned well cared. Now she was lost to him, and she didn't know that he loved her. Loved her above all women. Had always loved her, even if he hadn't admitted it. Had she, perhaps, known the feelings he couldn't, or wouldn't, express? Women were intuitive that way. Perhaps that was why she had been so patient with him.

He had to find her, tell her he loved her and wanted only her for his wife. He realized that the king was sending him off because he thought the situation hopeless and wanted to distract him. But it wasn't hopeless! Fiona was out there. She was alive, and whatever had happened, he wanted her back! And in this matter above all others, Angus Gordon meant to have his own way.

He reached Brae with a day-and-a-half's hard riding and immediately sent to Greymoor for his sister and brother-in-law. Jeannie Hay was at the castle when he arrived, and he was surprised to find Jamie-boy not so aggravated by her presence any longer, but then Jeannie was almost demure in her behavior, which was a decided change. When Janet and Hamish arrived, he gathered them all together and told them what had happened.

'There is no evidence of her anywhere,' he concluded.

'But who would steal Fiona?' Janet asked.

'I think 'twas the cart that they were after. If the king's men had guided her away from Glen Gorm, she might have been safe and home at Brae, but they ran like cowards and left her to the brigands.'

'But they didn't kill her,' Hamish Stewart said thoughtfully. 'They did not find her body or Nelly's, or evidence of graves, did they? There is more to this than meets the eye, Angus,' his brother-in-law decided.

'Aye, I agree with ye,' Angus Gordon said, 'but I canna for the life of me figure out what it is. The king offered me the queen's young cousin, a sweet lass, in exchange for my loss, but of course I turned him down. Beth is sweet, but Jesu, a boring little wench!'

'We'll mount our own search,' Hamish Stewart said.

'I must return to Scone,' the laird said. 'I am to go to England with Atholl on the king's business. I did not want to do it, but the king insisted, even commanding me and threatening to put us all to the horn if I did not cooperate. I believe he thinks to take my mind off my troubles. I am to be made Earl of Brae upon my return.'

'Are ye, now?' Hamish Stewart said thoughtfully. 'I would say that the king is attempting to purchase yer cooperation, Angus. I know that ye served him in England as a lad, but he has made none of those others who were with him the offer of a title. I find it all most curious,' Hamish Stewart concluded.

'Don't look askance at an earldom,' Janet Gordon Stewart said tartly. 'Angus Gordon, the Earl of Brae. My! Does it not sound grand?'

'It sounds verra grand,' her husband replied. 'Too grand for Angus's role in the matter, Jan. Tell me again, Angus, about Fiona's abduction. She was taken in the Glen of Gorm, ye say.'

Carefully the laird went back over the story that the king had told him, thinking carefully, repeating it almost word for word.

'It seems to me that despite their inexperience the king's men were too quick to flee,' Hamish Stewart noted. 'Why was that, do ye imagine? Why did not one think to turn Fiona's horse so she might go with them? A most