husband for deceiving her. Then, suddenly, the body laboring over her stiffened, jerked several times, and collapsed. Anna felt strangely unhappy. In the silence that followed, the clock on the mantel struck eleven.
At the other end of the house, in the apartments of the Earl of Glenkirk, there were fires in both the anteroom and the bedroom. Patrick Leslie stood before the anteroom fireplace wondering if he had done the right thing in encouraging Mistress Anders. Guiltily, he realized that a good whore would have served his purposes. But when he heard the door open behind him and turned to see her, he was glad he had asked her.
'Come in, Mistress Anders.'
She was wearing the same dress she had worn earlier. And she was even lovelier by firelight.
'Will ye join me in a goblet of wine, my dear? I hae a lovely white-delicate and sweet.' His eyes caressed her warmly.
'Thank you, my lord,' she said in a soft voice, and stood by his chair looking into the fire.
He poured the wine. Handing the goblet to her, he watched as she drained it. The earl sat down in his chair and, reaching up, pulled Christina into his lap and kissed her. 'Dinna be shy wi me, little Cairi,' he said.
'What is it you call me, my lord?' she asked him.
'Cairi. The Gaelic for Christina is Cairistiona. 'Cairi' simply means 'wee Christina,' and yer a wee bit of a thing.'
She snuggled into his lap.
'How old are ye?' he asked her.
'Seventeen, my lord.'
'Jesu, I am thirty-seven! I could be yer father.'
'But you are not, Patrick,' she said, pressing herself against him. Pulling his head down, she kissed him passionately. 'I came to have you make love to me.' Standing up, she slowly undid her dark velvet dress. Next came her snowy petticoats, silk underblouse, and beribboned busk. She stepped out of them wearing only dark silk stockings upon which were embroidered tiny gold butterflies.
She was unbelievably exciting. Smiling slowly, he stood up and followed her lead until he stood tall and naked above her.
She looked up at him and ordered, 'Take off my stockings.'
Kneeling, he slowly rolled them down, one at a time, and then slipped each one off its small, slim foot. The perfume of her body drove him nearly mad. She had anticipated this when, earlier, she had stroked musk on her freshly washed skin. Still kneeling, he pulled her down to the floor in front of the fireplace. Christina spread her legs wide and held out her arms to receive him.
She was warm, and sweet, and experienced, and he was immensely pleased. The woman beneath him moved smoothly, and he allowed her release twice before taking his own. He rolled off her, and they lay relaxed before the fire.
'You think I am overbold,' she said quietly in her low, husky voice, 'but I wanted you, Patrick Leslie. I have never been any man's mistress, but I want to be yours.'
'Why me?' He was flattered, but he was also no fool.
'Because I want you, and because for once in my life I should like to have a normal relationship with a man. My first husband was an old man who could not perform in a normal manner. My second husband, having deflowered me, was no longer interested. My third is a child, and I am free to do as I choose. I choose to become your mistress.'
'Only while I am here,' said the earl. 'When I return home, my dear, ye'll cease to exist for me. I may sleep wi ye now, but make no mistake, little Cairi, I love my wife.'
'I agree to those terms, Patrick. And now, as it is damnably cold on this floor, may we please get into bed?'
He stood and, scooping her up, walked into the bedroom and put her into the bed. 'I feared a long, cold winter, Cairi. Now, though it will still be long, it will nae be cold,' he said. He climbed into bed with her.
Chapter 18
FOR the first time in her married life Catriona Leslie was really on her own. She closed her Edinburgh house, telling Mrs. Kerr that she would return when the court reconvened. To the horror of Glenkirk's captain-at-arms, she planned on riding home immediately, without a proper escort.
'Well all be murdered on the road, sure as hell,” grumbled Conall More-Leslie.
'Five gold pieces we make it safely,' she laughed.
'Jesu, madame, the earl will skin me if anything happens to ye!'
'Leave her be!' snapped his sister, Ellen. 'She needs to go home, for whether or not she realizes it she gains strength from Glenkirk. There is little likelihood of the earl returning before spring, and she will be less lonely among her bairns.'
They did not, however, travel poorly escorted. Learning of her plans, Francis Stewart-Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, offered to escort her himself. She could hardly turn down James Stewart's favorite cousin, and regent of Scotland.
Francis Stewart-Hepburn was a tall, handsome man with dark auburn hair, an elegantly barbered short beard, and piercing blue eyes. He was an educated man, unfortunately born in advance of his proper time. His amazing fund of knowledge and his many scientific experiments terrified the superstitious-educated and uneducated alike. Though he alternated between new and old kirk, he was not a particularly religious man. Too, sad women trying to bring excitement into their lives by playing at witchcraft, had sometimes named Lord Bothwell as their leader. Francis Hepburn was therefore whispered to be a warlock. He was not, but rumors often persist.
Cat knew the rumor to be nonsense, but it amused Francis Hepburn's macabre sense of humor not to deny it. Besides, it terrified his cousin James, who alternated between love and hate for Francis. For some reason the king brought out the devil in Bothwell. Although Francis was fond of his cousin, as one might be fond of a clumsy hunting dog, there were times when he simply could not resist playing on the king's absurd fears.
James admired Francis and would have given anything to be like his tall, assured cousin. Consequently, in an attempt to impress the Earl of Bothwell, James had told him of his affair with the Countess of Glenkirk.
Though he congratulated his cousin on his good fortune, Francis was shocked. He himself had loved many women, married and unmarried, but he had never forced one as the king was forcing Glenkirk's wife. That she was being forced he knew instinctively, for he was sensitive to people, and though she tried to appear her old self, he saw the faint darkness beneath her eyes and heard the hollow tone in her laughter.
Gallantly, he set out to become her friend and confidant. And he did. But something else happened that Francis Hepburn had not planned on. He fell in love with the Countess of Glenkirk, a state he was forced to hide from her and from his jealous royal cousin as well.
Cat had never had a man for a friend, but she enjoyed Francis Hepburn's companionship greatly. He was a font of knowledge, and Cat rarely found anyone learned to talk with. Since everyone assumed their relations were chaste, the court thought the relationship eccentric. All laughed to see the greatest rake at court and the most beautiful woman enjoying intellectual discussions.
The Earl of Bothwell's lineage was an interesting one. His father had been John Stewart, Prior of Coldingham, an illegitimate son of James V-whose daughter, Mary Queen of Scots, began spelling her surname 'Stuart,' a spelling that eventually prevailed in the royal line. Francis and James Stewart shared the same grandfather. The earl's mother had been Lady Janet Hepburns only sister to the last Earl of Bothwell, James Hepburn, who was Mary Stewart's third husband. James Hepburn left no legitimate issue, and his title and estates had gone to his nephew, Francis, who added his uncle's last name to his own as a gesture of respect.
Francis Hepburn's father had died when he was scarcely more than a baby. Francis had only an illegitimate brother and sister. His mother remarried, and he was ignored in early childhood and then shipped off to be educated in France and Italy.
He had returned home to Scotland in his teens, an elegant, self-assured, educated man. He was quickly married to Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of the powerful Earl of Angus. Lady Margaret was a widow with a son, and slightly older than Francis Stewart-Hepburn. She did not like her second husband, and he did not like her. Theirs
