finished. Eventually he will be seduced into venturing back into England, where he will be captured and killed. If the queen and the prince travel with him their lives will be forfeit too,' Alix told the laird.
He was surprised by her grasp of the situation, but then he thought he shouldn't be. She had been raised in a royal court. She was intelligent and understood the dynamics of the situation. 'Aye,' he agreed with her. 'You are correct, Alix Givet.'
'I want nothing to do with this situation,' Alix continued. 'I never wanted to be a creature of the court like my mother. And in the end I suspect my father, except for his deep loyalty to his countrywoman, would have been content to settle in a quiet village somewhere and live out his life in peace. I would have liked that too.' She sighed.
They had traversed the courtyard several times now. Arriving back at the stable Alix gave Darach's reins back to the head stable-man. 'I will exercise her daily,' she told him with a sweet smile.
The man nodded. 'She'll be ready for you, mistress,' he told her.
'Fiona,' Alix called to her little charge. 'Come now and bring Stormy back. She needs to go into her warm stable.'
The child obeyed, but both the laird and Alix could tell she was reluctant to leave her beloved new pony.
'You are good with her,' the laird noted. 'She already loves you.'
'I love her,' Alix responded. 'She is a dear little girl.' Then she said boldly, 'Her blue eyes. Are they her mother's?'
'Aye,' he said tersely.
'I thought as much, but everything else about her is you, my lord. No one would mistake her for anyone else's daughter,' Alix remarked.
'Can I ride out with Stormy tomorrow?' Fiona asked, coming up to her father. She handed the pony's reins to the head stableman. 'Can I, Da? Can I?'
'There is too much snow on the hills right now, Fiona,' the laird answered.
'Daaa!' Fiona stamped her little foot.
'Fiona, your father has spoken true. There is too much snow outside the gates. And hungry wolves, and badgers too just waiting for a fat pony and a sweet little lass. We will ride in the courtyard,' Alix told the child. 'And please do not stamp your foot again at your father. It is disrespectful.'
'But, Alix, I can't gallop in the courtyard,' Fiona protested.
'We don't have to ride at all,' Alix responded calmly.
Fiona's lower lip formed itself into a pout. Her blue eyes were mutinous.
Alix took the child's hand in hers. 'Come, and let us go in now. I have it on the best authority that Cook is serving baked apples and sugar wafers today.'
The laird almost laughed aloud as the rebellion disappeared swiftly from his daughter's eyes and the pout was replaced with a wide smile.
'I
'Has a way wi' the bairn, she does,' the head stableman remarked, and then he disappeared into the stable with Fiona's pony.
The laird chuckled. Alix did manage Fiona very well. Everyone noted it. Fenella and Iver in the hall, and now the stableman. He was almost jealous at the lovely English girl's way with his child, but he knew he couldn't handle Fiona and her old nurse, now happily ensconced in a cottage in his village, had not been able to since Fiona began to walk. It had been a miracle the child hadn't done herself a serious mischief. It was a great relief to have his daughter in such good and capable hands. Now maybe everyone would cease their nagging about his lack of a wife. Fiona was his heiress, and that was that.
He had a young uncle, Robert Ferguson of Drumcairn, who had been responsible for bringing Robena Ramsay to his attention and helping him to arrange the match between the Scotts and the Ramsays. Ever since Robena's betrayal of her husband, his uncle had been desperate to correct what he deemed his error in judgment. He was always riding over from his own holding to Dunglais, and each visit brought with it a new candidate for his nephew's hand. And the more the laird refused, the harder his uncle tried. Malcolm Scott tolerated his uncle because he was his late mother's much younger half brother, and she had loved him well. But he had no intention of remarrying and being made a fool of again by any woman.
Twelfth Night passed, and a hard winter set in with at least one snowstorm every few days. It was all the Dunglais folk could do to keep a path shoveled from the keep proper to the stables, the cow shed, the poultry house, and the granary. The laird's cattle were brought into the cattle barns. His flock of sheep milled in a pen that had been built within the courtyard. The days were cold, and as he watched Alix with his daughter the laird began to find the nights colder and longer than he could ever remember them.
The English girl filled his hall with warmth and laughter. He noticed his servants deferring to her, going to her for instructions. He suddenly realized she was nursing the sick among them. Each morning they would come to wait outside of the small chamber Fenella now told him was Alix's apothecary.
'She would make a good wife,' Fenella ventured one day when the laird had noted Alix's busy day. 'Everything is better with her here.'
'You ran the household well enough,' Malcolm Scott replied.
'I do it better with her instruction,' Fenella said dryly. 'You need a wife, and your uncle would be pleased to see you take one and sire a son. Are the Scotts of Dunglais to die off because a Ramsay broke your heart? Broken hearts heal, my lord.'
'You forget yourself, Fenella,' the laird growled at her.
Fenella laughed at him. 'We're blood kin, Malcolm Scott. My mother may have been a cotter's daughter, but my father was your own grandfather. I have always spoken my mind, and I always will. If it displeases you, I will gladly take myself back to my mam's cottage.'
'If you didn't look so much like the portrait of the old devil in the gallery,' the laird told her, 'I would doubt your paternity, as did most in the village when you were born. The lusty old devil had to be near seventy when he put you in your mam's belly. Nay, Fenella, don't leave us, but cease your gab. I have my uncle to bedevil me about taking another wife, but I'll not do it. Robena Ramsay killed my taste for married life.'
'Yer as lusty as your father and your grandsire, my lord. How long has it been since you've bedded a woman? There is no gossip in the village. Mistress Alix is a lady born. She does not appear to me to be flighty as was your wife. And see how well little Fiona has come to love her.'
'I'd bed her,' Malcolm Scott told his housekeeper, 'if she were of a mind. She's pretty, and sweet-natured. I will admit she tempts me of late. I should not object to taking a fair mistress, Fenella. A mistress can be disposed of, but a wife cannot.'
Fenella signed deeply and audibly. But as she left the laird she considered that if he took Alix for his mistress the young woman might become with child by the laird. He wouldn't want his son born a bastard, she was certain. Fenella smiled. Aye. He'd take her to wife then, but he would be content with Alix she was certain. She was the total opposite of Robena Ramsay.
Robena had been high-strung and childish, but she had also been incredibly beautiful, with snow-white skin, bright blue eyes, and long, dark auburn hair. Malcolm Scott had been dazzled by her.
And in the beginning Fenella believed that Robena had loved him back. But then, as the laird's desire for an heir grew, Robena's wish to go to court increased. There were none at Dunglais to admire and flatter the laird's beauteous wife. She needed a larger stage, but then Robena found herself with child. Furious, she sulked her way through her confinement. When little Fiona had been born she was beside herself with anger that she had birthed a daughter and not the longed-for son. She refused to nurse the infant and would not hold her.
And then Robena fell into a deep depression. Nothing the laird did could console her. He brought her little gifts. She would look at them, sigh, and turn away. There were days when she could not arise from her bed, and she wept inconsolably. Finally Malcolm Scott told his wife that if she could not recover from her melancholy he could not take her to visit the court. Within three days the laird's wife had recovered from her unhappiness. She grew more excited each day with the anticipation of their visit to court.
And it was, Robena told Fenella upon their return, everything she had imagined, and even more. She had been admired, flirted with, and courted by important men. The king himself had kissed her, and not upon the hand or cheek. But upon her lips, she giggled. She had wanted to stay, but her husband had grown jealous of all the
