The Captive Heart

daughter must meet them. How old is she?'

'She will be seven in December,' the laird said.

'My son Alexander is eight, and his brother David is six. They will need wives one day, my lord.'

'And you will need greater names for them than mine,' he replied with an amused smile. 'You can do better for them than a border heiress.' She did not need to bribe him. He would help her for the friendship he had had with her husband.

'You must wed again and have sons,' Queen Marie said.

'So my housekeeper tells me.' The laird chuckled.

'Your daughter's companion would make you a good wife. Her bloodline is respectable,' Queen Marie noted thoughtfully. 'And your daughter loves her, or perhaps you had not noticed it. However, seeing how well she does with your daughter I wonder if she might not make a good addition to my own household. My daughters are still babies, but Mistress Givet is just the sort of young woman I would want in their nursery influencing them. And her French is excellent, of course. Still I would repay you ill if I stole her away from you, my lord.' Queen Marie smiled mischievously.

'I need no wife as long as I have Fiona,' Malcolm Scott responded stubbornly. Nay. He needed no wife. Why would he need a wife? He had an heiress for Dunglais, but Alix was testing his reserve of late. She had become a passionate lover under his tutelage. He had thought that that would be enough, but suddenly the queen's teasing banter was making him wonder what his life would be like without Alix. He had lived without her before, hadn't he? And then he realized with a sharp sudden clarity that he didn't want to live without her now.

Was he in love? Aye, he was in love! Yet what he felt now was nothing like what he had felt for Robena. It had been time to take a wife. Robena was beautiful and exciting. Her dower was generous. Her family a good one. Malcolm Scott had approved the match his uncle wanted to make, and married the Ramsay lass. He hadn't been quite certain on their wedding night she was a virgin, but she had seemed at first to be loyal. But he realized now he had never loved her. And when she had betrayed him it was his pride, his honor, that had been hurt. She had gone from his life as easily as she had come into it, and he hadn't cared.

But it was different with Alix. He didn't want her to go away. He didn't want her to marry another one day. She was his! He loved her! And if he loved her then she deserved better from him than to be his mistress. She should be the wife he had been so certain he did not need. Fiona loved her too.

'My lord.' Queen Marie broke into his thoughts.

'Madame?' He was immediately alert.

'May I present Eufemia Grant, my captain's wife, to you? Eufemia, this is Malcolm Scott, the Laird of Dunglais.'

'Madame.' The laird bowed over the elegant white hand that was offered.

'Eufemia is a member of the Stewart family, my lord. My late husband saw to her marriage several years ago,' Queen Marie explained.

Eufemia Grant was a tall woman with an arrogant carriage. She had rich auburn hair and large breasts that almost spilled from her dark blue gown. 'My lord,' she greeted him in a husky voice, her bright blue eyes assessing him as a feline would a particularly plump mouse. The tip of her tongue snaked quickly across her lips. 'You have traveled far?'

'From Dunglais in the borders,' he answered her.

'I know it not,' she replied. As the queen moved away to greet another gentleman who had just entered the hall, Eufemia Grant moved closer to the laird.

'There is no reason you would know Dunglais, madame.' Jesu! Her scent was overpowering, and he had to refrain from pulling away when she slipped her arm into his.

'Is Dunglais beautiful?' she murmured so quietly he had to bend his head to hear her, and in doing so was treated to a fine display of her bosom, which he realized was exactly what she had intended.

'It's a simple border holding. Pretty to some, but not all,' he answered her.

Across the hall Alix saw the laird bending low over the beautiful woman. Her heart contracted in her chest as if someone were squeezing it. Who was the woman? And why was she clinging to the laird in such a proprietary manner? Alix felt something akin to anger welling up in her. She wanted to go over and scratch the woman's eyes out. But she remained where she was until Fiona, noting the woman with her father, pulled away from Alix and headed straight for the couple.

'Da!' she said, hurrying up to him.

Eufemia Grant looked down at the little girl disdainfully.

'Qui etes vous?' Fiona said, looking up boldly at the woman.

'What is she saying?' Eufemia Grant wanted to know.

'Vous etes laide,' Fiona continued. 'Jene vous came pas.'

'Fiona!' Alix hurried up. 'I am so sorry, my lord.'

The laird's mouth was twitching with amusement.

'Are you her servant?' Eufemia Grant demanded to know. 'Take the brat away! I do not like children, especially those who chatter in a rude tongue. Having to dodge the queen's brood all the time is more than enough for me.'

'I am hardly a servant, madame,' Alix answered icily. 'I am Mistress Alix Givet, goddaughter to Queen Margaret of England.'

'Take your child away, then, Mistress Givet,' Eufemia Grant said. 'She is annoying us.'

'She does not annoy me,' the laird said, and reaching down, he lifted Fiona up into his arms. 'She is my daughter, madame.'

'I don't like her, Da,' Fiona whispered to her father. 'I will be very angry if you want to marry her.'

'Mistress Grant has a husband, Fiona,' her father reassured her.

'Then why is she clinging to you and showing you her tits?' Fiona demanded.

'Fiona, Mistress Grant's gown is the height of fashion and I am quite jealous,' Alix said in an effort to smooth things over. She saw the laird was close to laughter, and so was she. Poor Eufemia Grant looked so outraged, for Fiona's whispers were quite plainly understood.

'Your daughter's manners lack gentility and delicacy, my lord,' Eufemia Grant said and, turning, she stalked away.

Malcolm Scott chuckled, unable to restrain his amusement. Alix was caught up in a frenzy of giggles. Neither could help themselves. Fiona looked between them, and deciding that they were not angry at her, grinned.

'Praise God and his Blessed Mother that the woman didn't speak French,' the laird said. 'Fiona told Mistress Grant she was ugly.'

'She is,' Fiona said. 'And she smelled beneath all that perfume she had bathed herself in, Da. She obviously does not wash regularly like Alix and like me. I did not like her. Why was she hanging on Da that way?'

'She is part of Queen Marie's household,' Alix told the girl. 'I think she was just attempting to make your father feel welcome.'

'Precisely!' the laird agreed.

'I did not like her,' Fiona repeated.

It was at that moment the queen returned, escorted by a handsome gentleman. 'My lord, have you met Adam Hepburn? Adam, this is the Laird of Dunglais, Malcolm Scott.'

Adam Hepburn was a tall, big-boned man with rich auburn hair and light eyes that seemed to waver between green and blue. He held out his hand to the laird, shook it, then smiled at Alix and Fiona. 'And who are these two fair ladies?' he asked.

'My daughter, Fiona,' the laird said, 'and Mistress Alix Givet, who is her companion.'

'Mistress Givet is my kinswoman of Anjou's goddaughter,' Queen Marie said.

'And how did an English queen's godchild end up in Scotland?' the Hepburn lord asked, curious.

'I will tell you the story later, my lord,' Queen Marie murmured.

'Have you seen the battlements yet?' Adam Hepburn asked Malcolm Scott.

'Nay,' the laird answered.

'Tomorrow,' the queen said quietly. 'The laird's visit should be considered social, my lord. I do not wish to draw the attention of others to its real purpose.'