The Captive Queen of Scots - Plaidy Jean (читать книги онлайн бесплатно без сокращение бесплатно txt) 📗

“William and my mother are treating you well, I trust?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “They do not starve me, nor ill-treat me physically. But, as I said, I am their prisoner. James, I wish to talk to you . . . alone.”

James hesitated. It was the very thing he was trying to avoid and yet he saw that he could not escape it without seeming churlish and he was anxious not to appear that.

“Oh . . . ” he said awkwardly, “very well.” He turned to his friends. “You hear my sister’s request. Perhaps you should leave us.”

Morton and Atholl bowed slightly and retired. When the door had shut on them Mary sighed with relief.

“I rejoice in their absence. They are no friends of mine.” She went to her brother and laid her hands on his shoulders giving him her most dazzling smile; but he was one of the few people who were not affected by it. When he looked at Mary, ambitious James did not see an attractive woman in distress; he saw the crown which had been taken from her and which—although he could not wear it—would be as good as his until her son reached his majority.

All the humiliation he had suffered could be appeased if he were ruler of Scotland. He could never be James VI, but he could be King in all but name . . . while his sister remained in captivity. He would exchange the term Bastard for Regent. It was the only balm for the wounded vanity of year. Mary was a fool to plead to him for help. She should have known that he was the last person to help her to freedom which must necessarily mean his own fall from power.

But Mary was a foolish woman—a beautiful and fascinating one, it was true, but a sentimental fool.

He had come here for one purpose—to make her implore him to take the Regency. He believed he could do this, for he had always thought him to be her friend.

He laid his hands almost gingerly on hers; his were cold, as she remembered they always had been.

“Ah, Mary,” he said, “you are in a dire state . . . a dire state.”

“But I feel happier today for two reasons, Jamie. Today Melville had a box of my clothes sent to me . . . .”

Frivolous woman! thought James. Her crown lost, and she can take pleasure in clothes!

“And,” she went on, “as though that were not enough, my dear brother comes to see me.”

“Your food grows cold,” he said, because he found it embarrassing to look into her radiant face which betrayed her love for him. She made him feel mean and shifty, which he did not believe himself to be. He was a man with a stern sense of duty. He believed that there was one man who could make Scotland strong and deliver the country from the state into which Mary, with her two disastrous marriages, had plunged it; that man would be the Regent Moray. He had never betrayed his emotions, so she did not expect him to be demonstrative now, which was a mercy, for he would have found it difficult to feign love for her at this time, when he was planning to rob her of her kingdom.

He led her to the table and sat down with her.

“You must eat with me, Jamie.”

“I am not hungry. But you should continue with your supper.”

He sat down and stared broodingly before him.

“In the old days,” she said sadly, “you thought it an honor to give me my napkin.”

He did not offer to do this service and she went on: “It is difficult serving a Queen in the fortalice of Lochleven from doing so in the Castle of Edinburgh or Holyrood House.”

He was moodily silent and she cried: “Why, I embarrass you, Jamie. Never mind. It warms my heart to see you.”

“Pray finish your supper.”

“It seems inhospitable to eat alone. I do not think I am in the mood for food. Tell me, Jamie, what news do you bring me?”

“John Knox preaches against you in Edinburgh.”

“That does not surprise me. He was ever my enemy.”

“In the streets the fishwives speak against you.”

“I heard them shouting below my window. I saw their vacuous faces alive only with evil.”

“I could not answer for your safety if you went back to Edinburgh.”

“So I must remain here, a prisoner?”

“For your own safety.”

“But I have heard that there are some lords who would be ready to rally to my side. The Flemings and the Setons were always my loyal friends.”

“Who told you this?” he asked sharply.

“I do not remember. Perhaps no one told me. Perhaps I merely know it to be true.”

Moray’s mood was thoughtful. He was going to tell his brother William that they must be more vigilant; he was not pleased with the measures of security which were being taken. He fancied he had seen a change in Ruthven. There was a certain witchery about his half-sister which—and this was beyond his understanding—seemed to have a devastating effect on men, so that they were ready to jeopardize their careers.

Mary threw aside her napkin. “No,” she said, “I shall not eat alone. Let us go for a walk in the open air. I shall be considered safe if you are my companion.”

He took a velvet robe—which had come in Melville’s box—and put it about her shoulders.

“Come then,” he said, and they left the apartments and went into the grounds.

“They allow you to walk out here, I suppose.”

“They are most vigilant. I have taken a few little walks but always surrounded by guards.”

“I do not see why you should not walk when you wish and go where you wish in the castle.” He was looking at the boats moored at the lakeside. He pondered: I shall tell William to have her more closely watched. But at the same time he wanted her to go on believing that he was her friend and that he had come to assure himself of her comfort and to give her as much freedom as he could, at the same time ensuring her safety.

“Oh, Jamie,” she cried, “I knew you would help me.”

“My dear sister, ever since the murder of Rizzio there have been murmurs against you. Your marriage with Darnley was undesirable. You know how I warned you against that.”

“Because, dear brother, you are such a stern Protestant, and you would rather have seen me make a Protestant marriage.”

“And his mysterious death . . . .” Moray shook his head. “And then, before he was cold, the marriage with Bothwell. My dear sister, how could you have allowed yourself to be led into such folly?”

“Darnley’s death was none of my doing.”

Moray’s lips were hidden by his tawny mustache but they were tight and stern.

“Rizzio murdered; Darnley murdered . . . and then that hasty and unseemly marriage!”

“What news of Bothwell, James?”

“None that is good.”

“Good for me, James, or for those who wish to destroy him?”

James said: “He fled North. He is said to be there with Huntley.”

He will come for me, she thought triumphantly, and when he comes this nightmare will be over.

Moray was thinking: My first act will be to send a squadron North to capture that traitor. There is little the people of Edinburgh would rather see than his head on a pike.

“Mary,” said James, “you must be patient during the next months. You must resign yourself to your confinement here. Willingly would I free you, were it in my power to do so, but it would not be for your good.”

“How long will it last?”

“Who knows? Until the affairs of this country are in order.”

“They have made my little baby King of Scotland. Poor innocent child, he knows nothing of this. What will he think, I wonder, when he is old enough to know that they made a prisoner of his mother in order to rule through him?”

“It is a dangerous situation.”

“So many of them struggling for power,” she agreed.

“What Scotland needs—until the people are prepared to receive you back on the throne—is a strong man who can rule.”

“If Bothwell were here . . . ”

“Bothwell is far away in the North. The people would tear him to pieces if they could lay their hands on him. They want someone who is not afraid of them to restore order. Someone who will give his life if need be . . . for our troubled country.”