Heart of Gold (21 page)

Elizabeth cringed as the two sailors dropped Mary’s trunk into the hold of the galley. The sun was low over the western waters that extended beyond the wide mouth of the Arno, and though the troop of Scots warriors were drinking noisily on the dock, she was determined to keep a close watch on things as their luggage was loaded aboard the merchant vessel.

She looked at her friend standing beside her. “Joseph, do you have any idea why the baron would want to hide his true identity from the captain of this ship?”

Joseph turned his back to the high gunwale and smiled at the painter. “Aye, I do.”

Elizabeth waited patiently as the merchant looked up into the rigging at the two masts of the galley. She knew it was the kind of ship Joseph had traveled on many times in his search for markets. From what Joseph had just finished telling her, she now knew that the two-masted galley was the workhorse of Mediterranean sea trading, and its design had not changed for as long as anyone remembered. This ship had forty-eight oarsmen who would propel the shallow-hulled vessel forward regardless of the wind’s direction.

“This is one of the first of its kind,” Joseph said enthusiastically, pointing toward the stern of the vessel. “From what I hear, beneath the high deck back there, they have expanded the cabin space.”

“My friend, the cabin size of this galley is not my worry right now,” she said quietly. “I am more concerned about putting all of you in jeopardy. Joseph, I need to know what information you have about the Baron of Roxburgh.”

Joseph peered at the animated group of sailors gathering not far from where Mary stood pouting in the sun. An uneasy feeling crept through him.

“Well, Joseph?” Elizabeth prodded, still waiting for the details but not hearing any. “Would you care to tell me what you know?”

“No.”

“Please, Joseph,” she said shortly. “If you are planning to act like those two pig-headed Scots, then I’ll be taking my complaints to Erne.”

Joseph breathed more easily as he spotted his wife moving purposefully toward Mary through the throng of people milling about among the stalls of fishermen and farmers that crowded the stone quays. He watched as she sent the seafarers on their way with a mere frown. Then her face brightened as she glanced up at the ship and saw him, and he answered her nod with a smile and a wave.

“Well, in that case, I’ll tell you what I know. But you must keep it to yourself. I just cannot afford having hysterical women on my hands during this journey.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Nay! Not at all. But you never know how some people will react to something they’ve assumed for a long while was only just gossipy word of mouth.”

She hung on his every word. As Joseph looked over the crowds moving about the pier, she nearly snapped. “Please, Joseph! The suspense of this is getting the best of me. Tell me what you know.”

Joseph looked away from her once again, but this time his eyes searched for Ambrose Macpherson. He had no desire to be caught speaking about the baron by the man himself.

“The first night when he came to us in Florence, I had no idea that the baron of Roxburgh and Ambrose Macpherson were one and the same man.”

And that makes two of us, Elizabeth thought.

“But seeing his broach and colors of his tartan, I knew soon enough,” Joseph continued. “I think that was when I became really frightened.” The last words were spoken quietly, as if to no one but himself.

“At any rate, the stories go back some time and have to do with pirates in the seas west of England. Years back, as I remember, anyone who traveled the Irish Sea knew the names Macpherson and Campbell and feared them. They were the fiercest pirates ever to navigate those waters.”

“
He’s a pirate
?” Elizabeth asked with great deal of hesitation. She quickly lowered her voice to a hush as she looked around. “We’re traveling with a pirate?”

“Not Ambrose. His father,” Joseph went on. “He even had license for it. King James of Scotland gave exclusive rights to his most courageous noblemen. Their job was to defend the Scottish waters and to bring in whatever revenue they could by raiding passing ships.”

“They were thieves!”

“No, my dear. Even today this is considered a legitimate—even noble—profession, and the practice is continued by every king in Europe. English, Spaniards, French—they all do it. It is part of the shipping business. To trade in these dangerous waters, you have to protect your vessels and your merchandise. And the best way to do this is to be a pirate yourself. If you are not, then you’d better be prepared to pay large sums of gold and hope they will work on your side.”

Elizabeth’s eyes found Ambrose where he stood talking with the ship’s captain on the stone quay. “Then he’s one, too?”

“A pirate?” Joseph followed the direction of Elizabeth’s gaze. “No one knows for sure. Alexander Macpherson eldest son, Alec, now leads the Macpherson clan and, the word is, being married to the Scottish king’s sister, he finds little time to sail the high seas. That leaves Ambrose and the youngest brother, John. Both these men have lived on the sea from the time they were children. They both could take up the father’s trade. But now, I find that Ambrose is now the Baron of Roxburgh, as well. And from what I hear, the baron is known to have more castles—and more gold in them—than any king in Europe. So for him to continue in the family piracy business is a bit unlikely, although there are a few of us that hope he would.”

“You hope he would?” she asked, turning to him in surprise. “Why?”

“The mystery. The adventure.” Joseph smiled. “Macphersons have long been heroes. They are part of history. They’re a tradition. No one wants to see the legends disappear. What man wouldn’t want to tell his children of sailing with the Macphersons across the open seas? And, like everyone else, sailors are intrigued with legends. Particularly living ones.”

Elizabeth shuddered involuntarily as she gazed at Ambrose across the dock. Once again he wore his kilt and his tartan, but now a black cloak was fastened around his shoulders. A long sword hung from the leather belt. His blond hair fluttered loosely about his face in the gentle breeze. He was tall, powerful, free. He was the very image of what she would have thought a pirate might be.

Even more.

The body lying in the small bunk shook with silent tears.

Elizabeth stepped inside one of the darkened cabins and looked about her in alarm. She had just left the stern deck and her companions, going in search of her sister Mary. No one had even seen the young woman since they had stepped aboard the vessel hours earlier. The oily taper that lay propped up in a tin box gave off a smoky light and filled one side of the room with a dim haze. Elizabeth peered into the darkness and then spotted her.

Mary lay facedown, wrapped in a rough, wool blanket. Even from where she stood, Elizabeth could see the young woman’s small shoulders trembling with barely perceptible sobs that occasionally escaped her.

Elizabeth moved to the bunk and sat quietly on the edge. Her hands moved gently on her sister’s shoulders, caressing her, trying to ease the pain the younger woman was feeling. Mary turned immediately and threw herself into the Elizabeth’s arms.

Now, once again safe in Elizabeth’s familiar embrace, she wept openly. Elizabeth listened, unable to console her with anything more than the soft touch and the gentle rocking motion that had been part of them since childhood.

“I’ve never hated myself as I do now,” Mary whispered bitterly, clutching her sister as tight as she could. “My name is a demon that precedes me. I am not a human being, but a disease. One to be avoided. To be cast off and shunned.”

Elizabeth pulled her sister’s face away from her shoulder and gazed into her tearful eyes.

“Did someone say something to you?” The painter’s voice shook with emotion. “I’ll not allow anyone offend you in this way.”

Mary just simply shook her head. “It is not what someone else does to me, Elizabeth. It is what I do to myself.”

The tears fell down her pale skin as she continued. “And it is not up to you to right what I continue to bring on myself.”

Elizabeth stared at her sister in disbelief. She had never heard Mary speak words such as these. Something must have happened. “Tell me what has happened, Mary. Talk to me.”

“Oh, how I wish I could just be a simple little girl again. Pure, untainted. Living again at a stage in my life when worldly possessions mean little. Then I would be free to choose...for love.” She paused, staring at the shadows that flickered across the walls.

Mary’s face became nearly trancelike as her eyes locked on the far wall. Elizabeth reached over gently and touched her brow. But there was no fevered heat on the skin, only cold. She was ice-cold. Elizabeth picked a blanket lying on the bunk and wrapped it around her sister, wondering if Mary was about to have another of her attacks. She had been so good for so long that they’d thought she had beaten the pox. Elizabeth wondered if her hasty decision to go to Scotland was the reason Mary was going through this right now. She winced at the thought that she may have put the young woman’s life in jeopardy by dragging her along. Elizabeth ran her hands over her sister’s arms, trying to bring back some of the warmth in her chilled body.

“You should have seen me. I was so foolish. I was standing at the pier with my heart in my hand.”

Elizabeth listened in silence.

“He approached me. He was coming toward me. I saw his eyes, as large as life, were on me. His tartan whipped about in the wind, but he charged on. My heart stopped beating. I knew what he was about to say. He was about to...” Mary looked down at her hands.

Elizabeth felt a knot form in her own heart. It was pain. Dull and heavy.

“He stopped. He stopped just a breath away. I looked up, and I was lost in what I saw. Once again, here I was—a young girl, blushing madly, my breath caught in my chest and my temples pounding with the excitement. It was like...first love. Though I’m sure now that I’ve never loved any man, still I knew.”

Elizabeth looked down at her own fingers as they clutched the blanket in her palms. She felt a burning ache in the back of her throat.

“He just stood there, looking at me with a half smile tugging at his full lips. I felt whole, cared for, sought after. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that when a man looked at me. He was like a dream creature that God had at last sent down to me. To awaken something in my soul. Something that has been sleeping. Or dead. Then...”

Elizabeth couldn’t look up. She sat where she was, silent, waiting.

“Then his friend called him. Lord Macpherson called him away.”

Elizabeth clutched her hands as she took a small breath. “Gavin Kerr!”

Mary looked up dreamily. “It was he. The man never spoke a word. But I...” The tears once again took control. She wept silently.

As Elizabeth pulled her into her arms, she thought back over all the time Mary had spent in the company of so many courtiers in France and in Florence. But she had never seen her so broken, not even when she’d discovered that her newborn child had been a baby girl and not a male as she’d hoped.

“This is the first time we’ve met, but I know him. He is the man of my dreams, Elizabeth. He is the one that I have waited...” Mary paused and looked questioningly at her sister. “But I haven’t waited, have I, sister? I gave myself away in the first bed that I fell into. I was impatient. I was spoiled. Selfish. I didn’t wait, did I? And now. Now I have found him, but now...I’m being punished.”

Mary’s eyes were glazed and unseeing. Elizabeth took hold of hands that reached out and clutched at the air. That scratched at invisible enemies. She didn’t know how to calm her sister’s fears, how to undo the torment she was bringing on herself. Mary’s breaths were coming in short, quick pants. Her voice was thickening, as if someone had her by the throat.

“His friend called him. Took him away. Probably to tell him to stay away from the pox-ridden wench. They all know me. They know my reputation. And what they say is not even a lie. I know it. It is the god-awful truth that I am nothing more than a diseased wench. A used-up old whore.”

“Stop it, Mary,” Elizabeth ordered, as she tried to hold on to her sister’s hands. The young woman jerked them away and hid them behind her.

“You know it’s true. And Gavin...he went by me again, later, while we were boarding the ship. But he never looked. Not once. Aye, he has been told, warned, reprimanded. For looking. Just for looking.” Mary rocked back and forth on the bunk, her words coming out in moans now. “I want to wash myself. I want to get rid of this grime that I’ve accumulated over the years. I want to be wanted. By him. Is that so much? But I can’t. I was no innocent, Elizabeth. I know. I knew. Standing there, I lost it. My dream! I searched for him, and then, after finding him, I lost him. I was dirty. I am dirty! Oh, God...so dirty!”

Mary began to rub her hands hard on the blanket, but Elizabeth caught her wrists and held them tight.

“Then I saw me. I saw my life. God helped me see. I never knew, for all this time. It was I. All this time. I sought out this fate, this destiny. After the first time, after Henry got me with child, I could have stopped. You told me it wasn’t my fault. You said that. The blame was father’s. But he tried it on you, and you didn’t let him. No. You were strong. I was weak. I was greedy. And then, after that, I still didn’t stop. Always I knew someday I’d find him, but I was impatient. I still didn’t...” Mary folded over and cried. She cried into the blanket. “I don’t deserve him.”

Elizabeth leaned over and held her. That’s all she could do. Just hold her.

There was darkness and nothing else. Elizabeth clutched the side of the bunk and swung her legs over the edge, but the floor seemed to open under her. There was a lurching motion, and she was thrown into the air, rolling as she fell. And then she landed. She felt her skull crack hard against the rough wooden floor. From the above her, Elizabeth heard a sliding, screeching sound of metal against wood, and then the weight of the chest was on her. She flinched with a sharp pain that shot through her shoulder as she tried to push it away. But the ship lurched again, and the chest dropped onto her wrist.