LITMIR.BIZ

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or in the halls of government.

      She stared at him without moving, the other men invisible to her. She forced herself to ignore her own filthy and disheveled state—clothing torn and damp, crusted with the dirt and mold of her dungeon cell. She refused to allow herself to falter beneath his stare. Despite the rags that clung to her now, she remained still and regal, determined to end her life with grace. He watched her, his scorching blue eyes so dark with condemnation that they appeared to her like stygian pits, a glimpse into the hell into which she would find herself cast once she had breathed her last in this life and endured the final agony of the fire.

      She met his look with scorn, barely aware that the judge was reading the accusation and the sentence, informing her that the time had come.

      “Burned at the stake until dead…ashes cast to the wind…”

      She didn’t move, didn’t blink, simply stood quite still, with her head held high. She realized that Reverend Martin had come up behind the others. She was almost amused to see that they had sent their esteemed lapdog to try to force her into abject terror and a renewed confession, even at the stake. After all, if she were to assure the crowd that she was indeed the devil’s pawn, guilty of all manner of horrors, then the whispers that she was innocent, a victim of a political struggle, would not rise to become shouts that stirred resistance the length and breadth of the country.

      “Lady Gwenyth MacLeod, you must confess before the crowds, and your death will go easy,” the rector said. “Confess and pray now, for with your deepest repentance, our great Father in Heaven may well see fit to keep you from an eternity in the very bowels of hell.”

      She couldn’t tear her eyes from Rowan, who appeared so tall and indomitable among the others, though he was still watching her with such loathing. She prayed that her own disgust outshone the fear in her eyes.

      “Take care, reverend,” she said softly. “I stand condemned, and if I speak now before the crowd, I will say that I am guilty of nothing. I will not confess to a lie before the crowd, else my Father in Heaven would abandon me. I go to my death, and on to Heaven, because the good Lord knows I am innocent, and that you are using His name to rid yourselves of a political enemy. It is you, I fear, who will long rot in hell.”

      “Blasphemy!”

      She was stunned, for it was Rowan who shouted out the word.

      The barred door of her cell was flung wide with terrible violence. Before she knew it, he had seized hold of her, the fingers of one hand threaded cruelly through her hair, forcing her to stare up into his eyes, powerless to escape the touch of his other hand against her cheek.

      “She must not be allowed to speak before any crowd. She knows her soul is bound for hell, and she will try only to drag others down into Satan’s rancid hole along with her,” Rowan said, his voice rough with hatred and conviction. “Trust me, for I know too well the witchery of her enchantment.”

      How could such words fall from his lips? Once he had sworn to love her forever. Before God, he had vowed his love.

      Her heart shattered at the thought that he had come not only to bear witness to her agony but to be a part of it.

      His hand was large, his fingers long and strangely gentle, despite the fact that he was so accustomed to wielding a sword. She recalled with renewed pain how those fingers had once reached for her only to stroke with the greatest tenderness. And his eyes…eyes that had gazed at her with such delight, such amusement, even anger at times, but most of all with a deep, shattering passion that touched her soul as she could never be touched in the flesh.

      Now they were nothing but dark, brutal.

      As he stared at her, held her defenseless, he moved, and she realized that he was holding something. It was, she saw, a small glass vial, and he held it to her lips as he bent closer and whispered for her ears alone, “Drink this. Now.”

      She stared at him blankly, knowing that she had no choice, and almost smiled, because she saw the flicker of…something in those eyes that were so blue a color that they defied both sea and sky. She saw desperation and something more. Suddenly she recognized what it was. He was playing a part. He had not forgotten her.

      “For the love of God, drink this now,” he said.

      She closed her eyes and drank.

      In an instant, the room began to spin, and she realized that there had been mercy in him, after all, some memory of the sweeping passions they had shared, for he had given her poison to spare her the searing agony of the flames devouring her flesh, roaring until she was nothing but ash cast into the wind.

      “She’s Satan’s bitch! She seeks to make a mockery of us all.” Rowan growled as she felt his hands tighten around her throat.

      He wanted them to think that he had strangled her not as an act of mercy, but to keep her silent before the crowd.

      Darkness began to encroach upon her vision, and a numbness invaded her limbs. She could no longer stand, and she sank against him, grateful that she would be dead before she was consumed by the fire.

      And yet, in those last moments, she raged against the agonizing truth that the man she had once trusted, had loved above life itself, with whom she had shared ecstasy, known paradise, should be the one to take her life.

      She saw his eyes again, bright like blue flame, and wondered if those fiery beacons would follow her even unto death.

      Her lips moved. “Bastard,” she told him.

      “I shall meet you in hell, lady,” he replied, his voice a whisper, and yet, like the fire in his eyes they would surely follow her into eternity.

      Was there a smile curving his lips? Was he mocking her, even as she died? Her vision fading, she looked into his eyes for confirmation and saw both sorrow and something more, as if he were trying to convey something to her, something the others must not see.

      For as long as she could, she continued to meet his eyes, trying to see all that was in them and to convey her own message to him.

      Daniel…

      She wanted to say his name, but she dared not. She knew—knew—that he would love their son, that Daniel would never want for anything. Rowan would see to that. Unlike her, he would never fall prey to the vicissitudes of power. He had always been a statesman; his enemies never underestimated his strength—or his popularity.

      The darkness closed in more fully around her, yet she felt no pain, wishing she had learned the lessons of statesmanship more fully.

      That the queen had learned them, as well.

      She wondered if she, like Mary, had given way too often to passion and her own convictions, her own definitions of right and wrong. Had there been a better way to stand her ground, to help the woman who even now knew she was in grave peril? The queen, too, might well lose her life; she had already been forced to abandon everything that made life worth living.

      How could she have known? How could any of them have known? It had begun with such power and grandeur, such a beautiful and glorious dream. Even as the light faded, she remembered how it had shone once, so long ago.

PART I

      CHAPTER ONE

      August 19, Year of Our Lord 1561

      “WHO IS THAT?” one of the maids whispered, hovering behind Queen Mary as they arrived, earlier than expected, at Leith. Gwenyth wasn’t sure who had spoken; Mary, Queen of Scots, had left her native land as a child with four ladies-in-waiting, all of them also named Mary: Mary Seton, Mary Fleming, Mary Livingstone and Mary Beaton. Gwenyth liked them all very much. They were all charming and sweet. Each had her individual personality traits, but they were known collectively as “the Marys” or “the queen’s Marys,” and sometimes it seemed as if they had become one collective person, as now, when Gwenyth wasn’t sure who had spoken.

      They were all—including the queen—watching the shore, their eyes on the contingent awaiting them. The queen’s

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