Chapter Thirty

The last person in the world Daniel wanted to be sitting next to tonight was the Duchess of Blackburn. It was his place, but he didn’t want to be here.

With any of them, save Abigail.

Instead of asking Anne about his true father, he’d given her opportunities all day to tell him the truth. She hadn’t.

As they had all day, his thoughts returned to Abby. Hell, she was bold and courageous, if not a bit reckless, questioning Anne about locks on her door. Daniel could tell that Anne liked her. He had thought she might. Abigail was open and honest and Anne admired those qualities, as he did.

He’d almost told her about the prince. He’d tell her tonight. He trusted her enough. He loved her more than a lie or a truth.

“Tell me about her.”

“Who?” He sipped his wine, then raised his cup to one of his lieutenant friends.

“Miss Campbell,” Charlotte said. “Does Anne plan to marry her to someone here? What’s her tale?”

He slipped a side glance to her. “Knowing her tale wasn’t part of my duty.”

“Weren’t you curious?”

“No.”

“Did she defy you often on your journey?” She glanced at him. “It will tell much about her.”

“No,” he told her, knowing what she wanted to hear. “And even if she had, what concern would it have been to me? Defiant or not, she was coming with me.”

Charlotte smiled and shook her head at him. “Sometimes I wonder if you have a heart, and if you don’t, then are you merely charming your way into my decisions, perhaps even into Anne’s?”

He laughed. “You put too much in my abilities, Your Grace.” He didn’t skip a beat, well practiced in the art of directing the path of her thoughts. “If I were heartless, I would have broken either one of your hearts already.” He lifted his gaze to the entrance, to Anne being brought in first, pushed in her chair by her new handmaiden.

Charlotte made a sound beside him and Daniel suspected it had something to do with Abby’s transformation.

Daniel had known Anne would help with her wrinkled gown, but she hadn’t said anything about turning Abby into a princess.

She wore a deep blue sack-back gown made of fine velvet with pleats flowing from the shoulders stitched in cream silk. Her hair was gathered atop her head like a crown of radiant light. Every man in attendance stared at her. Daniel didn’t blame them for looking, but he didn’t like it. There wasn’t anything he could do about it.

Charlotte watched her push Anne to the head of the table and then take her place at the queen’s left, opposite Daniel.

“Lady Blackburn,” Anne leaned forward in her chair and addressed her friend. “I’m told you met Miss Campbell, my new handmaiden, already when you joined General Marlow on the road after a dream?”

“That’s correct,” Charlotte told her stiffly. “After a prophetic dream. I’m sure he has told you about your cousin trying to kill him.”

“Ah, yes, Richard.” Anne reclined and waited while her plate was set before her. “What shall I do with him?”

“Let me ride to Edinburgh and kill him,” Daniel muttered. “He thinks me dead. He’ll never see me coming.”

Anne gave him a slight smile and patted his hand. Charlotte watched, pinched lipped. “By the time you get there, he’ll be back here. I received a letter from him a short while ago telling me he’s returning in the morning. We will discuss what is to be done later, in my private chambers.” She gave his hand a loving pat, then asked Abby if she wanted more wine.

“Tell me, Miss Campbell,” Charlotte said, looking across the table at her. “How was your journey here from the mountains?”

Daniel looked up and glanced at Abby. He couldn’t worry about her. She would do fine with Charlotte, just as long as she kept her feelings for him hidden.

Abby smiled. “Argyll isna’ verra’ mountainous, Yer Grace. But as fer the journey, ’twas mostly unpleasant and at times, harrowing. I am glad to be here, safe and sound.”

Daniel caught his breath again at her grace and beauty and wondered if Anne saw the true elegance of her. None of them had expected to see it in a Highlander. But here she was, as refined and polished as any royal.

“Oh, but that’s General Marlow’s duty,” Charlotte insisted. “Did he fail at making you feel safe and sound then?”

“Nae, he did not,” Abby told her. “He saved my life, but I dinna’ like sleeping outdoors. It makes me feel vulnerable.”

Against his will, Daniel’s eyes found Abby and settled on her. He missed just looking at her, basking in her features and little nuances of emotions like one who revels in a painting by his favorite artist. The outlawed MacGregor’s daughter straightened her back and didn’t flinch at the duchess’s scrutiny.

“He kept me alive on our trek,” Abby continued. “He succeeded, though I think there were days when he would have preferred to toss me over the nearest cliff.”

There was only one time, Daniel wanted to tell her. He wanted to smile at her and promise her a thousand services, but he didn’t. He reached for more wine and kept his gaze off all of them.

“If there is any talk of the general subduing his true opinion of me, let me inform ye here and now that he showed little kindness and even less mercy, complaining when I wept as I left my kin.”

The duchess liked what she was hearing. She knew Daniel wouldn’t compromise his beliefs completely.

“Yes.” She shuddered, touching his biceps, then let it slide down to his hand. “General Marlow is indeed heartless. I was telling him that before you arrived, wasn’t I, General?”

“You were,” he agreed, his tone, dull and weary.

“Ye were quite correct, Yer Grace,” Abby continued, not only stroking Charlotte’s pride but waking him from the tedium. “If he is a representative fer knights, then I say that they are the savages.”

Daniel tossed her an icy look, then leaned in toward the duchess. “This is how the entire journey went with her. She complained about everything without ceasing.”

“I simply questioned yer decisions,” Abby said curtly. “Some of them seemed poorly considered.”

“Poorly consid—” She went too far in their little game to say such a thing, even in jest. All right then, if she wanted it real… “Lady,” he said, just as crisply. “I very seriously considered leaving you in the last three villages in which we stopped. I didn’t do it.”

Her pale blue eyes shone on him like frost beneath the full moon. She didn’t back down. “Times like now, I wish ye had.”

The duchess grinned, happy to see them at each other’s throats. Anne’s reaction was different. She slapped the table with her palm. “That will be all, both of you! I’ll not have bickering at my table. Miss Campbell, General Marlow is a well-respected warrior and servant to the throne. You will not speak so willfully to him again. Do you understand?”

Abby unlocked her gaze from his and he felt the void of her separation, like a drop into a black abyss.

“Aye, Yer Majesty,” she surrendered quickly.

“And you, General.” Anne turned to him. “Like her or not, you will respect her in my court as my handmaiden and faithful companion.”

“How can you say she’s faithful, Anne?” Charlotte asked, sounding offended for Daniel’s sake. “You don’t—”

“Lady Blackburn.” Daniel cut her off. “You forget your place. The queen’s decisions are hers to make—without question or quarrel from you. Do you not agree?”

To say anything but yes was treason, and he was the highest-ranking officer in the queen’s army.

“Of course, General.” She relented finally and said very little the rest of the night. When she finally grew bored enough to leave, Daniel rejoiced at seeing her go.

So, it appeared, did Anne.

The queen covered his hand with hers and smiled at him and then at Abby. “I loved your display. I almost believed it. I certainly enjoyed going along with it.”

“What do you mean, you almost believed it?”

“Come now, Daniel.” She tossed him an indulgent look. “You forget I know you well. You may have spoken to her with cool detachment, but your eyes said something else. Fear not, Lady Blackburn couldn’t see from her position. But I warn you, take care.”

“I thought I was,” he told her. He wasn’t sure if admitting his heart to the queen was wise, since Abby was a Jacobite. He hoped she wouldn’t ask about what he felt for the Highlander. He doubted he could deny her. “I’ll practice more caution in the future.”

Anne didn’t question him further, and he was grateful.

“Caution with Lady Blackburn is imperative,” she told Abby. “She’s a venomous snake who seems to be charmed by Daniel alone.”

“Where I grew up,” Abby told her, “we cut the heads off venomous snakes.”

Daniel reveled in the glorious woman sitting across from him, so bold, so proud. Anne saw her inner strength also and leaned closer in her chair.

“What if the snake has been your friend for many, many years? What if you don’t know how cut off her head?”

“Ye’re the daughter of kings. Royal blood from William the Conqueror and King Richard the Lionheart flows in yer veins. What is a snake to that?”

Anne’s laughter was faint and brief but he heard it. He saw it.

“Not very much when you put it that way, Miss Campbell. I will retire to my chamber and think on it for a bit before I sleep.”

She excused herself and left the two of them in the Banqueting Hall with his men and a warning not to tarry for too long.

“Forgive me for not preparing you for this,” Daniel said, turning to her.

“I think I did rather well. ’Twas difficult not looking at you,” she told him. “I wanted to so many times. I was a coward.”

“No.” He shook his head at her. “You’re wise, and clever, and courageous. I believe the duchess may have had at least one woman I knew murdered.”

He hated frightening her, but she needed to know what she was up against.

“I don’t have the proof I need to arrest her, and even after everything, the queen wants proof.”

Abby smiled. “She’s fair.”

“Yes.” Daniel was tempted to leave his chair and kiss her senseless for seeing it as he did. “She is.”