Henry’s face blanched.
Sin smiled evilly. In the last nine years, he’d been excommunicated five times. The most recent one carried a papal ban so severe that it should have him roasting out eternity right by the devil’s side.
The pope, himself, referred to Sin as Satan’s Most Favored Spawn.
Henry would never find a priest who would dare allow Sin to take part in a sacrament.
Henry smirked. “You think you have me, don’t you?”
“I think nothing of the sort, my liege. As you said, I know the Scots and know they would accept nothing less than a sanctified marriage. I have merely given you the conditions of our union.”
“Very well then. I accept your terms and intend to hold you to them.”
Two
“Are we going to escape this time, Callie?”
Caledonia of the Clan MacNeely pulled her baby brother to a stop in the narrow corridor where they were making their way out of King Henry’s castle.
She knelt beside his little body. “If you’ll be keeping your words to yourself, we just might,” she whispered.
Callie smiled to soften her harsh words, and straightened the brown Phrygian cap on his small head. His face still held the baby-fat cheeks and bright, trusting blue eyes of the toddler he had been not all that long ago. “Now remember, we’re English servants which means if you open your mouth, they’ll know we’re Highlanders for sure.”
He nodded.
Callie tucked Jamie’s orangish-red curls back under his cap. His hair was the same shade as her own. But that was all they shared, for Callie looked like her dearly departed mother and Jamie favored his own mother, Morna.
He looked at her now with his blue eyes steeled by determination, and with a sageness no lad of his tender age should possess. At six years, the young lad had seen more than his fair share of tragedy. God willing, he would see no more of it.
She kissed the lovable, little demon lightly on the brow and rose to her feet. Her stomach knotted with nerves, she led him slowly down the lone corridor toward the spiral stairs that should exit by the rear of the castle.
At least that was what she’d been told by the maid who had been helping them plot their escape. How she prayed the Englishwoman hadn’t lied to her, or betrayed her.
They had to get out of this place. Callie could stand no more. If she had to stomach another Sassenach leer at her or make crude comments about her wild Scottish heritage, she would have his tongue for it.
But it was what they did to Jamie that truly made her blood boil. The son of a laird, he was sure to one day rule over her people as well. And those beasts made him serve them like the lowliest of peasants while they mocked and belittled him. She could stand no more of her brother’s tears. No more of watching the knights rough handling the young lad and cuffing his ears.
The English were animals!
Ever since King Henry’s men had captured the two of them as they traveled to visit her sickly aunt, Callie had been trying to find a way for them to escape and make their way home.
Yet for all her careful cunning, these wretched English beasts were truly spawns of the devil. No matter what she tried, it seemed one of them always saw through her escape and stopped her.
But this time. This time, she would succeed.
She knew it.
Tightening her grip on Jamie’s hand, she paused at the top of the stairs. She pulled back the corner of her linen veil and cocked her head to listen.
Nothing.
It appeared no one was about to challenge them. They were free!
The maid, Aelfa, had promised her that once they left the stairs, the back door opened just a few feet from the postern gate the servants used during daylight hours to travel from the castle into London. The maid had sworn to her that no one would stop her once she reached it.
Callie’s heart pounded in sweet expectation. She rushed down the dark spiral steps at a breakneck speed with Jamie one step behind.
Freedom!
