Taken by Angeline Fortin (great books of all time TXT) 📗

Lady Ishbel caught her eye then glanced down at the jewels around Scarlett’s neck.  Her eyes burned with green flames.  Scarlett could almost envision the green fog gathering around Lady Ishbel, all she lacked was a raven on her shoulder to make the picture complete.

“Sorry, Aileen, I think it would be better if I sat down here.”

With the little people. Scarlett had heard of seating by rank and would never have thought they took it so seriously but at the moment she was glad they did.  The high table was the last place she wanted to be.

“Can I sit with you then?” Aileen asked in a small voice.  “I don’t want to be a burden.”

A glance at the high table told Scarlett that Lady Ishbel was again occupied with the King and unlikely to take a headcount of her children, so Scarlett nodded her agreement as Laird found them a place far along one of the long benches, scooting down to make room for her young friend. A richly robed man seated near King James made a lengthy, solemn blessing over the food.  In Latin, Scarlett thought.  When he finished at last, the conversation picked up once more, filling the cavernous room with an overwhelming din.

A young gentleman on Aileen’s other side would share a trencher with her, leaving Scarlett to share with Laird.

“Thank you,” she said when he poured her a goblet of wine.

“Bread?” he asked, in a low husky voice.  “I ken it’s yer favorite.”

“How did you know that?”

A shrug answered her.  He thoughtfully served her salmon and tattie scones along with a thick slice of bread but kept the other meats on the far side of the trencher.  While she wasn’t a vegetarian, strictly speaking, she tended to avoid most red meats because of their fat content.  She was surprised Laird had taken note.

“Who’s that next to the King?”

“That’s the King’s mistress, Janet Kennedy,” Aileen told her when Laird again declined to answer.  “She’s why the Queen isn’t here.”

“Sweeting, ye shouldnae ken such things,” Laird scolded, frowning at her over Scarlett’s head.

“I know more than you think I might, Laird!”  She poked her tongue out at him surprising Scarlett with her sudden spunk.

Laird only grimaced.  “Then ye shouldnae speak of them.”

“Is it true?” Scarlett asked him and continued when he nodded shortly, “Then let her be.  She not hurting anyone if it’s common knowledge.”

The two women shared a grin before Aileen continued, lowering her voice.  “She is by far his most enduring mistress to date.  They’ve three children together already though it is rumored that the King is not the only one who enjoys her favors.”

Laird groaned, shaking his head.  “Sweeting,” he released a long-suffering sigh.

“Now, that sounds like pure speculation,” Scarlett chided gently.  “Rumors can hurt if they were spread with malicious intent.”  Believe me, I know. “Tell me about the others up there.  Who are they?”

Farther along the table were three handsome boys in their late teens and early twenties who bore the Hepburn stamp clearly.

“Those are my other brothers, Alexander, Arthur and Adam who just returned with Father.  That one over there,” she poked a finger out quickly, “is our cousin Adam, the Earl of Bothwell, his wife, Lady Agnes.  Did you know she is a bastard as well?  Her father is the Earl of Buchan.  No, it’s true!  How did you say?  Common knowledge.  Over there is our uncle, Sir Adam of Craggis; our uncle, George who is the Abbott of Arbath and the King’s Lord High Treasurer; our aunt, Margaret and her husband, the Earl of Glencairn and over there is… ”

The list went on, impossibly including more Margarets, Patricks and Adams than any one family should have.  Aunts, uncles, cousins.  The Hepburn family needed a different baby name book.  There was no chance of remembering one Margaret from the next.

Scarlett nodded as the list concluded with a rundown of the noble earls of Angus, Huntly and Home that were also present with their wives.  “And that other man?  The one speaking to Rhys?”

Aileen looked suddenly downcast.  “That is Robert Sutherland.  He is my betrothed.”

Scarlett nearly choked on her tattie and reached for her wine.  Catching Laird’s eye, she cast him a quizzical look but he only nodded grimly. The man had to have been thirty years older than Aileen.  A paunchy, balding and humorless looking man.  “That’s your fiancé?”

Aileen nodded miserably.  “We are to be married by Michaelmas.  He is the Earl of Sutherland.  Mother says I should be happy to be a countess.  That I will outrank her one day.”

“Are you?”

“I shall be his third wife,” Aileen explained without answering the question.  “He has a son already to carry on his title one day.”  She looked up again, quickly glancing away with a blush and Scarlett followed her gaze to a nice looking, ginger-haired boy of about twenty sitting across the U from them.

“That’s his son?”

“Yes, that’s Dickie.  I mean, Lord Richard.”

Aileen had seemed to have lost her appetite and Scarlett felt bad for unknowingly bringing up what was obviously a sore subject.  How horrible to have to marry a man so much older than herself when she was obviously infatuated with the man’s son.  Clearly, he felt the same.  How tragically Oedipal.

Wasn’t there something someone could do?

Probably not.  It was a pretty messed up family dynamic.

It broke her heart to think of it.  Scarlett hated to know that the girl had such a dismal future awaiting her.

“Don’t worry, Aileen.  I’m sure it will all work out in the end,” Scarlett said, patting the girl’s hand.  “You never know what the future will bring.”

“I don’t think there is anything that can change this.  I doubt the future will bring me the love I desire.”

Scarlett looked up at Laird.  He was as solemn as usual but there was that new, incessant heat in his eyes.

“Perhaps a bit of magic might pick you up and drop you into another place and time,” she said.  “I’ve heard it