Bond of Passion Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  BOOKS BY BERTRICE SMALL

  PRAISE FOR BERTRICE SMALL, “THE REIGNING QUEEN OF THE HISTORICAL GENRE,”* AND HER NOVELS

  “Bertrice Small creates cover-to-cover passion, a keen sense of history, and suspense.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Ms. Small delights and thrills.”

  —Rendezvous

  “An insatiable delight for the senses. [Small’s] amazing historical detail . . . will captivate the reader . . . potent sensuality.”

  —*Romance Junkies

  “[Her novels] tell an intriguing story, they are rich in detail, and they are all so very hard to put down.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “Sweeps the ages with skill and finesse.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “[A] captivating blend of sensuality and rich historical drama.”

  —Rosemary Rogers

  “Steamy . . . a work of grand historical proportions . . . a must read!”

  —Romantic Times (top pick)

  “Brimming with colorful characters and rich in historical detail,

  Small’s boldly sensual love story is certain to please her many devoted readers.”

  Booklist

  “[A] delight to all readers of historical fiction.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “[A] style that garnered her legions of fans . . . when she’s at the top of her form, nobody does it quite like Bertrice Small.”

  —The Romance Reader

  BOOKS BY BERTRICE SMALL

  THE BORDER CHRONICLES

  A Dangerous Love

  The Border Lord’s Bride

  The Captive Heart

  The Border Lord and the Lady

  The Border Vixen

  THE FRIARSGATE INHERITANCE

  Rosamund

  Until You

  Philippa

  The Last Heiress

  CONTEMPORARY EROTICA

  Private Pleasures

  Forbidden Pleasures

  Sudden Pleasures

  Dangerous Pleasures

  Passionate Pleasures

  Guilty Pleasures

  THE O’MALLEY SAGA

  Skye O’Malley

  All the Sweet Tomorrows

  A Love for All Time

  This Heart of Mine

  Lost Love Found

  Wild Jasmine

  THE WORLD OF HETAR

  Lara

  A Distant Tomorrow

  The Twilight Lord

  Crown of Destiny

  The Sorceress of Belmair

  The Shadow Queen

  SKYE’S LEGACY SERIES

  Darling Jasmine

  Bedazzled

  Besieged

  Intrigued

  Just Beyond Tomorrow

  Vixens

  MORE BY BERTRICE SMALL

  The Kadin

  Love Wild and Fair

  Adora

  Unconquered

  Beloved

  Enchantress Mine

  Blaze Wyndham

  The Spitfire

  A Moment in Time

  To Love Again

  Love, Remember Me

  The Love Slave

  Hellion

  Betrayed

  Deceived

  The Innocent

  A Memory of Love

  The Duchess

  NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY

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  First published by New American Library,

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  First Printing, October 2011

  Copyright © Bertrice Small, 2011 All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Small, Bertrice.

  Bond of passion / Bertrice Small. p. cm.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-54495-2

  1. Clans—Scotland—Fiction. 2. Marriages of royalty and nobility—Fiction. 3. Mary, Queen of Scots, 1542–587—Fiction. 4. Kings and rulers—Succession—Fiction. I. Title. PS3569.M28B577 2011

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  Set in Goudy Old Style STD

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  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  For my cousin, Millie Warner, with love

  Prologue

  SCOTLAND, 1565

  “He’s a sorcerer!” the laird of Rath’s wife, Anne, gasped. “You cannot seriously be considering giving our daughter to a sorcerer, Robert. And I am told he holds with the old religion. He’s a Catholic. A papist! Only the Gordons and the barbaric Highland families hold to the old faith and refuse to see the error of their ways.” The expression on her lovely face was very concerned by her husband’s apparent decision.

  Robert Baird, laird of Rath, snorted impatiently. “If Angus Ferguson is a sorcerer, wife, then so am I. He’s no more a sorcerer than any. As for his faith, ’tis his, not mine. Did the queen not say we might all worship as we pleased?”

  “But even here in the eastern borders it is said the Fergusons of Duin practice—”
r />   The laird cut her short. “Said? Said by whom? The Earl of Duin is no sorcerer,” he told her firmly.

  “Then why does he allow such scandalous rumors to persist, Robert?” his wife wanted to know. “A man’s reputation is his most valuable possession.”

  “He’s a man who wants his privacy,” came the answer. “By allowing such myths about his family to be perpetuated among the ignorant, he achieves his purpose. This family of Duin is careful in its dealings, Anne. Have you ever heard of their being involved in any kind of disloyalty or treason? Nay! Not the Fergusons of Duin.”

  “You seem to know much of these people, although I do not,” his wife remarked.

  “I went to Bothwell,” Robert Baird said. “I know him to be friends with Angus Ferguson, for they studied together in France. Has James Hepburn not been attempting to broker the sale of the lands I inherited in the west with Angus Ferguson for the last few years? He has. And you know I would not sell that property to Angus Ferguson, for my kinsman from whom I inherited those lands feuded with the Fergusons. It somehow seemed disloyal to profit from my inheritance under the circumstances. But trust James Hepburn to come up with a perfect solution.”

  “So marrying our Annabella to Angus Ferguson was the Earl of Bothwell’s idea?” Lady Anne’s pretty mouth pursed disapprovingly. James Hepburn might be the keeper of the queen’s borders, and one of the most powerful men in Scotland, but she like others thought him a great womanizer. He had charm, though, she had to admit.

  “Of course it’s Bothwell’s idea,” Robert Baird said. “I wouldn’t have dared reach so high, Annie. We’re a wee clan with little to recommend us other than an old name.”

  “Why, Rob,” his wife replied, “the Bairds saved the life of King William the Lion, and were given great grants of land. It’s a good border name.”

  He laughed, patting her hand. “A few hundred years ago, Annie, and how many generations since, with the extensive lands being split this way and that? Nay, we’re simple folk, and I was fortunate to get you to wife, for you’re a Hamilton, a great name today here in the borders and in Scotland. I know Jamie Hepburn is a bit of a rogue, but he’s an honorable man, and a good friend.”

  “How can he be certain the Earl of Duin will take Annabella as a wife? They say he is wealthier than any man living, and the handsomest man in the borders to boot. Our eldest daughter is as plain as mud. Would not Myrna or Sorcha be a better choice?”

  “Myrna, Sorcha, and wee Agnes will have no difficulties finding husbands, for they are as beautiful as you are, my dear,” her husband said candidly. “’Tis our Annabella who faces an eternal maidenhood. Bothwell himself will speak with Duin. He will not dissemble the facts but be entirely truthful. He has told me that Angus Ferguson’s heart is not engaged elsewhere; nor is there any impediment to a marriage between him and Annabella. If he wants these lands that I hold in the west, then he will acquiesce to Bothwell’s proposal. I am told Angus Ferguson is in his middle thirties, and like any man with title and property will want an heir or two. At twenty our daughter is almost past her prime, but still young enough to give a husband bairns.”

  The possibility of her eldest daughter bearing a title, mothering a future earl of Duin, was beginning to seep into the lady Anne’s consciousness, along with the advantages such a marriage for Annabella would bring for her family. “If this comes to pass, the Melvilles will no longer be able to look slantwise at Myrna, for her connections will more than make up for her lack of a large dower portion, Rob. She will have Ian Melville and no other, she vows. She is more than ready for marriage, and should wed as soon as possible after Annabella.”

  “I don’t like Ian Melville,” the laird of Rath said, “but if she wants him I cannot deny her. The Melvilles are a good family, and stand high in Her Majesty’s favor.”

  “How soon will we know if the Earl of Duin will have Annabella?”

  “Within a few weeks,” Robert Baird answered his wife. “Bothwell has gone himself to suggest the match.”

  “Well, as long as he isn’t a sorcerer,” the lady Anne said, and her husband smiled.

  “May she be as happy as we have been all these years,” the laird said to his wife.

  The lady Anne nodded in agreement. “I pray it,” she replied.

  Chapter 1

  The Earl of Duin was the most powerful and the most feared man in the western borders. His power stemmed from his vast and seemingly unending wealth. The fear was born of the belief that the Fergusons of Duin descended from a race of sorcerers. Angus Ferguson did little to dissuade that conviction. His family was barely known beyond the scope of their lands, which suited the earl quite well. Great wealth had a tendency to attract envy, and envy invited trouble.

  At the age of sixteen Angus Ferguson had inherited Duin from his father. His mother had died several years prior. He had two legitimate siblings: a brother, James, and a sister, Mary. Both had sought lives in the Church. James actually had a calling. Angus saw him frequently and was proud to see him slowly working his way up the ladder of the Church hierarchy.

  Mary, however, had chosen to enter a cloistered convent. The dark reputation of their family weighed heavily upon her. They had never been able to convince her that the blood of their few ancestors known to have practiced magical arts was practically nonexistent in their veins now. Mary Ferguson felt it necessary for her family’s sake to expiate those supposed sins of long ago. He saw her rarely.

  At the age of eighteen Angus Ferguson had seen an opportunity to advance his family, and he had taken it. King James V had been defeated by the English forces in the Battle of Solway Moss four years earlier. It but echoed the time some thirty years prior when James’s own father had been killed fighting the English, and he had come to the throne a boy ruler. His two sons were now dead, and learning that his wife had delivered a daughter instead of the hoped-for male heir, James V fell into a deep depression, saying, “It cam wi’ a lass, and ’twill go wi’ a lass.” Then, turning his face to the wall, he spoke no more and died shortly afterward.

  His French queen, Marie de Guise, was furious at what she deemed her husband’s selfishness. A clever and personable woman, she had over the years of her marriage made the right allies from among the contentious Scots nobility, and she had Cardinal David Beaton on her side. She was popular with her subjects, and was able to protect her infant from those who wanted to control the little queen, and betroth her to King Henry VIII’s young son, Prince Edward. The English king hoped that with Mary as his son’s wife, and the baby in his custody, he would be able to annex Scotland to England.

  Marie de Guise did not want an English marriage for her daughter. She wanted a French marriage. To that end and after much negotiation the little queen was to be sent to France and betrothed to the French dauphin Francis. This would make Mary queen of both France and Scotland one day. Mary of Scotland’s safety was better guaranteed in France being raised with Francis. The French king, Henri II, agreed.

  It was at that point that Angus Ferguson saw his opportunity, and sought an audience with the dowager queen Marie. Riding north to Stirling in early March, he had the guarantee of a private audience with Marie from Patrick Hepburn, the third Earl of Bothwell, who had interceded with the dowager for him. He was to meet his contact, who would take him to the queen at an inn near Stirling called the Swan. When he entered the inn the innkeeper came forward to greet his guest.

  “Welcome, my lord. A room? A meal? A mug of fine ale?”

  “I’m to meet someone,” Angus Ferguson said, his dark green eyes scanning the room. “Someone from the castle,” he explained further, hoping the innkeeper would understand and be able to direct him.

  “Ah, ye’ll be wanting Mistress Melly, my lord,” the innkeeper replied.

  “Who is she?” the laird asked the innkeeper.

  “One of French Mary’s personal servants,” the innkeeper said. He pointed to a hooded figure seated in a dark corner. “She’s there, my lord.”
r />   The laird nodded. “Thank you,” he said, and made his way across the room to where the woman sat. “I am the laird of Duin,” he told her. “I believe you have been sent to bring me to my appointment, mistress.”

  The woman stood. She was small and sturdy. He couldn’t tell whether she was young or old, but two sharp eyes surveyed him. “Well,” she said in dour tones, “ye dinna look like a worthless rogue. Come along, then. We’ve a way to go.”

  “On foot?” He was surprised.

  “Aye. Leave yer beastie here, my lord.” She pulled her hood up and her cape tightly about her. Then she hurried across the room and out the door, the laird in her wake.

  Mistress Melly led Angus Ferguson down one street, and then another. She turned here, and turned again. He wondered whether he would ever find his way back to the Swan. Above the town the great castle on its massive rock loomed. It was obvious they were not going up to it. Finally they stopped before a house. The woman knocked and they were admitted. “Here he is,” Mistress Melly said to the young page who had opened the door.

  “If ye’ll follow me, my lord,” the lad said, leading him down a hallway and to a closed door. Knocking, he opened the door to usher the laird inside.

  Marie de Guise was standing, awaiting him. The laird of Duin bowed gracefully, and she was surprised. He was not at all like any border lord she had met previously, even her dearest Patrick Hepburn. They were mostly rough-hewn men in plain practical garments. This man was not only extraordinarily handsome, he was very fashionably garbed, his clothing styled in the latest French fashion. He towered over her, being at least three inches over six feet in height. He was clean shaven, his short hair black as a moonless night, his eyes the changing green of a shadowed forest glade. His carriage attested to his youth, but his face with its high cheekbones, long straight nose, and generous mouth was ageless.