A Love Concealed by Belle McInnes

Author:Belle McInnes [McInnes, Belle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eden Press

“Now!” cried John, and a wave of unrecognisable soldiers with black faces and flowing dark robes came screaming towards him, brandishing three-pronged spears.

They had almost reached the wooden walls of the makeshift tower John was standing on when Margaret, standing beside him and looking effortlessly regal, raised both arms. “Begone!” At the same time, John stooped and pretended to fire the cannon—brought specially from Edinburgh Castle—which sat beside them.

As if impaled on invisible pikes, the demons fell to the ground, and mostly lay still, apart from a few that groaned and writhed in fake death throes.

“Bravo!” Sebastian Pages walked towards them, clapping his hands as the fallen soldiers began to rouse. He raised a finger at John. “But next time without the stage directions?”

“Mayhap Duncan could hide on the knoll beside them, and tell them when to attack?”

“Oui, that could work.” Bastian stroked at his beard, then glanced up at the sun. “D’accord. We shall have one more rehearsal. After we have eaten something. The men will be hungry.”

Sitting on a convenient rock in the scrubby hillside before the castle, John took a bite from the meat pie a kitchen maid had delivered, and glanced sideways at Margaret. “You make a good queen.”

She laughed. “And you are every inch the descendant of Robert the Bruce.”

It was his turn to smile. “I have me some regrets that I ever told you that.”

Unbidden, a memory of their kiss at Craigmillar found its way into his brain, and he coughed into his hand to cover his discomfiture.

Margaret’s cheeks were flushed, and, for a second, he wondered if her mind had strayed in the same direction. But then he dismissed the thought as too fanciful.

With a gloved hand, she indicated the troops arrayed in front of them. “Do you think they are ready? And will they perform as well when they have an audience of nobles and royalty?”

“They have an audience already,” John said, pointing at the road leading to the town below the castle rock, where a number of interested townsfolk had been watching the morning’s goings-on. He frowned. “But where are the lords? I have seen no-one today.”

“Hunting,” Margaret replied succinctly. “You were still abed when they left this morning.”

“Ah.” John hung his head. After yet another disturbed night, Duncan had let him sleep on, and it had been some hours past dawn when he had finally risen.

“Did you wish to go with them? I am sure you could join them even now. They have gone to Saint Ninians, I believe.”

She had misinterpreted his upset, but he would not set her right. “’Tis naught. Hunting is not my favourite pastime.” He raised an eyebrow at her, making her laugh. “I prefer acting.”

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