The Devils Who Would Be King (Royal Pains Book 4) by Nina Mason

Author:Nina Mason [Mason, Nina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nina Mason Creations
Published: 2016-10-17T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

In the several days that followed, Robert continued to struggle with all the Lord, the Devil, and the King had heaped upon his plate.

The ships were heading toward Campbelltown on the east side of the peninsula at Cantyre, having set sail from Orkney the day before after much heated debate over the fates of their captured colleagues. In the end, Argyle agreed to leave the prisoners behind, but not before taking several hostages and killing a man.

Robert was just glad they were finally underway. The sooner they got on with it, the sooner he could return to his wife and son.

He’d taken to playing cards until late in the evening with Argyle and some of his closer associates in the hopes of learning something useful. The price he paid for this subterfuge was Argyle’s constant ribbing about Juliette.

“What’s wrong, Armstrong? Does your wife not want to share her bed with you, either?”

He deduced from these irksome jeers that the earl’s dogged attempts to seduce Juliette had so far come to naught. Robert almost wished she would acquiesce, for chastely lying beside her when he so desperately missed his wife was a nightly trial of Herculean proportions.

After cards, he would flog himself and say a rosary in the hopes Mother Mary might show herself again, either to rescind her prophecy or explain its meaning. So far, to his great vexation, she had stayed away.

At the card table, Robert learned Argyle’s plan was to send forth the fiery cross to summon all the Campbells to join under his standard before marching through the Lowlands, where the majority of Monmouth’s Scottish supporters resided.

Robert made no attempt to talk him out of his scheme, as it seemed sure to fail. The promise of a Protestant monarch might motivate some to fight, but no clansman with a lick of sense would risk his life to settle a personal score for a deposed laird with a price on his head, especially with the threat of harassment by Captain Claverhouse’s dragoons hanging over them.

The downside of Argyle’s plan was the delay. The sooner they reached the Lowlands, the sooner Robert might hire a courier to deliver his reports to King James. An army messenger seemed his best bet, if he could somehow make the arrangement without getting caught by either side.

Meanwhile, he kept his encrypted intelligences beneath a loose floorboard in his cabin, along with his rosary and flogger. If his stash were discovered, he would almost certainly be shot or strung up. Thus, he’d revealed his hiding place to no one, including Juliette. For, as the old proverb so wisely stated, two can only keep a secret if one of them is dead.

* * * *

Eleven days after the engraftment, Maggie found red spots across wee Jamie’s chest and stomach whilst changing his morning napkin. Though she had expected the bumps to appear sooner or later, she was nevertheless troubled by their appearance. Biting her lip, she felt his little forehead. He was warmer than usual, but not to a worrying degree, God be praised.

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