eat when I feel like it.”
“Tell me that you’ll sit down to a meal three times a day.”
She hesitated and then realized how foolish it was to resist. He had her interests at heart. Slowly, she nodded. “I promise.”
Having won the match, he decided to press his advantage. “No sweets, Jeannie. Give me your word that you won’t touch the sweetmeats.”
“I’m not a child, John,” she reminded him haughtily.
He smiled tenderly. “No, you are not. Kiss me good-bye, love. With luck, I’ll see you within a fortnight.”
It was the hardest thing she had ever done to watch him ride away. He was a wonderful horseman. From her room, she could see him stop at the Bear Gates and rein in his mount. Tears burned her eyes as he lifted his arm in farewell. He couldn’t possibly see her, but he would know that her eyes were upon him until the last possible moment when he and his company of men disappeared into the distance. His horse reared and danced back on two legs. She saw his brilliant smile flash before he turned south toward the Cheviot Hills and Jamie’s army. Jeanne’s throat tightened. She knew deep in her bones that it was the last time she would watch him ride out from the gates of Traquair House.
With cold-numbed fingers, she dressed quickly, struggling to pull the tunic over her bulging stomach. Cursing under her breath, she threw the garment aside and pulled on the high-waisted gown and woolen stockings. Summer had lingered on through early September, warming the rolling border hills and farmlands to a comfortable temperature. But where Jeanne planned to go, beneath the ground into the dank cellars of Traquair House, down treacherous steps and thick, dripping walls, it was cold as the depths of winter. She plaited her hair, tying it off with a velvet ribbon, and pulled on her boots. Her ermine-lined cloak, a present from John, hung in the press. Slipping it over her gown, she picked up a candle and tinder box and hurried down the hall to the landing.
No one was about. She descended the stairs and pushed open the door to the wine cellar. Ice-cold air stung her face and burned her lungs. Clutching her cloak tightly around her, she made her way down the stone steps. The hall twisted and grew narrow. Jeanne stopped to light her candle and look around. She frowned. This hallway was lighter in color and wider than the one in her dream. Perhaps she had mistaken the direction and there was another way to the room she had seen. Another few steps and she would turn around. The candle flickered as she continued down the stairs. The air was cloying and stale, but that was all. There was no evidence of the strange light or the ghostly presence Jeanne had seen in her dream.
Where was the passageway? Frustrated, she stopped and thought. If anyone knew every corner of every room, every secret panel and tunnel, every escape hatch in this house, she did. Twenty-five years ago Flora had given birth to her upstairs in the laird’s bedroom Jeanne now occupied with John. Traquair House had always been her home. There must be something she had overlooked. She clasped her hands together until her knuckles showed white beneath her skin. Time was running out. There was no explanation for how she could know such a thing, but she did. From the time she was a child, Jeanne knew she had been given the gift of the sight. Only Grania had understood, and she was dead, killed along with Isobel, by order of the king.
Wearily, Jeanne turned back and climbed the stairs. There were moments, they came more frequently now, when nothing mattered at all, when she considered allowing destiny to take its own course with no help from her. It would be so easy, she thought, to lay down the burden of the stone, of Scotland’s destiny, and the future of the Maxwells, to close her eyes and sleep forever. Her daughter, her beloved Isobel, was dead, and if her instincts proved true, her husband would not survive Jamie’s battle.
She paused at the door of the nursery. Andrew would be awake by now. He never slept past the first light of morning. She paused before opening the door. Did she have the strength to see her son? She was exhausted. The bairn affected her strangely. While carrying Andrew and Isobel, she had never felt so tired.
Before she