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said.
    “Good. Then we are agreed, and you will serve me without question, eh?”
    “Yes, my lady.”
    “Go about your duties, then,” Rosamund instructed her servant, and she sat down upon the bed while Annie built the fire back up and began to heat the water for her ablutions.
    What a night it had been! She had been at court only a short time, yet now, as the day of Christ’s Eve dawned, she was filled with a joy such as she had never known. She knew not where this was all leading, but she realized, to her surprise, that she had no fears in the matter. She was truly, deeply in love for the first time in all of her twenty-two years. She would follow where the road led, and when it ended . . . well, she would worry about that when it happened. For now she meant to live for the moment, and the moment was Patrick Leslie, Earl of Glenkirk.

Chapter 2

    K ing James looked closely at his old friend the Earl of Glenkirk. “By the rood, Patrick, if I did not know better I would say you were in love!” he exclaimed.
    Patrick smiled. “Why do you think it impossible for me to be in love, Jamie?” he inquired of the king. “Am I not a man like any other?”
    “A man, aye, but like any other? Nay, Patrick, you are not. You were my ambassador to San Lorenzo. It was an important assignment for an unimportant Highland laird. I created you an earl to honor San Lorenzo’s duke. And you served me well until the tragedy of your daughter, Janet. Then, without even waiting for my permission, you packed up your family and returned home. You stopped at court only long enough to give me your report, and then you disappeared into your Highland eyrie for the next eighteen years. You would still be there had I not called you back to me. I do not know of any other man so loyal to my crown who would do that, Patrick. You were ever my friend, even from the very beginning, unlike some whom I must smile at, praise, and bestow honors upon. You do not dissemble. Your word is your bond. I can trust you.”
    “So you said when you asked me to go to San Lorenzo,” the earl replied dryly. “And suddenly you have called me back to your side, Jamie. Why?”
    “First you must tell me who the lady is, Patrick,” the king teased his old friend.
    The earl smiled. “A gentleman does not gossip like a cotter’s wife,” he said. “I know you possess a good soul of patience, Jamie. I will tell you in time, but not now.”
    The king grinned. “Ahh, then it is love,” he chortled. “I shall be watching you, my lord of Glenkirk.” Then he grew serious again. “Patrick, I need you to return to San Lorenzo for me.”
    “You have a competent ambassador there,” the earl responded.
    “Aye, Ian McDuff is indeed competent, but he is not the diplomat that you were, Patrick. And I very much need a diplomat. You know that the pope is forming what he refers to as the Holy League. He wishes the French out of the northern Italian states, and he cannot do it himself. So he is declaring a righteous war against them, inviting others to join in his cause with promise of eternal salvation, among other rewards. My bombastic young brother-in-law, Henry of England, is his loudest supporter. I am invited to join them, but I cannot. Will not. This aggression is wrong, Patrick!”
    “And the French are our auld alliance. You are an honorable man, Jamie, and I know that you would not turn upon a friend without good reason. And there is no good reason, is there?”
    “Only Henry Tudor’s intense desire to please the pope in order to gain more power than England now has,” James Stewart replied. “Spain, of course, joins the pope and England. Venice and the Holy Roman Empire have joined, as well, but before it goes any farther, I would make an attempt to stop them. I must do it in secret and in a place no one would suspect if they knew of my plans. I do not want the most powerful of the Christian states fighting with one another when we should be mounting a crusade