The Border Vixen Read Online Free PDF

soft flesh absently.
    “Ye need to send someone ye can trust into the border to learn more about it before ye decide. Ye canna take that man’s word for anything, I am thinking,” she said.
    He nodded. “Aye, but whom shall I send?”
    Janet Munro thought for a long moment. Then she said, “What about yer cousin, Lord Fingal Stewart?”
    “Do I know him?” the king asked. He didn’t think he knew a Fingal Stewart.
    “Nay, ye do not. Like ye, he descends from King Robert the Third through his elder son, David, whose bairn was born after that prince was killed and was protected by his mother’s Drummond kin. He was one of the first who swore loyalty to James the First when he returned from his exile. James the First gave his nephew a house in Edinburgh. The family are called the Stewarts of Torra because their house is near the castle beneath the castle rock. They have always been loyal without question, to James the Second and Third, and then to yer father, James the Fourth.”
    “How do ye know all of this?” the king asked his mistress.
    She laughed. “Fingal’s grandmam was a Munro. We’re cousins. He’s a good man, my lord. Honest and loyal to the bone. Tell him what ye want of him, and he will do it without question.” She gave him a quick kiss on his lips.
    The king withdrew his hand from Janet Munro’s bodice and gently tipped her from his lap. “Send to yer cousin,” he said. “I am interested to meet this relation I never knew I had. If this Aisir nam Breug is all Ewan Hay claims it is, we cannot have it fall into the wrong hands.” And it will provide me with a new source of income , he thought to himself. A king could never have too much coin in his treasury.
    Janet Munro curtsied, her claret red velvet skirts spreading out around her as she did. “Aye, my lord, I will do yer bidding,” she said. And then she left him.

Chapter 2

    I n the company of six of the king’s men-at-arms Janet rode to Edinburgh, going to the stone house with the slate roof that sat off the street known as the Royal Mile, below the walls of Edinburgh Castle. She had sent a messenger ahead, and Fingal Stewart was waiting for her. His serving man ushered her into a small book-filled chamber.
    “I bring you greetings from yer cousin, the king,” Janet said, kissing his cheek.
    “I wasn’t aware my cousin , the king, was even mindful of my existence,” Fingal Stewart said wryly. “And what, pray, my pretty, does he want of me? Sit down, Jan.”
    “Today a border clansman came to him with an interesting tale,” Janet Munro began, seating herself as she spread her skirts about her. Then she went on to tell Fingal Stewart of Ewan Hay’s visit. When she had finished she said, “Neither Jamie nor I liked the fellow. He isn’t telling the whole story. It’s obvious the fool hopes the king will gift him with this old laird’s holding because this pass is said to be valuable.”
    “And the heiress,” Fingal Stewart murmured. Land and a woman, he considered, were always the makings of a volatile situation. There would be wealth to be gained by whoever got the lass.
    “Nay! He said he didn’t want the girl. He claimed she had refused his suit,” Janet Munro replied. “I think he lies. He wants the lass.”
    “But his true interest lies in this Aisir nam Breug,” Fingal Stewart said slowly. “He would get the king to disinherit the lass who turned him away for his own benefit. A prince of a fellow indeed. But what has this to do with me?”
    Janet shook her head. “I’m not sure, Fingal, but I believe the king would have you go into the border to reconnoiter the situation and bring him back the truth of the matter.”
    “Why me?” Fingal Stewart was curious. Although he was Lord Stewart of Torra, he was but distantly related to the king. They had shared a thrice-great-grandfather, and the royal Stewarts had rewarded their small loyalty when James I came to the throne with their name, a title, and this