The Virgin's War (Tudor Legacy #3)(57)

“Word from Carlisle. The garrison received a message from Lord Maxwell, in the Scots West March, about an unexpected landing at Dumbarton.”

“Who?” the queen barked.

“Against all odds and expectations, Mary Stuart has landed in Scotland.”





Maisie received the first notice of disaster three days before departing Dublin. Long accustomed to keeping her own counsel, she swallowed against the shock of the letter from Edinburgh and awaited further news. It came swiftly—by the time they boarded ship she had received eight letters in all. Each, unfortunately, elaborating on the same theme.

In your absence, your brother Robert is making a serious play for the Sinclair Company.



It wasn’t that she was shocked by Robert’s attempt. But she had never dreamed that he might be successful. How easily he would be able to subvert men who she believed trusted her. It seemed her sex was a bigger obstacle than she’d feared. Success wasn’t enough. She would always be second choice because she was female.

Andrew Boyd was still on her side. Several of the warning letters had come from him. And three other members of the board still held with Boyd. If her brother had been the extent of the threat, Maisie would have been confident in her ability to handle it. But Robert, either with shrewd advice or through his own cunning, had gone to the king.

Maisie cursed colourfully when she received that news—a string of dockside words that would have confirmed the bad opinion of many about women who meddled in business. Because King James, from an excess of caution as well as an inborn distrust of ambitious women, had sided with Robert.

No matter what the king thought, however, he could not simply hand over the company to Robert or override the decisions of the company’s board. But he could—and apparently had—put pressure on the board. Robert had not argued directly for her removal. Rather, he had pointed out her youth, her innate fragility as a female, her susceptibility to sentiment, the fact that—at only nineteen—surely she would marry again. Which meant unscrupulous men wishing to marry her simply to get their hands on the Sinclair Company.

Would it not be wise, Robert had proposed to the king, to require her to marry before she could wield such control? That would allow the board to consider her future husband as a critical factor in determining her leadership. And so the king had decreed: if Maisie Sinclair wished to be considered a fit leader, she must marry.

Robert did not expect her to, of course. He knew her stubbornness enough to guess that she would rather keep her pride and abandon both their grandfather’s company and, perhaps, Scotland. And so she would have to do. If the king could not be brought to change his mind—and Boyd wrote that he did not consider it likely at this point—what choice would Maisie have but to leave before she could be thrown out?

But she did not want to leave Scotland. She could take the mercenaries, they belonged entirely to her—but their commander? Stephen was needed where war was most likely to break out. Without her, surely he would return to England and take up the place the queen wished for him.

Maisie would have preferred to remain on deck in the open air as they sailed out of Dublin into the Irish Sea, but late November was not kind. Though the winds were favorable, there were bursts of sleet and the deck was slippery underfoot. So she sat in her tiny cabin and pondered what she would do when they landed.

A knock sounded and she sighed. “Come in,” she called.

“What’s wrong?” Stephen asked straight out.

“What makes you think something is wrong?”

He stared for a moment, then abruptly sat down next to her on the edge of the narrow bed. For all her vaunted self-possession, Maisie found it difficult to be in such close quarters. Stephen’s hand came up to her face, and she waited dizzily for him to touch her. But he didn’t, quite. Instead, he sketched the air above her cheek. “When you are angry, your eyes become the grey of the North Sea in storm.”

She handed him the latest letter from Andrew Boyd wordlessly, and waited for him to read it. She knew every word by heart.

King James commands your presence at court as soon as you reach Edinburgh. He will tell you that you are temporarily suspended from the Sinclair board, subject to making a respectable marriage. I’m sorry, lass. I do not think he will be moved from this point.



Bless him, Stephen did not waste time in outrage or surprise. “I can think of three responses,” he said.

“First?”

“I march your mercenaries into Edinburgh and persuade the king to change his mind.”

Despite herself, Maisie grinned. “Tempting but impractical. Unless you are looking to be banished from every European nation one after the other. Second?”

“I march your mercenaries against Robert and persuade him to renounce his claims and banish himself from Scotland.”

“Persuade?”

“Perhaps with a shade more violence behind it.” He said it with a disconcerting relish.

“And third?”

“You comply.”

Maisie’s eyebrows shot up so far she could almost feel them against her hairline. “By marrying some greedy stranger the king or my brother proposes?”

“By marrying me.”

The silence was tangible, and Maisie felt as though something heavy had landed on her chest. She could hardly draw breath to speak.