Page 36 of The Changeling

I nestled closer.

‘Caiti,’ he said huskily, his breath warm against my skin. I looked up, and he kissed me. The ground seemed to tilt. I had to cling to him to stop from falling. It seemed he too was unsteady on his feet, for he pressed me against the hawthorn tree. As my lips parted, his tongue found mine. I had not known kissing was like that. Nothing left of the world, but him.

We broke apart, gasping for breath. I swayed, dizzy and unmoored.

‘Stop! Robbie, we must stop.’

He did not listen, seeking my mouth again.

‘Robbie, stop. We canna do this.’

He lifted his mouth away, but his hold on me was fierce and close. ‘Caiti, please … I just want …’

‘I ken what you want.’ I clung to the hawthorn tree, feeling its strength steady me. ‘But I have no’ seen you in three years. I’ve changed, everything has changed.’

‘What happened? Why did you leave Monzie? Sorcha said …’

My pulse leapt. ‘You saw Sorcha? What did she say?’

‘That you had gone to seek your fortune.’

‘That’s all?’

He nodded.

‘Well, I suppose you could say I have found it, here at Holyrood. I am the queen’s privy cook. Everywhere she goes, there go I.’

‘The queen’s privy cook? But … how? And why did you run away?’

I could not tell him the truth. But I could not lie to him either. ‘I … I discovered I’m a foundling child. Mam is no’ my real mother, Sorcha is no’ my real sister.’ Unexpectedly my throat closed up, I had to swallow down tears.

‘You are adopted? And you never knew?’

I shook my head.

‘Oh, Caiti, I’m sorry. That must be hard. Did you come in search of your real parents? Do you know who they are?’

Again, I shook my head.

‘There are no clues?’

‘I was abandoned. Left with naught.’ I thought of the nettle string in my pocket, the twist of it that now fluttered in the tree branches above his head. Had I conjured him out of the mist? For when I had spoken of my true love, I had thought of him, the boy I had secretly loved for so long.

‘I suppose it explains how different you are from Sorcha,’ he began.

‘Where did you go?’ I interrupted. ‘You just left, without a word.’

‘I wrote you a note, and gave it to Margrit to give to you. Did you not get it?’ He saw my face. ‘I’m sorry. Margrit is a cold, proud girl. I suppose she thought … Rory and I were sent to Whorlton Castle in Yorkshire, to serve the earl of Lennox and his son. When the earl returned to Edinburgh, we rode with him. He has been here a week or more. Rory and I went home, to see Mama and our sisters.’ He hesitated, then said in a low husky voice, drawing me closer, into the warm shelter of his arms, ‘and you, Caiti.’

‘Why?’ I asked sharply. ‘Three years since you last saw me, three years without so much as a word. You ken your father dismissed me? Just because …’ I faltered.

‘Because you kissed me. And just now you kissed me again.’ His eyes were intent on my mouth, his hands sliding about my waist, drawing me up hard against him.

‘I shouldna have. No’ then and no’ now. You ken your father will never permit you to marry me. So am I to lie with you, unwed?’

Colour surged up his face. He let me go and turned away, struggling to master himself. I almost reached out to him, almost took his hand and stood on tiptoe so I could kiss him again. I had thought of him, wished for him, and he had walked towards me out of the mist. It’s a sign, I thought. He is meant for me.

But I could not walk in the abbey without remembering the wisp of soul of a murdered babe, the desperate young woman who had drowned her child in a rain barrel and been hanged at the Mercat Cross.