King James sat alone in the royal solar staring blankly into the hearth fire, a silver cup of wine dangling from his fingers. He paid no heed to the music or merriment wafting upward from the Banqueting House below. His coronation had drawn every nobleman in England and Scotland to Whitehall Palace, as well as many Highland chiefs, all eager to pay their new king homage and kiss his royal arse. But none of them could be trusted. Indeed, it was more than likely that one or more of them were responsible for the tragedy that left him in his present condition, drunk and heartsick.

She was dead.

Soon after the ceremony proclaiming him king, word had come with Lord Dumfries that St. Christopher’s Abbey had been burned to the ground. No one was left alive.

Davina.

With no witnesses, it was impossible to know who had committed the terrible crime.

For over a se’nnight after the celebration had moved from Westminster to his new home at Whitehall, James had pretended good humor during the day. He’d greeted his guests, ate, drank, and smiled when the moment demanded it, but his thoughts were always on her. At night, like this one, he sat in his solar alone, too filled with grief and anger to feign anything else. Who was responsible for killing her? He racked his brain while he doused all his regrets with the finest wine in England. He had too many enemies to count, but none of them knew that Mary was not his firstborn.

Charles had known, of course. James had told his brother soon after Davina was born. At first, the previous king reviled the notion that his niece was being raised as a Catholic. But eventually, Charles stood by him, as he had done on so many other occasions, knowing his younger brother to be a rebel of sorts and a man of secrets. Indeed, James had wed Anne Hyde, a commoner, in secret. He had denounced Anglicanism and kept his conversion hidden for many years—a task he had hated, but one serving the throne. When Davina was born, he knew she would be raised in the Protestant faith, even against his wishes, so he removed her from court. An act of rebellion it might have been at first, but after years passed with Charles producing no legitimate children, and with opposition to the Catholic faith growing steadily, it became imperative to keep his firstborn hidden from the world.

The nuns of St. Christopher’s Abbey knew who she was, as did Captain Geoffries, and after him, Captain Asher and his men. His dear wife Anne had cried out for her daughter before she expelled her last breath. How many were in attendance at her deathbed? Mary and his youngest, Anne, had been there, along with the Bishop and Lords Covington and Allen of Parliament. Besides them, James had no idea who suspected that the child his wife wept for had not died at birth.

He took another swig from his cup, then let it drop to the floor. Little Davina. He had seen her only twice in her life after her birth, once when she was but two years of age, and then again when she was one and ten, a year after her mother left the earth. It was too dangerous to visit the Abbey, but he’d arranged for the Abbess to have his daughter brought out of doors while he and his troupe passed St. Christopher’s on their way to Edinburgh. James had wanted to bring her to Spain, or even France, where he’d spent many years before the Restoration, and where he had first been introduced to the Catholic faith. But Anne wanted to keep her close, so they kept her in Scotland, and left her in the care of nuns. Anne had never seen her daughter again.

Davina became another secret amid the many he had been forced to keep during his life. Now she was dead, and he grieved, not as a king whose hope in an heir to carry on his beliefs was lost, but as a father who never had the chance to know or love his daughter.

There came a knock at his door. He allowed entry and looked up as his young wife Mary entered the solar with three guards stationed around her.

“My lord.” She curtsied and bowed her head dutifully, the dark ringlets around her ears bobbing. “One of your captains has returned from Scotland and requests an audience with you.”

He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t tell anyone why he was here in his solar drinking his way into unconsciousness instead of enjoying the festivities in the Banqueting House.

Davina might as well have died at birth like the four other babes after her. Anne had wept that her stillborns were God’s punishment for what they had done. But his true firstborn hadn’t perished in the womb. He had seen her, so small, so innocent, smiling up at Captain Geoffries as if he was her father instead of the man trotting outside the gates of the Abbey with a boulder on his heart. Surely, God had not forgiven him, and never would.

“I don’t wish to see anyone. Send him away.” James waved his wife away with a heavy hand.

“Your daughters Mary and Anne inquire after you, as do their husbands.” She broke away from her guards and rushed forward, falling on her knees when she reached him. “I pray you come to the Banqueting House, lest they see your absence as a sign of fear of your enemies.”

Ah, yes, William of Orange, his son-in-law, who had done everything in his power to stop him from succeeding to the throne. Now there was a man capable of murder. Unlike James’s other nephew and archenemy, James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, who opposed James’s ascension openly, William smiled while he plunged his dagger, denying, even as one bled, that the weapon was his.

“Husband.” Mary squeezed his hand when he closed his eyes, too weary to think on the rest of his enemies. “Whatever is troubling you, you must put it aside. You are the king and you have many supporters. I am one of them.”

James looked into her dark, imploring eyes. He never thought he could care for a woman the way he had for his beloved Anne, but Mary of Modena had proved him wrong. It had taken her some years to adapt to her significantly older husband, but he believed she cared for him. She was dutiful and quiet in audience, but at night she shared with him, not only her body, but her thoughts and opinions. What would she think of him if she knew he had abandoned his daughter?

“There are things I would tell you, wife.”

“Later.” She patted his hand and then kissed it. “First, speak to this captain. He says the matter is an urgent one. After that, come sit by my side and still the tongues that flap against you.”

He smiled at her faith in him, her strength. Anne would have liked her. “Very well, show him in and then inform my guests that I will join them shortly.”

He watched her leave, the three guards following close behind. When the door closed again, he shut his eyes and saw his daughter’s face. She’d been cherubic at two, with plump, pink cheeks, hair the palest shade of yellow, and eyes as big and as blue as the heavens. When he saw her again nine years later, it was from a distance; but his gaze soaked in every detail of her form, the way she moved across the courtyard on her way to the church, and how she paused ever so briefly and looked out beyond the gates as if she could sense him there.

He’d taken every precaution. He thought no one knew of her and still he’d sent an army to protect her should his enemies ever discover his secret. But it hadn’t been enough.

A knock at the door shattered the image of her face. James allowed entry and briefly looked up as two men entered the solar. One of them he recognized as Captain Connor Grant, the High Admiral Stuart’s nephew. Grant’s companion, a younger man garbed in Highland fashion, set his bold gaze on him, and then on the cup discarded close by.

“Yer Majesty,” said Grant, dropping to one knee. His companion remained standing.

“What are you called, young man?” James asked, genuinely amused for the first time in a fortnight. Now here was something out of the ordinary. He didn’t know whether to scowl at his audacious guest, or smile at him.

“I am Colin MacGregor, Yer Majesty.”

“MacGregor…” Yes, he should have guessed it, the king thought to himself, sizing the lad up from the tips of his muddy boots, to his eyes, lit from within with quiet confidence. “Are you from Rannoch?”

The lad shook his head. “Skye,” he said, glancing around the solar. He didn’t look overly impressed with the finery surrounding him, but rather surprised to find the king alone.

“Ah, your Chief is among my guests.”

“Aye, he is my faither.”

The pride in his voice pleased James. He had met the infamous Devil MacGregor and his family after the ceremony and had invited them to Whitehall. The chief was a man James wanted on his side. A bit secretive himself, MacGregor disclosed to no one exactly where on Skye he lived. Oh, it would have been simple enough to find out, for James’s cousin Claire lived among them, wed—by Charles’s approval when he was alive—to Connor Grant’s father. But James did not ask. As long as the MacGregors never came against the realm again, he would let them have their secrets. Some men needed them. “Why did you not arrive with him?”

“That is what I’ve come to speak with ye about, sire,” Captain Grant said, rising from his knee. He gave the Highlander a hard look for his lack of submission before he turned his attention to the king.

“Yes, yes, sit.” James offered. “What is this urgent news you have for me?”

“’Tis about the attack on St. Christopher’s Abbey.”

James’s heart halted in his chest. It took every ounce of will he possessed to remain in his chair and to keep his voice steady when he asked the captain what he knew about it.

“I know who is responsible fer it.”

“Who?” James asked hollowly. His beringed fingers clutched the armrests until his knuckles grew white. At last… at last, a name…

“Admiral Peter Gilles, sire. The Duke of Monmouth’s right-hand man.”

Now the king sprang to his feet. The murderous rage that had been eating away at him night after night had finally found direction. “If what you say is true, they will both die beneath the Wheel. What proof do you have of your accusation?”

Grant looked down at his hands. When he spoke, his voice was low and strained with reluctance. “Colin was there when it happened.”

James turned to the young Highlander, unable to keep the question or the familiar sorrow from his eyes. Had he seen her? Had he seen his child die? “Tell me everything, MacGregor. Leave nothing out.”

He listened while Colin told him why he and his brother had gone to St. Christopher’s and what they saw when they arrived: The Abbey engulfed in flames, a scant number of his English soldiers engaged in battle with the Dutch. Colin’s eldest brother and two of his companions had charged forward on the side of the English but were fortunate to escape with their lives. His brother was wounded by an arrow and decided to return home rather than proceed on to England. “We met up with Captain Grant in Inverary and told him what had happened at the Abbey.”

“And Gilles? Was he killed?”

“He was no’ there,” MacGregor told him, his gaze sharp, his voice steady. “Before he died, one of yer men told my brother who commanded the slaughter.”

“Sire”—Captain Grant dragged the king’s attention away from the messenger’s—“the Duke of Monmouth is guilty of killing yer men, my brothers at arms. I don’t know if the Earl of Argyll is also involved, but I would remind ye that my uncle has misgivings about William of Orange, and did share them with the late King Charles.”

“Yes, I know. Connor Stuart was my brother’s closest ally, and has since become mine. He is loyal to his family to a fault. He will be pleased when I tell him of your great service to the throne. As for William, I am well aware of his position in regard to a Catholic monarchy, but I cannot move against him until I have proof of his treason.”

The captain nodded and James moved toward the door. “Now, if there is nothing else, I would like a few moments alone to think on what you have told me before I return to my guests.” He waited while Grant bowed to him again and left the solar with his young companion following behind.

“MacGregor.” The king stopped him at the entrance. “A word before you go.” He ushered the young man back inside and closed the door behind him. “Tell me, did you see… a woman… a novice…” Ah God, he hadn’t spoken of her to anyone since Anne died. But what did it matter now who knew? If Colin MacGregor had seen Davina before she died, James had to know. He had to know for certain that his daughter was truly dead. “She would have had…” He paused again, fighting to keep his emotions in check. “… hair like the sun and eyes like the sky.”

Something… something registered in the boy’s eyes, pity, perhaps, or melancholic curiosity. Whatever it was disappeared an instant later. “There were nae survivors.”

“A body then?” the king pressed, blocking the door when his guest reached for it. “One matching her description perhaps? I must know.”

“Why?

James stepped back, unaccustomed to such boldness… and to being studied so intently. The boy had a stoic face and nerves of steel, but the flare of fire in his eyes belied his calm outward appearance.

“’Tis no’ with disrespect that I speak,” the young Highlander said. “Fer I dinna’ know ye yet, but why do ye care so much aboot a novice ye never knew?”

James squared his shoulders, ready to remind this whelp who he was speaking to and what could befall him if the king so ordered it. But he found that when he opened his mouth he had no stomach for self-aggrandizement.

“Because she was my daughter,” he finally admitted, though it didn’t make him feel any better, “and I sacrificed her for my faith.” He laughed at himself but there was no mirth in the sound. “I don’t know why I’m telling you.” He shrugged his heavy shoulders and stepped away from the door. “It does not matter anymore.” He went back to his chair and dropped into it.

“Is she the reason ye are in here alone, so drunk that ye canna’ hold yer own cup?”

James looked up from beneath his hand. He could not help but like this boy’s candor when so many around him offered him false reverence. “You are either very courageous, or extremely foolish.”

“Both, sire,” Colin said and flashed him a confident grin. “I am extremely courageous.” Without invitation, he took the chair Connor had been sitting in a few moments ago. “I have been told that ye possess the same quality.”

“And who has told you this? Your father?”

“Nae, someone who has come to mean a great deal to me. This person told me that ye’ve sacrificed much fer yer Catholic faith, even denouncing yer position as Lord High Admiral. D’ye regret it all then because ye lost yer daughter fer it? Would ye give up yer faith now, or ask others to do so?”

“No, never. My faith is all I have left.”

The boy smiled, looking more like his father than James first realized. He rose from his seat and crossed the room to the door. When he reached it, he paused and turned to look at James one more time.

“Abraham sacrificed his child fer his faith.”

James nodded and turned his somber gaze to the hearth fire. “But God let Isaac live.”

“Aye, He did,” the boy said and left the solar.