Chapter 2

It became a quiet, mutually accepted custom, these late-night meetings in the study. Though she and Bash had yet to act upon their yearnings for one another, Mary found herself impatient with the long days that seemed to drag on eternally before night and Francis' deep, blinding sleep again released her to the one pleasure she had in her otherwise strained life. She hated herself for deceiving Francis, but could do nothing to hold back from the magnetic draw that Bash had over her. It was a thrall, one she gladly submitted to against her worst self-criticisms.

She sat with her back against one of the soft, velvet-covered chairs, close by the warm fire that sent shadows flickering over Bash's thoughtful features as he regarded her. They'd spent hours talking quietly about life, dreams, family, hopes...but they hadn't really confronted the great obstacles that lay between them.

"You've been with her, haven't you?" Mary asked, unable to stem the tide of her curiosity a second longer. It was masochistic, this need she had to know all about his relationship with Kenna, when it was her fault it even existed.

Bash started and avoided her searching eyes, looking equally embarrassed and rueful. "Mary, I hardly know how to answer that..."

"With the truth," Mary demanded gently. "I know how utterly inappropriate it is of me to ask, but I must."

"Then, yes," Bash answered, "I have been with Kenna. We had been trying to make our marriage work, in earnest. I had no idea, certainly, that your feelings for me remained. I thought you and Francis had found a true love that eclipsed that which you and I shared during that short, precious bit of time we had together. Do you expect me to apologize?" As his honest, soft eyes bore into her, Mary's cheeks flushed. There were so many conflicting emotions in his gaze. Love. Resentment. Pride. Regret.

"Of course not," Mary answered him truly. "I see myself for the hypocrite that I am, believe me."

"Mary," Bash said, breaking in an impetuous instant the unspoken vow they'd forged not to cross any lines together physically. He took both her hands in his own and moved closer, dangerously close. "You're no hypocrite. Haven't you confessed to me your innermost secrets, despite all the reasons why you might have smothered those thoughts forever? I'm grateful. And you must know that I haven't been to bed with Kenna since I found out you still cared for me."

"Good heavens," Mary breathed, mortified. "I am not sure I wish to exude such power over another woman's marriage...her marriage bed...especially when it is my friend. We are surely mad."

"What alternative has life presented us?" Bash asked. Still, he did not rail against her for rejecting him and running back to Francis, the mistake that had damned them both. He was man enough to understand why her thoughts and instincts had seemed thoroughly honest at the time. How the churning storm of this crazed existence had hoodwinked her, concealing the depth of her love for Bash until she had married the wrong man and he the wrong woman. Then it was all so heart-wrenchingly clear.

"I'm afraid, Bash," she admitted, running her hand over his beautiful face, feeling the gentle friction of his light beard.

"The great Mary Stuart, afraid?" Bash murmured, enticing yet soothing. "I don't believe it."

"No one else in this world will ever hear me admit it," she told him intensely.

The barely-repressed passion between them blazed up uncontrollably then, as his lips captured hers in a kiss that soon unraveled from sweet and tentative to bold and demanding. In remembering the embraces they had shared in the past, Mary realized with shock how much they had always held back from each other for a myriad of reasons.

Their first kiss had been the most uncomplicated, strangely enough, because they didn't know they were falling in love until their lips had already met. Mary still waited much longer before she let herself understand that the love did exist. And she only allowed that once she learned that she would have to marry Bash to save Francis. On one level, she had assumed that perhaps God was letting her have what she truly wanted, that in his mercy he had shifted her destiny. Still, she'd fought to keep her feelings for Bash to an appropriately cautious level of affection. Even once they were engaged, she'd kept him somewhat at arm's length.

She thought that the moment she'd really fallen head over heels in love with Sebastian was when, as they witnessed the birth of the pagan child to that poor, doomed woman in the tent, his eyes had caught hers in acknowledgement of the beauty of new life coming into this world. Like the child, their love was born into a place that would fight against it with all it had. And yet his look had told her as clearly as words might have that he dreamed of one day having a family with her. That instead of thinking first of his country, of power, of might, of glory, he thought of her.

With that realization, she'd given herself permission to indulge in his tender assignations, kissing him sweetly but not giving into her inner urgency, the desire that tormented her so intricately. Now, upbraided past the point of further resistance, Mary opened her mouth and felt his hot tongue, let his hands move strong and insistent along her body, moaning as his kisses traveled down her neck and all along the low-cut opening of her nightgown.

"Bash," she whispered, pulling his shirt upwards with a fluid motion that seemed to momentarily astonish him.

"Mary," he breathed, pulling back ever so slightly as she admired his exposed body without hesitation. "We can't do this- not here-"

"Where can we go?" She asked, pulling him down to her, replacing his hands about her waist. She wrapped one of her legs around him and his breath caught. "We're trapped, you and I, thoroughly trapped. Where and when else might we even attempt to grasp at some piece of happiness together?" A tear slid down one of her cheeks and he brushed it away.

"I'm a terrible sinner," Mary said in a sudden sob, throwing her arms around him and hugging him tightly. "I can hardly believe my own actions. How little resistance I give to my darkest temptations."

"That's because you don't really feel our love is wrong," Bash suggested, stroking her hair.

"Perhaps not," Mary agreed. "But is it not wrong, deeply wrong, for us to cave so willingly to inclinations which are forbidden by our holy promises to others? To Francis, who loves me truly. To Kenna, who has come to depend on you more than any other, who has perhaps begun to feel more for you-"

"Than I can ever feel for her," Bash revealed. "I feel warmth for Kenna, and a desire to protect her from a world which has brought her much grief and abuse. Yet I cannot lie to myself about where my heart truly lies. I know that what we want will hurt these cherished others. Yet what can we do?"

"I don't know," Mary sighed, sitting up and laying her head against his chest. "I was hoping you knew."

Bash laughed ironically. "If only it were that easy."

"If only anything could be easy, just for one moment." Mary ran her hand through Bash's hair and pressed another kiss to his lips. "How grateful I would be."

"Perhaps you are right," Bash said then. "If we can only be together here, then each night we will be. I will do what you wish, Mary, and let my soul be damned for my infamy."

"I wish for you not to be killed as a result of my insolent disregard for propriety," Mary told him. "We must continue to think on this matter. Surely we are not doomed to remain ensnared in this predicament forever, imposing though its restraints seem now. In the meantime...I make for Scotland in three days. What if there were a way to allow you to accompany me?"

"Francis would laugh in our faces if we ever suggested such a thing," Bash pointed out.

"Well he might, and I hardly blame him for it," Mary confirmed. "Yet what if the idea came from Henry?"

"Tinkering with the mind of the King, when he is at his present low ebb of mental acuity and frequent tendency for violent outbursts, is a treacherous proposition," Bash said.

"Yet it is also a most advantageous opportunity," Mary posited.

"Mary," Bash's voice was caught halfway between excitement and worry. "Are we making plans to begin an affair?"

"God help me," Mary answered tremulously. "I believe we are."