Chapter 4

As soon as she saw Francis after returning to the French court, Mary knew that he knew. His hurt, angry expression caused her to flinch inwardly as she swallowed back the fear of dealing with him until they could be alone.

Once in their chambers, Francis turned on her, his eyes flashing with accusation. "How long have you been involved with my brother?" She knew he had simply sensed the truth upon her return, and that she had been wrong to think she could ever conceal it from him.

"Francis," Mary got out, fighting back a sob, fraught with regret for the pain she was causing her husband, though unable to regret loving Bash. "I am so terribly sorry."

"In addition to tossing my heart aside like a cheap toy," Francis accused bitterly, "you've also put yourself in grave danger. I'm not so blinded by hurt feelings and crushed pride that I won't try to protect you from my parents. We must ensure that they never know of your betrayal."

"Francis, you can't intend to remain married to me after this," Mary said in surprise, sitting down on the bed and trying to collect herself despite the nerves that knotted themselves in her stomach. "I've been unfaithful, yes, but this reflects a far deeper problem between us."

"I understand all of that!" Francis admitted fiercely, sitting beside her but at a distance. Then his tone softened. "Mary, I've long wished to deny to myself that you love Bash. In truth, I'm almost equally to blame for your indiscretions. In my urgency to gain your heart and secure it in marriage, I rushed right past your real feelings and coerced you by various means I thought were perfectly right. We both fooled ourselves into thinking that a match arranged by divine destiny meant anything in the real world."

"You knew I was in love with Bash?" Mary asked, disbelieving. "Since when?"

"Since I caught the two of you kissing outside the castle that day, not long after you met us again after so many years away. I could see it in both of you after that, constantly, this natural draw between you and Bash that I refused to accept. I hated my brother for capturing your affections so easily as I continually struggled to gain your trust. I knew my only real hold on you was through the sincerity of our friendship and the idealization of our bond that had been imposed upon both of our minds from our earliest memories." Francis ran a hand through his hair and dropped it to his lap, frustrated and despairing.

"Francis, I had no idea. It was never my desire to hurt you."

"I know that, Mary. Don't you think I know all about it? My brother excepted, who in this world knows you better than I do? That's why I love you still. No one could know your utter goodness, despite all of your actions that seem to fly in the face of it, without loving you. The only way that I can protect you now is to maintain our marriage and hope we can produce an heir to secure it, even if the child is…not my own." These last words choked his voice slightly.

"God, how I wish I had simply allowed you to follow your heart's path instead of running back to court when the prophecy was dispelled, eager to claim you once more and throw Bash to the wolves in the bargain," Francis continued. "But I haven't been able to hate my brother for some time now. I let go of the feeling once I saw the ruthless way my father wrecked his life afterwards, and try as I might, even now I cannot revive the feeling. No one deserved to be tortured as he was by the King, and that made me understand the depth of my own affection for Bash despite everything. He is my brother, you are my wife, and we are in a mess."

"Francis, it was within my power as well to confess my true inclinations before we were wed, and prevent this—" she flung her hand out uselessly, searching for a word. "chaos," she finished. "The artificial structures of this royal life we live has distorted my vision so thoroughly that I couldn't recognize my love for Bash until it was already too late to be with him honorably."

"Yes, that has been our downfall," Francis confirmed, turning his eyes to her in resignation. "We are now trapped."

Mary hated the sound of that word, "trapped," a word she herself had previously applied to the marriage. It was awful and crushing. Francis did love her, more than she deserved, but Mary knew that their romance had never possessed the fire they wished it had, that spark they had strived in vain to call forth in their union. With another woman more suited to him, Francis could love again and find true happiness. It meant she would never rule France with him, but any compromise would be better than living a lie. She only wished that she could concoct a solution to the other problem: Kenna's feelings for Bash. The idea of seeing her friend's heart wounded was a dreadful and haunting one.

"I think we must ask for an annulment," Mary announced, confidence creeping back into her voice in bits and pieces. "We must end this marriage. I will return to Scotland and take my place as Queen there. You will find another wife, one far more worthy of your devotion than I ever could be."

Francis chuckled darkly. "Mary, you cannot be serious. Even if we were able to obtain an annulment from Rome—"

"We can use my inability to become pregnant as a reason!" Mary suggested, excited to hit upon this line of reasoning. "If I cannot give you heirs, I have forfeited my right to be your wife."

"That is ridiculous," Francis remarked, "though it does have the frenzied genius of true commitment to this plan that makes me think you might prevail after all. Even then, you must know that my father or my mother, or both, would surely have Bash killed, and possibly you as well."

"We must do all of this secretly, and not allow them to know until it is all over," Mary suggested. "And we should find you a new prospect for marriage as soon as possible, to lesson their rage once they learn."

"Mary, it may take me years to find a woman I can esteem enough to wed. Not every well-born woman is…well, you." But Francis did not have years to establish a wife and begin having children to make his own future Kingship secure, and they both knew it. The pressure on them to have a child themselves was already considerable. He would be expected to accomplish the task as swiftly as possible.

"Even if you do not eventually marry this new fiancee, at least she can live at court, as I did, and that will keep up appearances, giving you some time to move on." Mary nodded to herself, increasingly sure of this plan as she continued to pile on details.

"No one can deny that you are an expert schemer, and truth be told, I would not mind finding a second bride with a bit less of that propensity," Francis stated bluntly. "But Mary, my mother at the very least would not ever forgive you. She would send assassin after assassin to Scotland until you and Bash were both paid in full for your infamy."

Francis did indeed feel that she was an infamous woman, Mary could tell. His capacity for mercy and recognizing his own part in their dilemma was not endless, impressive as it was. She was, after all, an adulteress. Mary shuddered again at being forced to look at herself from the outside, where the purity of her love for Bash was invisible and the social stigma blazed accusatorially.

"She will do no such thing," Mary predicted, resuming the conversation after this harsh reflection, "because she never liked me and it won't be as hard for her to let me go as you think."

"My mother will never allow you to humiliate me and get away with it. You can't think she will actually go along with this saga of your infertility being the reason for our annulment." Francis' face displayed his belief that Catherine would easily determine the truth despite all their best efforts.

"She very well could," Mary argued, "if we go about it in the right way. She won't want you to have a childless marriage, certainly, and if we find you a new fiancee who perfectly suits her taste, well, we have a real chance. Remember, anyone who is not me will automatically have a certain charm in her eyes. Why don't you leave it up to me?"

"Alright," Francis sighed reluctantly. "We can try to set this plan in motion, cautiously. In the meantime, you had best go and tell Bash about our intentions on the matter. But for goodness sake, Mary, you two cannot be together here in the castle. If you were to be caught, I might be able to save you, but there would be no hope for Bash."

Mary nodded her agreement and went to find Bash, ironically taking advantage of the guards all assuming she entered his chambers to converse with Kenna. Again, the thought of her friend's predicament and her own role in it cut her inwardly, but she could see no alternative path. Surely Kenna also did not deserve to go on falling in love with a husband whose own heart yearned for another. "A mess," Francis had called their ordeal. The term seemed weak indeed when Mary considered the enormity of the disaster they were all ensconsed within.

"Mary," Bash said when she came in, astonished at her boldness in coming to him there. He was changing his clothes and wasn't wearing a shirt. Mary blushed, having to stifle her instinctual desire at seeing his perfection at such a moment. She could not touch him here. Mary felt the draw to Bash so overwhelmingly that she might have termed the feeling demonstrative of love-sickness. The symptoms were enough to have brought them both to this place of insane danger, and showed no sign of ever abating.

After informing Bash of the ideas she had developed with Francis, he sat confounded and stared at her questioningly. "You are willing to lose your prospects of ruling France?" his voice expressed his complete shock at the notion.

"Of course," Mary assured him. "Bash, I am a Queen of Scotland and always shall be. That is my true birthright. My chance to rule over so many others beyond that was always just a part of the marriage arrangement my parents made with Francis'. In fact, I would prefer to live in my own country, as I have often lamented feeling so disconnected from it and from my people, whom I love. But most importantly, I won't live a dishonest life where I spend each day pretending not to love you. It's insupportable, and only ruins Francis and Kenna's chances to find love again themselves."

"It's amazing how you can weave together impossibilities until you have created the most beautiful tapestry of solutions," Bash observed, shaking his head. "Mary, I would love nothing more than for this plan to succeed, for all of our sakes. Yet I fear for your safety—"

"Fear not," Mary charged him. "I have never been more committed to seeing something through. There is no room for failure once I have taken on a plan of action with this level of devoted insistence. All that remains is for us to make our moves under the shroud of complete secrecy. That is the key to our success and the path to our ultimate happiness."

"I think you might have a problem with that," a voice chimed in from behind Mary. She squeezed her eyes shut, recognizing immediately that it was Kenna. Her lady in waiting had obviously been listening through the door, which had eased silently open during Mary and Bash's conversation. Now, Kenna stepped boldly into her chambers and crossed her arms as she stared down her husband and her queen.

"That is to say," Kenna continued, "I believe you'll have some trouble maintaining secrecy from the King and Queen of France when you can't even keep me from finding out the truth." Tears of anger and disappointment clung to Kenna's lovely eyelashes as she waited for their reply.

Looking at one another in despair, Mary and Bash struggled to find words to fit this moment.