The Other Daughter

In this stand alone sequel to The Midwife's Secret: The Mystery of the Hidden Princess, the headless Queen of Scots lays beneath the floor at Peterborough Cathedral in England alongside Catherine of Aragon, another Tudor discard. Her son James VI of Scotland has cast off the yoke of regency and is ready to claim Princess Anna of Denmark as his bride. Queen Marie Stuart's last champion, the knight Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange has been dead for fifteen years. He leaves two putative survivors, both females named Marguerite. The younger is his posthumous love child born of a beautiful adolescent laundress who served in Edinburgh Castle before it fell to Elizabeth's artillery and the Earl of Morton's zeal. The child of an executed traitor and a lowly laundress should not have fared well, but between the exquisite beauty of her mother and the patronage of Dame Marie Flemyng and her cousin Princess Jean Stewart,Countess of Argyle, the lass called Daisy finds herself living in an elegant house in the exclusive Edinburgh suburb of Canongate. But rumors of another child who had been living in Edinburgh Castle until the last months of the Lang Siege shatter Daisy's complacency and send her on a quest to solve the mystery of the missing woman with whom she shares a name. But she is not the only person seeking the other Marguerite Kirkcaldy. Rumors of a child born at Loch Leven in the spring of 1568 have been suppressed since Morton's death, but now they have resurfaced and reached the ears of the king. But James is but one of many hunting the other Marguerite. So is William Hepburn, the son of the Fourth Earl of Bothwell and Anna Throndsen. Another is Sir Andrew Ker of Ferniehirst, the knight Kirkcaldy's grandson who once thought the girl in the castle was his sister. But not all of the seekers are benevolent. The man known as Wild Frank Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell, is suspected of being a powerful witch if not the very devil himself. Bothwell launches a series of madcap plots to seize control of the monarchy and eliminate anyone standing in his way, including those with a claim to the Scottish throne and if necessary, his cousin the king. If Daisy is to escape Wild Frank's schemes and find the girl who might be her sister, she first must conquer her infatuation for her nephew Andrew Ker of Ferniehirst and harness her passion for William Hepburn, son of the man who brought ruin to the Queen of Scots.