The Empty Noose

by Linda Root

When Will Hepburn and Daisy Kirkcaldy return to Scotland in the winter of 1605 during the aftermath of the Powder Treason, they promise one another to leave English problems to the English. However, when the King’s First Minister Robert Cecil manipulates James into a purge of English Jesuits, Will is drafted into a plot to rescue the notorious escape artist, aristocratic English Jesuit, John Gerard, the only principal member of the Jesuit Mission to England who remains at large. Hepburn's part in the rescue it should be a cakewalk. With a small crew of Fifeshire lands, he plans to sail his pretty pink La Belle Ecossaise to Hull Harbor where a band of Midland Catholics will smuggle Gerard aboard the Belle, which in turn will rendezvous with an armed Imperial warship in international waters. The priest will be on his way to the Jesuit College in Rheims to write his memoirs, and Hepburn will be heading home to his guidwife Daisy and his bairns. However, Robert Cecil has other plans for the dashing English Jesuit. One of Cecil’s spies has uncovered the plot, and the hunt is on. Cecil is ecstatic. It should be far easier to track a ship than flush a priest out of his hidey-hole. Besides, Cecil has a score to settle with Hepburn and his troublesome wife. They had escaped his wrath the previous year because of their ties to the Royal Family, but in the political climate of 1606, if the Scots were to appear involved in a plot to save England's most notorious Jesuit, not even King James would dare intervene to save them. However, none of the players in the game had considered the possibility that Gerard himself might resist a rescue. Not that long ago, the world order had been torn asunder by one recalcitrant priest whose bold acts were inspired by his love of a woman. Rome could not afford another Luther, but neither could the Stuart Dynasty. The bastard son of the Queen of Scot's third husband and the bastard daughter of her last knight ride into the breach one final time in order to rescue a fugitive priest whose escape is in the best interests of Scotland.

228 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 19, 2019

About the author

Root was born at a FDR fundraiser on the 23rd of April and grew up in a box seat in Municipal Stadium, home of the Indians--Perhaps,not quite true, but close. Her mother missed the fund raiser when her water broke in the taxi, and she only lived in Municipal Stadium on weekends. Then came the Dark Ages when she moved to San Diego where there were boats and beaches, but in 1951,no major league sports. The Padres were Class A, and their field was in the flight pattern to Lindbergh Field. But the dawn did come and she was off to Pomona College on State of California and Union-Tribune scholarships. She graduated and went to Princeton--at least that was the plan. With much encouragement from her mother who wanted grandchildren, she married, and had children, and married, and married, and finally went to law school to be a lawyer instead of being infatuated with them. In her last year, her husband died at 35 of an undisclosed cause and six months later,her adolescent son died of a congenital disease. She took a semester off, married an old friend who had not given up on her, and went back to school.She graduated valedictorian of the class at what is now Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Three days before she aced the grueling California Bar Exam, she gave birth to her youngest son Russ, whose art appears in two of her novels. After 23 years as a prosecutor, the last seven spent as Supervising Deputy DA in the Morongo Basin of San Bernardino County, she retired due to a hearing loss and has been writing historical fiction since 2008. Her debut is The First Marie and the Queen of Scots, the first in The Queen of Scots Suite. She is now working on the fourth in that series, and a 'chic book' crime novel based on her experiences as a major crime prosecutor, Hurricane Camile and the Morongo Blonds. She lived in Yucca Valley with husband Chris and two very giant long haired Alaskan Malamutes with 1/4Samoyed in the mix.