The Laird's Vow Read online

  Sir Lucan looked to Harriet with the sternest expression Tavish had yet seen of him. “I do not doubt your confidence in the man, Mistress. However, the evidence I have collected thus far has failed to exonerate him. I must conduct my inquiry thoroughly in order to justify the sentence that has been carried out. Forgive me.”

  Mam nodded, but her face paled. They had already killed Thomas Annesley, after all.

  Tavish’s father was truly dead now.

  The knight looked to Tavish once more. “As I was saying, Darlyrede—its title and lands—can never be yours.” Lucan held out the rolled parchment bound with the green ribbon toward Tavish, and it stayed suspended between them for several heartbeats before Tavish could find the sense to raise his right hand and take the parchment in his grasp.

  The paper felt stiff and smooth and waxy and fine. Finer than anything he’d ever legally held in his hands.

  He could feel his nostrils flaring, feel his heart crashing against his chest, but outwardly, Tavish struggled to show no emotion as he stared at the rolled proclamation. His entire life, everyone had expected things of Tavish Cameron—to pay what was demanded, cow to the meagerest nobility, beg permission to purchase goods with his own coin. The common people loved him, feared him a little, whispered about his surely questionable trade, but even as one of the wealthiest freemen in all of Edinburgh, Tavish had little more privilege than the basest citizen. He would never be more than that, never good enough.

  And it was Thomas Annesley’s fault.

  Lying, no account, dead bastard! It wasn’t enough that he’d abandoned Mam to the shame of bearing his bastard child, but the reprobate had been a criminal as well, to the extent that King Henry had sent one of his own lackeys to hunt down the poor woman for further humiliation and—what? Certainly Lucan Montague had come to demand compensation for Thomas Annesley’s victims. What would Edinburgh say about his kind mother, should this gossip leak?

  Could Tavish be imprisoned for his devil sire’s debts? The burgess would gleefully impound the Stygian, along with the shop, their home, and all its contents.

  Mam would be turned out with nowhere to go and no way to support herself. He never should have allowed her to sign that damned document!

  “I doona have enough at hand this moment,” Tavish at last said through clenched teeth. “Mayhap only forty or forty-five pounds, and I doona dare hope that would satisfy sending a man on such a long journey. But I have business to conduct later in the day, which should bring enough to content the accusers. Come again on the morrow, later in the morn, when my mother should be about the market. I’d prefer it if the two of you didn’t meet again.”

  Lucan Montague’s eyes narrowed the slightest bit. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’ll give you the damned coin,” Tavish growled, anger and humiliation and fear causing a stabbing pain in his stomach. It didn’t matter that he was a respected merchant of the city, that his shop flourished, that he owned the Stygian outright, that he dressed his mother in the best his coin could buy. Tavish Cameron was still common, still a bastard, still at the mercy of the nobles who ruled Edinburgh, and now he always would be.

  Tavish continued, pointing the rolled parchment at the finely dressed man. “Whatever sum you require. But when I do, you’ll put your mark to my own contract that will mean the end of it. I’ve leeches enough hanging from me. And my mother has suffered more than her share because of that bastard.”

  Lucan Montague appeared nonplussed. “Master Cameron, I’ve not come seeking remuneration from you. On the contrary, I’m here to inform you of your inheritance.”

  Tavish had opened his mouth to demand the extorting prick cease the useless denials and come back on the morrow, but he closed it as Montague’s words worked through the red fury clouding his reason.

  “My…what did you say?”

  “It’s all right there, in your hand.”

  Tavish began unrolling the parchment and dropped his eyes to the finely scrawled words as Montague continued.

  “There was a holding bequeathed to Thomas Annesley when he was yet a boy—a property in his mother’s family that cannot be disputed, and cannot be touched by the English Crown. A titled property located wholly in Scotland, and left to his firstborn child by the maiden Harriet Payne.”

  Tavish’s eyes scanned the terms on the parchment as Lucan Montague’s dry tone summed up the meaning of the thin banner of the future Tavish held in his hands.

  “You are Thomas Annesley’s firstborn child, Master Cameron.”

  Tower Roscraig and associated village and industries…Firth of Forth…

  Sworn before God…

  Lord Thomas Annesley, laird of Roscraig.

  Tavish dragged his gaze from the paper in his hands, which had taken on a slight tremble. “What does this mean?” he asked in a hoarse voice, troubled at the vulnerability, the uncertainty in the words.

  Lucan Montague’s mouth quirked. “It means that your father’s property and title now belong to you, Master Cameron. Or, should I say, laird?”

  Tavish frowned. “You should call me Tavish, I reckon.”

  “Very well.” Lucan Montague nodded. “Tavish Cameron, laird of Roscraig.”

  “Roscraig?” Mam gasped, and grasped his arm seeking his attention. “Tav, ’tis where Tommy was going the night he left me! To Roscraig, he’d said. It must be a bad place—as bad as that Darlyrede.”

  “Why would you say that, Mam?”

  “Because,” Harriet insisted quietly, fervently, “he never came back, Tav.”

  “Whatever happened after he left you, it was through no fault of anyone at Roscraig, I’d wager,” Tavish said quietly. Tavish looked down at the parchment in his hands, forced himself to swallow before speaking again, struggling to keep the tremor from it as he met Montague’s gaze once more. “I don’t have to pay for it? Roscraig?”

  “No. Although you will be responsible for any debts belonging to it accrued through the years of your father’s absence, of course. Liens, taxes, etcetera.”

  “I don’t have to receive permission for it—from the king? The burgess?” Tavish looked back at the knight’s face.

  Montague’s eyebrows rose. “The king must be informed of your claim. But you were bequeathed it from your father. I do doubt James shall have any argument. It’s yours, Tavish.”

  Tavish looked back down at the parchment in his hands, but the words there were little more than blurry knots now. “Tower Roscraig,” he whispered, trying the name on his tongue. He looked up once more. “It’s mine—now?”

  Montague smiled. “A month ago, in fact.”

  “And I can go there, with this paper”—he rattled it toward Montague—“and claim it. And the burgess can’t…no one can stop me.”

  “Correct.”

  “When?” Tavish cleared his throat. “When can I claim it?”

  “Whenever you like,” the knight allowed, and Tavish felt in that moment that he had misjudged this man twice, for now he could sense that Montague was happy for him. It was a strange circumstance for Tavish to have one of his betters sincerely wish him well.

  But no—Lucan Montague was not Tavish’s better now.

  Tavish was a laird. The laird of Roscraig. He had just inherited a stone hold on the Firth of Forth, allowing him to escape Edinburgh and the burgess forever, allowing him to at last give his mother the life she deserved. All the humiliations, hardships, anxious waiting and hiding, sailing the gauntlet of Leith custom officials every voyage, being forced to carry illegal goods to keep the Stygian afloat with the outrageous tolls levied against him. All gone in the moment Tavish had unrolled the parchment in his hands.

  And then there was the lovely Audrey, whose rich father wished for a titled match. Captain Muir would surely now curse Tavish for a devil.

  Tavish read the words beneath his gaze again, thrice,
while Sir Lucan Montague waited patiently.

  Mam still hung on his arm. “Well? What else does it say? Is there anything more?”

  “Aye,” Tavish murmured, turning his face toward his mother’s, fighting the constriction of his throat. “I suppose it says that Thomas Annesley did care for you in his own way, Mam.” He swallowed at his mother’s teary smile and confident nod.

  “Oh, Tav. I already knew that.”

  Chapter 2

  Glenna Douglas sat atop her grave and looked out over the gray, flat water of the firth. With the small stone hermitage hidden in the viny fringe of wood behind her and the wide expanse of open water before her; the moist, freshly turned earth beneath her seat and low, dense clouds above, it was a comforting, quiet cell and the only place in the world she could let her mind be still.

  The cool, humid air raised gooseflesh beneath the pitifully thin fabric of her gown, the old shawl she’d donned before leaving the Tower little protection from the sharp spring breeze. Spiral strands of her blond hair whipped at her eyes, often tangling in her lashes or catching in the crevice of her pressed together lips, but she didn’t bother raising her arms from her bent knees to remove the offending locks—she had a meager amount of heat caught in the tent of her skirts and moving would only shoo away the warmth.

  Glenna wasn’t surprised when the weak shadow lengthened before her, though she hadn’t heard anyone approach—Dubhán was almost silent in all of his movements, and she’d known he would emerge from the hermitage sooner or later to find her there.

  “Any better today, milady?” his smooth, low voice queried.

  She merely shook her head, loathe to break gaze with the hypnotic monochromatic scene before her eyes, washing her consciousness blank, blurring the pain and fear she felt. But Dubhán did not press her, and she felt she owed him more than such a dismissive gesture after all he’d done for her and the village in the past fortnight. Her entire life, really.

  “He yet lives,” she said at last.

  Glenna couldn’t help but catch the movement of the overly large man as he came to sit beside her atop the fresh grave, but he still made no sound—as though his robes were enchanted with a special magic that ensured the keeper of the graveyard allowed the dead to rest in peace. His unique, sweet scent bloomed, and Glenna thought he smelled of great pools of warm beeswax and sweet incense.

  “I wish you would allow me to see him.” It was as close to a rebuke as Dubhán would give her. “Have you been long away? I could go to him now.”

  “Nay—not long. I wanted to visit the doocot. See if there were more eggs.”

  “I should take over the duties of caring for the doves again. Perhaps it would be best not to draw Frang Roy’s attentions by insisting—.”

  “I’m the lady of Roscraig, and I wanted to visit my doocot. I’m nae afraid of Frang Roy.” Glenna stared at the firth for a long time more while she waited for her heart to cease its wild pounding. When at last she could draw an even breath, she turned her head to look at the monk directly. “Forty-seven, Dubhán. Nearly the rest of the village this time, and right at the planting.”

  His brown gaze was gentle on her face, his sympathetic smile warm in the exotic dark smoothness of his skin, framed by the black, wooly hair and beard. “Forty-seven,” he agreed.

  “Forty-seven,” she repeated in an incredulous whisper. “All the children.”

  “Aye,” he acknowledged. Glenna knew he waited patiently for the question she couldn’t resist asking again.

  “Why?” she demanded. “Why would God do that to us again? To me? And take my father as well, before it’s all said and done, will he not?”

  Dubhán shook his dark head. “I still have no answer for you, milady. I am naught to him. A bug. A worthless fly. He would not share such knowledge with the likes of me. But”—he nodded once, slowly, deliberately—“it is for our good.”

  Glenna huffed and turned her gaze back to the flat water of the firth. She hadn’t really expected a different answer.

  “God has sent sickness—again and again—to Roscraig, killed all but a handful of the village, would see us starved, for our good,” she muttered darkly. “Our neighbors call us cursed, and I have little choice but to believe what they say is true. I’m sitting atop soil meant to cover my da and me when we died; instead it covers a pit filled with good people I knew all my life.”

  Dubhán nodded mildly. “I know. I dug the pit. But God didn’t send the sickness, Lady Glenna.”

  Glenna didn’t bother to turn her head to look at him as she huffed in frustration. “You can’t have it both ways, Dubhán. If God didn’t send the sickness, who did?”

  “You know who sent it, milady. Your father knew, as well, when it came.” He paused, letting the merry birdsong fill the space between them. “’Twas the devil.”

  Glenna felt the hated tears swell against her eyes, her jaw push forward. “Da’s right; in my mind now, they are one and the same. Good day, Dubhán.” She pushed to her feet and half slid down the soft, rich, brown earth mound, leaving deep impressions as she departed the plot where she should have been buried, if not during the last fortnight, then years into the future.

  She would never rest there now. Glenna felt her own remaining hours as Lady of Roscraig running away like the little crumbles of earth that chased her descent down the mound.

  There was little to plant, and even fewer hands to harvest. They would be fortunate to produce enough to feed themselves; there would certainly be nothing to sell and no coin to pay the king. And once Iain Douglas was dead and King James learned of the latest plague that had all but finished the village, he would have no qualms about removing Glenna from Tower Roscraig and building the artillery he longed for on the firth. Then where would she go? She had no distant family with whom to seek refuge—the secluded clans in the Highlands were rough strangers to her.

  I would be better off had I died with Mother, she thought as she strode past the short stone obelisk marking the place Margaret Douglas was buried, its intricate engraving softened by moss. Her mother had never been forced to deal with the loss of her home, her friends, her family—she had left them all behind to grieve her passing and left her infant daughter in the care of a father and lord who was perhaps too kind to be very successful.

  And now even kind Iain Douglas would be taken from Glenna.

  Glenna stopped on the woodland path that wound around the coastal cliff to duck inside the squat stone doocot, whose domed stone roof peeked up through the branches like the rounded head of a mythical gray bear. She reached into each cubby but came away from the aviary with nothing more than filth-streaked hands. No eggs again.

  By the time she reached the edge of the village, the stiff, cold breeze had changed directions and now swelled with the clammy warmth of an exhalation. It raised the hairs on Glenna’s neck, and she squinted up into the bright gray glare at the roiling clouds that tumbled ever closer to the double turrets of Tower Roscraig. The approaching gale was screaming over the firth, lashing the placid gray waves into foamy spray and blowing Glenna’s thin skirts tight against her legs.

  She looked over her shoulder as she rounded the village and saw one of the men pushing a cart from the river; she raised a hand to him, but his head was ducked away from the squall, and he did not see her hailing. Thankfully, there was no sign of Frang Roy, the coarse farmer who had outrageously suggested that the two of them should marry after her father’s death. The idea of it was ludicrous, and the memory of Frang’s rough, dirty hand trembling against her sleeve caused her face to heat.

  Glenna walked up the footpath that met the wide, dry moat and followed it to the bridge. Her footsteps were hollow sounding on the wood, and she frowned as she saw that the unexpected and forceful winds were repeatedly sucking open and then slamming closed the door she’d left unbarred. She wondered if it had been enough to stir her father.

>   The gale waxed again, this time snatching her veil from her head and dragging her already disheveled blond curls from what remained of the twisted knot at her nape.

  Glenna gave a cry of dismay as the small piece of linen disappeared like a seabird around the curve of the east tower, and she stretched out her arm as if she might catch it. Her skirts billowed and flapped like sails, and she looked to her right, where the beach and the now foamy, black waves were in view. Scraping her hair from her face, she looked up at the edge of a dark blanket of storm clouds, roiling just over Tower Roscraig.

  The rumble of thunder purred against her eardrums and temporarily took away some of the sting of losing her only veil. It was good to feel something, even for a moment, that wasn’t dampness or cold or hunger.

  But then the thunder seemed to change, vibrating more in her feet, her backbone; gooseflesh came to her skin once more and she wondered if she was soon to be struck dead by a bolt from the heavens. But the sound only increased, coming from behind her now, and so Glenna turned and she did receive a shock, but it was not birthed from the storm clouds above her head.

  A small group of riders cantered toward Roscraig on the Tower road. Three of them, Glenna thought, and their mounts were not the tired nags of traveling merchants; they bore no cart, towed no extra horses.

  Hadn’t they seen the signs warning them away?

  Perhaps they were envoys from the king, who had somehow learned of Roscraig’s dire straits. Frang Roy had warned that the king would soon know, but that couldn’t be possible—no one had left the village to send word.

  Glenna backed toward the door, her gaze never leaving the ever nearing group even as the wind dried her eyes until they stung. She felt behind her for the sturdy wood and slipped inside the opening.

  * * * *

  ’Tis a fortress, Tavish whispered to himself as the wind roared in his ears and he leaned over and patted the neck of his horse, trying to calm the nervous mare and prevent her from racing the black thunderheads to Tower Roscraig. His own stomach clenched, mimicking the ripples of white lightning twisting through the roiling clouds rushing in from the firth, but it was not from alarm.