“Well, I knew right away that if they found Tommy, if he was made to return to England with that woman, he was as good as dead. I heard the woman offer Da coin to let her see the horses and search the barns, so I crept back upstairs and went out the window. It was raining, and my hands slipped from the sill and I landed badly on my leg.”
Tavish was taken aback. “The one you limp on?”
“Aye, me bad leg. It wasna broken, though, thank the lord.”
Tavish found himself frowning at the imagining of his mother as a young girl, injured so, yet desperate to warn Thomas Annesley.
She continued. “I told Tommy about the woman and the men, and he whispered one word. ‘Meg,’ says he.”
Tavish’s gaze went to Glenna again as he recalled the intricate grave marker on the cliff overlooking the firth. Margaret Douglas. But Glenna said nothing, her expression stony.
“Tommy left out the back of the barn with the black horse, just as Da opened the front doors. There was no way out for me, so I hid down in the hay, way in the back, praying they wouldna search there, but they did. They overturned what seemed to be every piece of hay. It was clear someone had been living up in the mow, and Da saw that one of his fine new horses was missing.”
Harriet paused, and the intervening years seemed to accumulate on her ashen face all at once, so that she aged before Tavish’s eyes. “I doona think Da would have beaten me so if they had left that horse. But he took a flail to me. Threatened to kill me if I didn’t tell him where to find Tommy so he could claim the reward. I fell down the slot trying to get away from him, and that’s how my bad leg got bad. I wasna allowed in the house again from that night forward. Within a fortnight, I was wed to Dolan Cameron and moved to Edinburgh, and I never saw me da again. Never wished to, either.”
Glenna at last spoke. “Did Dolan Cameron know that Tavish was not his son?”
“He was a sharp man,” Mam conceded, and although the stony look had fallen from her face, it had left behind a sagging expression of exhaustion. “He could not have succeeded so well with the shop were he nae. So, aye, he figured it out soon enough. It would have been in his rights to turn me out or have me da jailed, but he was cruel enough; telling me that if the bairn was a girl, he would throw her from the highest building on Market Street and dash her brains against the stones.” She looked up at Tavish. “But it was Tav, of course. A good strong lad that Dolan was happy to claim as his own.”
“He was cruel,” Tavish corroborated. “And I thought that monster was my father until I was sixteen.”
Mam dropped her eyes to the floor for a moment. “I thought that was best for your future. I daren’t so much as breathe the word ‘Roscraig’ lest it somehow lead back to Tommy.”
“What made you decide to tell him about his true father when he was sixteen?” Glenna asked.
“To warn me,” Tavish said, cutting off his mother’s reply. “What has your tale to do with the issue at hand, Mam?”
“To show Lady Glenna—to show you both—that Vaughn Hargrave has been out for Tommy’s blood for more than thirty years. He has waited all this time in the hope that someone connected with Tommy would surface, and it seems that ’twas Tommy himself who alerted Hargrave by turning himself in. He didn’t come here to wish either of you well.”
Tavish looked away from both women toward the darkened window, not wishing to repeat the vulgar and lascivious comments Hargrave had made about Glenna.
“Perhaps,” Glenna said in a thoughtful tone, “he is nothing more than a father who was devastated by the murder of his daughter.”
Tavish looked back at her quickly as she rose from the chair.
She looked to Mam now. “Tavish is your only child. If someone killed him and then fled the land to escape their deserved punishment, would you not exhaust every coin, every resource, for the rest of your life hunting that person down to see that they paid for what they did?”
Mam’s face was pained. “Tommy didna—”
“You don’t know that, Harriet,” Glenna interrupted, her words nearly a shout. “You weren’t there when Cordelia Hargrave died—none of us were. You want to believe that the man whose child you bore was good. That he was not capable of the heinous crime of which he is accused. But what if Thomas Annesley did kill Hargrave’s daughter? What if it was even an accident? What if Vaughn Hargrave only wishes to accomplish what he told me—which is to stop Thomas Annesley from hurting anyone else, even beyond the grave.” She paused. “Harriet, he says Thomas gave Roscraig to my father. Before I was born.” Now she turned to look at Tavish. “And if he testifies to that before the king, your inheritance is worthless.”
Tavish stepped forward. “Did he also tell you that it is he who has been paying the taxes on Roscraig all these years? If he testifies before the king, aye, it could temporarily save your place at the Tower—until he demands repayment.” He made sure to meet her gaze.
“You’re absurd,” Glenna scoffed. “You really would do anything to keep Roscraig, wouldn’t you? The more I learn about you, Tavish Cameron, the more I am certain you favor your sire. You would use me, just as Thomas Annesley used your mother. The only difference between Harriet and me is that I am not so foolish as to have fallen in love with you.”
Mam bowed her head for a moment, and then she looked up, her chin lifted, her face proud. “I’m sorry if I am foolish, milady. If loving a person makes me a fool, then so be it. I could do little to save Tommy from Vaughn Hargrave thirty years ago, but I wanted to do all I could to protect you now. Please excuse me.” She crossed the floor between them and struggled with the bolt only a moment before escaping the room.
Tavish felt his anger flare and was glad for the burn that cauterized the wound he felt.
“I’ve never used you, Glenna. Had I wished to truly ruin you, had I not cared a whit for you, I would have taken you fully a score of times already,” he accused. “It’s not as if you didn’t want me to.”
Glenna shrugged. “That has little to do with love. Fortunate for me you were too much of a coward to go through with it. Learned at least one lesson from your old da, did you? Careful you don’t leave a bastard behind?”
“Aye, I did learn that lesson from Thomas Annesley,” Tavish shot back. “I can only imagine the hell Mam went through for my sake. My earliest memories are of Dolan Cameron beating her until she couldn’t walk, couldn’t see. But she had nowhere to go with me, and so she stayed and took the beatings. She took them until I killed Dolan Cameron.”
She was staring at him, and he let her, unable to snatch the confession back. He hadn’t wanted her to know the violence he was capable of, lest she compare it to the crimes of which Thomas Annesley was accused. Somewhere in the back of Tavish’s mind, he thought much the same as Glenna—perhaps Thomas Annesley had killed the girl. Perhaps he had double-crossed Iain Douglas. But even if those things were true, Tavish knew beyond any shadow of doubt that Vaughn Hargrave was a liar, and a very real danger to the people most important to him at Roscraig.
“When you were sixteen,” Glenna guessed.
“Aye,” he said, knowing she was putting together the clues. The rest didn’t matter now. “I came upon him in a temper, flogging Mother with a baton. I think he would have finally killed her that day. At least, I feared he would. I was sick of it. And I was bigger than him by then; stronger. I took the baton from him; hit him but once. I was so horrified at what I’d done—patricide—I’d decided to turn myself in. But Mam…Mam told me he wasn’t my real father. And, just like that”—he snapped his fingers—“Dolan Cameron became nothing more than a stranger who had been allowed to abuse my mother for my own sake.”
Her expression had softened somewhat, but her cat eyes were still glittering. “How did you explain his death?”
“I explained nothing. His body was found at the docks with his purse strings cut.”
She nodded
vaguely as if agreeing with the course of action, and Tavish wished in that moment that he had taken Glenna, planted his seed in her. The very imagining of it caused his heart to beat in a funny rhythm, for he knew there would be no running for Tavish. The idea that he could leave Glenna and their child, no matter if it meant that his life was threatened…
The regular paths Tavish’s mind took when working a problem suddenly vanished, and a new, barely discernible trail through deep woodland was the only track available as a new idea pressed him toward the unknown territory.
If Hargrave had now decided to transfer the guilt of his daughter’s death from Thomas Annesley’s to Tavish’s own head, did that mean Glenna would be in danger as long as she was connected to him?
Perhaps Thomas Annesley had not only been preserving his own life in leaving Mam the way he had—perhaps he had been protecting her. It hadn’t been some band of anonymous swords come to find him—Thomas had known the woman by name.
Meg.
And he’d told Mam about Roscraig. That didn’t sound like a man whose only goal was saving his own skin.
If Tavish stood aside and let Glenna’s plan to leave at dawn on the Stygian play out without protest, he knew that Muir would keep her safe. Hargrave could never know where she had gone and would never think to look for her as the wife of a sea captain. Glenna would be beyond the king’s scrutiny and judgment, and away from the rumored talk their cohabitation at Roscraig had generated. In another country, she could get what few people were granted: a new life.
“Will you come back to the hall?” he asked, hoping that she didn’t hear the insecurity behind the query. There was no way she could know the weight her answer held or the unspoken questions it would answer.
“Nay,” she said, her gaze meeting his across the breadth of the room. She stood up and went to the bedside, fussing with the furs that covered the old man, and did not turn to face him when she continued. “I don’t know how long my father has left, and shame on me should I choose such pompous, heartless parasites over him. If it means that you cry foul on our bargain, so be it. You may add it to the long list of grievances you have against me to air before the king when he arrives. I’m certain the court will be thrilled to hear the details of it.”
Tavish felt his jaw clench and a wave of foreign emotion wash over him. He couldn’t identify it beyond the similarity it bore to the many moments in Edinburgh when he had been made to feel less than the burgess and his cronies; when he had been forced to tolerate the thinly veiled allusions to his class status, and when the burgess himself suggested how odd it was that Tavish did not resemble Dolan Cameron in the least.
But Glenna Douglas was not shaming him for what he was not; she was merely holding up a mirror so that for the first time since his arrival at the Tower, Tavish could see himself as the laird of Roscraig he had become.
“Don’t go…don’t go outside the hold without alerting me,” he said quietly, and then added, “Please.”
Her motions stilled, but she did not turn around. “I’ll be in this chamber until dawn.”
Tavish swallowed. Dawn. He should let her go. Just let her go with Muir and let him keep her safe.
“I hope that what you said to Mam was untrue. I hope that you do care for me.” He turned to the door, but paused with his fingers gripping the handle, gathering his courage, his pride about him. “God dammit—I’ll not marry Audrey, Glenna.”
“You’ve told me that what you choose to do at Roscraig is none of my affair,” Glenna said. “I don’t see why I should bother with thinking on it now.”
“Perhaps you might search your heart for a reason to think on it tonight,” Tavish suggested. “And if you perchance find even the smallest interest as to why I would refuse her, we might discuss it on the morn.”
She turned her head then to look at him, and it pained him to see her green eyes so full of hurt and resentment. “I don’t trust you. You’ve done naught but play games with me since the day you arrived.”
“No games. I am not Thomas Annesley, and I will keep you safe, Glenna. From Hargrave, from the king. I swear it now, before your father.” He glanced pointedly toward the still form on the bed. “You look very beautiful tonight,” he said. “You…” He struggled for the right words, and in the pause, Glenna turned her face away from him toward the window, and the candlelight illuminated her skin as if it were made of porcelain.
“You lit up the entire hall. Iain would be proud,” he finished quickly. Then he opened the door and stepped through it, leaving Glenna and his heart in the laird’s chamber.
Chapter 17
Glenna sat by her father’s bed the whole of the night, watching the shallow rise and fall of his abdomen, pacing to the window to look out at the black water of the firth, the full moon trailing a flowing ribbon to the horizon like a road paved with crushed pearls. Glenna couldn’t help but imagine that, were she able to set her feet to that fantastic path, her wildest dreams would be waiting at the end. And while the scene should have been soothing and peaceful, inside the dark, quiet tower chamber, her heart waged a vicious battle with her head.
If she left on the Stygian, she could have a new life, in a new country. She would be safe. But she would never see her father again; she would miss his last breaths. And Roscraig and Tavish Cameron would become nothing more than painful memories.
If she aligned with Vaughn Hargrave, perhaps there was a chance that she could retain her place at Roscraig, save her father’s legacy, and deal back the blow delivered to her on that fateful day when Tavish had arrived bearing that damned decree. Or, conversely, she could accept his invitation to Darlyrede, his offer to play matchmaker. But with either of those choices, Roscraig and Tavish Cameron would be forever lost to her.
She could not help recalling the knotted feeling in her stomach when the old lord had held her; her uneasiness at his enthusiasm to help; the way he had granted permission for her to dance in her own hall as if she were already his possession. He was wealthy, powerful, and determined to have his revenge on Thomas Annesley. Iain Douglas had not raised his only child to be a fool, and Glenna knew instinctively that—no matter his complicity in the death of his daughter—she would be placing herself in peril should she surrender her autonomy to Vaughn Hargrave.
Her only other option was to trust that Tavish would protect her as he has sworn to do.
Glenna had no inkling of the outcome in that scenario. Had he meant the vow as a declaration of love? As a promise of a life with him? Or was it only yet another ploy to keep her docile until he had won the ultimate prize—the hold and title he had hungered for for so many years? This choice was the biggest gamble, at the risk of losing her home, her reputation, her future. And yet it was the only chance she had—however slight—for her wildest dreams to come true.
Could Tavish love her for who she was?
The sky began to lighten from black to steel, then glowing gray traced the creeping clouds. If she was going to leave, it must be now. She might still have time to reach the dock before the Stygian cast off…
Glenna turned from the window with tears in her eyes to look at her father, and her breath caught in her throat when she saw that he was looking at her with bright eyes.
“Da?” She stepped to the bedside and leaned over him, placing her palms along his face. One side of his mouth hitched slightly, perhaps an attempt at a smile, and he nodded once.
His skin was warm, flushed; his eyes were still yellow, but they contained more life in them than she had seen in weeks.
“Good morn, Da,” Glenna said gently, as tears spilled over onto her cheeks. She’d never thought to say those words to him again. “I love you.”
Iain nodded again, and in her mind Glenna heard his voice repeating all the wisdom he had given her over her life: Always keep your word, Glenna. Do what you know is right in your heart, and the devil with the rest of it.
“I’m not leaving, Da. I’m staying here at Roscraig with you—at our home—for as long as we are able. I don’t know what will happen when the king arrives, but I’m going to trust Tavish Cameron. Because I trust you. You told me Thomas Annesley was good, and you are no fool. Harriet Cameron said as much, and she has cared for the both of us like no other ever has in the whole of my memory. I am going to trust him, Da. And the devil with the rest of it.”
Iain Douglas nodded again, and his gaping smile grew a bit wider before he pressed his lips together with some difficulty. “Mmm. Mmm-ead.” His head bobbed. “Mead.”
Glenna laughed. “You wish for mead?” At his jerking reply, Glenna kissed his forehead then straightened. “I’ll run and fetch it now. As much as you want. A hogshead if we have it.” She looked out the window again, and now bright rays of yellow streamed over the frolicking waves. If she leaned out, she might catch sight of the Stygian’s mast as it sailed away without her.
But she didn’t care to watch it go; her decision had been made, and she hadn’t known she could be so happy to be gambling her future in order to fetch a cup of mead.
“I’ll only be gone a moment.” Her slippers flew over the boards, her stiff, wrinkled silk skirts rustling like thunder as they swayed to a stop at the door. She swung it open and would have fallen over Tavish Cameron as he was rising from the floor had he not reached out and caught her.
“Glenna,” he said in an alarmed voice, gripping her arms so tightly that she could feel the bruises that would come. “No.”
She pulled away. “Let me go, Tavish.”
“It’s too late—he’s gone.” His hair was untidy, his eyes shadowed and, like Glenna, he still wore the same costume that he had at the feast.
Her heart pounded in her chest. “Have you spent the night in the corridor?”
His throat convulsed as he swallowed. “I meant to keep you from leaving. From leaving…me. I knew Muir asked you to go with him.”
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