Tavish had the suspicion that, had he been able to see his mother’s face, she would be looking up at the stranger through her eyelashes, much as Audrey Keane had looked at Tavish.
“What I mean to say is, he’s the master of the shop but he’s also my—” Mam clapped her hands together once gaily and then held them against her matronly, aproned bosom. “Have you come to collect goods from the shipment? Perhaps some”—she paused, her turning and nodding head indicating she was looking the man over thoroughly—“cloth for your…your fine”—she reached out a finger and almost touched the man’s chest—“self?”
A faint smile cracked the stranger’s proper façade and he gave her another short bow. “Thank you for your kind offer of assistance, but I believe I have located what I seek—youareHarriet Payne, are you not?”
Tavish’s heart stuttered in his chest.
“My, my!” Mam murmured, and Tavish was glad to hear a bit of caution creep into her tone. “I’ve nae heard that name in an age. Aye, I’m Harriet; Payne was my da.”
The stranger nodded. “Mistress Cameron now, of course. I knew you by the lovely mark there on your upper lip.”
Mam’s fingertips fluttered at her mouth, where the perfectly round mole she was known for lived, but this time when she spoke, all traces of coquettishness were gone.
“Have we met, sir?” she asked.
“Forgive me,” the man said and bowed again. “I am Sir Lucan Montague, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter of His Majesty King Henry of England.”
Harriet turned wary eyes to Tavish, whose fingers tingled around the handle of the club he still held beneath the bench top.
“What reason have you to seek my mother, sir?” Tavish asked quietly, his heart galloping in his chest as the barrel nearest him crowned so deliberately with a pyramid of orange fruit seemed to become exponentially larger in the room.
Why was an English knight in his shop?
Lucan Montague’s gaze, blue and cold, at last found Tavish. “In truth, I seek the proprietor of this works, and the owner of the merchant shipStygian.” His accent was clipped and cool, but also completely at ease. He seemed to examine every detail of Tavish’s face before meeting his eyes again, and his face once more betrayed a secret mirth. “I believe you are he. You may retire the weapon you’re holding in your right hand; I vow upon my honor that I mean you and your mother no harm.”
Tavish felt his brows raise, and he couldn’t help but glance down at the baton in his hand—for sure, the man could not have seen it from where he stood.
“In fact,” the knight said, stepping to the door and kicking away the wooden wedge that held it open, “I’ve come bearing what I suspect you will consider to be very good news, and all I ask in return are answers to some few, concise inquiries.”
A pair of ladies drew up short before the doorway as Lucan Montague began to close the stout shop door.
“Désolé. I do apologize—a matter of great urgency, you understand. So sorry. Good day.” He closed the door and looked up and down the frame before engaging both intricate locks, while Mam stepped backward quickly to join Tavish behind the safety of the bench.
Tavish laid the club atop the wood, still firmly in his grip. When Lucan Montague turned around, the knight’s gaze went immediately to it, but he didn’t seem disturbed in the least.
“Your shuttering my business without my leave is not endearing me to your request. You have a short amount of time to explain yourself, knight or nay, before I make use of this baton,” Tavish warned. “Now, I’ll only ask once more: What do you want?”
“A fair request,” Lucan Montague said with a gracious nod. “I believe your mother may possess some knowledge that will assist my efforts on behalf of the Crown to investigate a series of murders that took place in England.”
Mam gasped. “Murders?”
But rather than cause him further alarm, the knight’s admission prompted Tavish’s shoulders to relax. “You have been misinformed, sir; my mother has not been farther south of Edinburgh than Peebles the whole of her life.”
“They’ve lovely wool,” Mam added, her smile returning. She laid her hand upon Tavish’s arm. “Tav takes me each year for the festival. Have you been, sir?”
“I’ve not yet had the happy fortune,” the knight said, and to his credit, Tavish could not detect even a hint of condescension in his tone. His gaze met Tavish’s directly. “Indeed, it was not my intent to insinuate that your mother was in England when any of the crimes were perpetrated, nor at any time before or after, Master Cameron. My questions for her are wholly concerning your father.”
Tavish’s jaw grew tight, and a pair of moments ticked by in the silence of the shop. “My father is dead.”
The knight nodded. “Oh, yes, likely he is hanged now. But he was very much alive a month ago. I interviewed him myself.”
“You are mistaken.Sir.” Tavish spoke in a low, measured voice. “Dolan Cameron has been dead for fifteen years.”
Lucan Montague’s gaze never wavered. “Forgive me my bluntness, but I don’t believe it is a secret to any here present that Dolan Cameron was not your true sire.”
The shop was as still as a calm sea at midnight.
Tavish forced himself to swallow while he tried to think of a reply. He had only discovered the fact of his bastard status fifteen years ago, the very day his stepfather had died. And he was fairly certain Mam wouldn’t have admitted it even then if Tavish hadn’t been intent on surrendering himself to the constable that terrible night.
