“I see.” Lucan Montague scribbled on the parchment for several moments before he turned the page toward Mam and dipped the quill daintily before holding it toward her. “If you will sign to your testimony, Mistress. Just here.”
Mam took the pen and scrawled her name in careful, stuttering lines while Tavish skimmed the words over her shoulder. She handed the quill back to Montague. The knight laid it aside with a murmur of thanks and then reached inside his gambeson once more to withdraw another rolled decree, this one tied with a green ribbon. Although his words were apparently for Mam, his frosty gaze locked onto Tavish.
“Because Master Cameron is, by yours and Thomas’s own vows, quite illegitimate—my apologies—there is little hope that he could claim Darlyrede House even if it weren’t being held under guardianship in perpetuity of a trial.”
“Beg pardon—what?” Tavish said with a frown.
“It can’t be bequeathed because its rightful ownership is already in question,” Lucan Montague said in a patient tone, as if clarifying something that should have been painfully obvious. He must have realized his mistake, for he pressed his lips into a thin line and gave a twitch of a bow. “Forgive me; of course you wouldn’t know. Tavish Cameron, your father was Thomas Annesley, third Baron Annesley, Lord of Darlyrede.”
Tavish felt the floor tilt ever so slightly beneath his boots, but before he could think of a response, Lucan Montague continued.
“He is accused by the English Crown of the murder of his betrothed, Cordelia Hargrave, on the eve of their wedding. Also for the murder of a vicar and a deacon, both belonging to Lindisfarne, as well as the theft of two priory horses. He is suspected in the deaths of several commoners, reportedly abducted from towns and villages nearby to Darlyrede House, as well as some as far away as London. Also, a noble couple, some years after his escape into Scotland, where he did manage to evade capture these past thirty years.”
Tavish swallowed hard, while at his side, Mam whispered, “’Twas all true.” And then, louder, “Sir, Tommy didna kill anyone—especially nae that sweet girl.”
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 theStygian, 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 theStygianoutright, 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.
“Youare Thomas Annesley’s firstborn child, Master Cameron.”
