* * * *
Anne was concentrating on the stitching in her lap and singing a tune under her breath to the ill old laird sleeping in the bed next to her chair when the door to the chamber opened. She looked up, expecting to see the miss’s solemn, lovely face.
Instead it was a skinny old man, with long, gray, wavy hair and the weathered skin of the sort that came from a life spent working in the fields or on the water. The sun-stained shade of his face made his blue eyes seem all the lighter.
“Beg yer pardon, lass,” he said in a thick brogue as he gripped his cap in his hands. He walked toward the bed, stuffing his cap into his rough belt next to a sheathed blade. “Not meaning to disturb your lovely song, but I’ve come to fetch the laird.”
Anne’s eyes widened. “The laird is dreadful ill, you. Surely Miss Glenna—”
He laid his callused hand on her arm, and his smile was kind. “I ken he’s ill. Lass, I ken. It’s his own gel that wants him.”
“I’m supposed to watch over the laird,” Anne said. “Mistress Harriet bade me. She…she would whip me.”
The old man shook his head. “She wouldna. Nae Harriet. Nay. She wouldna’ve left you here with him did she nae think you’d do right by him.” He patted her hand. “You come along, as well. So you can see that I only do what I must. If the laird could speak, he would tell you. If he could walk, why, there’d be nae need for me now, would there be?”
Anne frowned. Harriet had said nothing of this possibility. But the man was so gentle, and he made Anne feel special. And he seemed to know Harriet.
“All right,” Anne said, standing and laying her stitching on the chair. “I’ll go with you.”
The old man went to the bedside and leaned over the unconscious laird, whose breaths rattled in his throat like a winter wind through dead, dried leaves. His smile deepened, and Anne could see the pained compassion, the bittersweet fondness in the servant’s eyes.
“Iain,” he said softly, close to the man’s ear, and his smooth Gaelic was like a balm to Anne’s longing, highland heart. “Iain,tha mi air tighinn dhachaigh.”
I have come home…
* * * *
“Therefore,” Hargrave said with a slight bow in Glenna’s direction, “Tower Roscraig has truly been in the rightful hands all these years. Tavish Cameron has made it very clear that he will do whatever he must in order to oust Miss Douglas and steal her home; he clearly cannot be trusted. And so, considering both the dire state of Laird Douglas’s health as well as the years of fees paid on her behalf by myself, I ask the court that Glenna Douglas’s guardianship fall to me.”
“I am beginning to think you have a grudge against Master Cameron, Hargrave,” the king said.
Hargrave gave a smug chuckle and began to speak.
But the king cut him off. “You’ve said just enough, I think. Let me be clear. Tavish Cameron is not responsible for your daughter’s death. He did not kill Audrey Keane. He has done all in his power to provide for the occupants of this hold, including making vast improvements to the Tower than can only benefit the entire kingdom. He is a tradesman of means, which pleases me greatly. And he also—whether it pleases you or nae—carries noble blood in his veins.”
Glenna let go of Tavish’s hand and took one step toward the king so that he would at last acknowledge her.
“Aye, Miss Douglas?” he said with raised brows.
“If I may, my liege,” she said in a shaking voice. “I would pose a question to Lord Hargrave before you make your judgment.”
James nodded once. “Go on.”
Glenna turned to Vaughn Hargrave. “My mother’s name was Margaret Douglas, called Meg by my father. I have reason to believe that…that you knew her. Did you kill her?”
“Did I…?” Hargrave laughed and looked around him. “Did I kill yourmother?! My dear girl, what would ever make you think such a terrible thing about me? Of course I didn’t kill your mother.”
“She was the one you sent after Thomas Annesley, wasn’t she?” Glenna pressed, not allowing his theatrics to shake her.
“What? No, of course not,” Hargrave scoffed. “Who in their right mind would send a woman into the wilds of Scotland after a brutal killer?”
“You’re a liar.” Harriet’s voice rang out in the hall.
The crier turned a frown to her. “You will not speak out of turn, mistress.”
“You did send a woman, though,” Harriet insisted, her soft jowls quivering, bright patches of color on her otherwise pale face. Tavish’s mother was near to collapsing with fright; her words warbled as she spoke. “You sent Meg. I saw her. I thought when I first saw Lady Glenna that I knew her. And that’s why—’twas her own mother that I saw that night when she come for Tommy.”
The king glared at Tavish. “Cameron. There is no one here to corroborate these wild allegations, and I’ll not have hearsay from a commoner spoken against a noble.”
