“Are ye all right, lass?” he inquired in a low voice, his brow creased, the rich, rolling timbre of his voice causing her heart to stutter once more.
This was no Englishman.
“Lay no hand on a servant in my house,” Hargrave growled, and then he jerked her away from the stranger. “Beryl?” Lord Hargrave blurted in annoyed surprise. “What are you doing here? I have already sent word to my lady.”
Beryl dared a final glance at the Scotsman before turning her reluctant gaze up to Vaughn Hargrave. “She has requested my report, my lord.”
“There shall be naught to report,” Vaughn Hargrave said, and as he once more looked to the stranger, Beryl did the same. “Yet another imposter intent on affixing himself to Darlyrede’s teat for a rich drink.”
Beryl felt her face heat and wanted to cringe at the nobleman’s crudeness, even before a man who by all appearances was no more than a striking beggar.
“I’m nae imposter,” the man retorted, and his voice held not the slightest trace of doubt or concern as he stood in the midst of the clearly hostile group in his tattered clothing. In fact he raised it, as if intent that everyone should hear him clearly. “I’m the one you’ve been waiting for: Padraig Boyd, the only legitimate heir of the man known in this land as Thomas Annesley.” He turned to look directly at Beryl now, and a shiver raced up her back at the intensity of his gaze.
“Darlyrede belongs to me.”
Chapter 2
Throughout the rough and treacherous sea journey from Caedmaray to the mainland—selling his boat down the coast when the late autumn seas became too rough to navigate even the bays; through more than a fortnight of cold, wet foot travel along foreign roads, Padraig had held in his mind an image of Darlyrede House. A stone keep—he’d already been told that. He’d supposed it owned a good-size village. Rich grazing land, likely, just beyond the Scots border; most certainly a fair river or loch.
Padraig had fantasized how he would take it all back from the thieving bastard, Hargrave. He would clear Tommy Boyd’s name, and he just hoped someone tried to stop him.
But when he had seen the shape of the place on the rise beyond the wood edging the moor, the light-colored stone reflecting the hazy glow from the sun setting behind him, he had caught his breath, hanging in the chill of the evening like the smoke from a warming fire he so longed for. Surely this fortress—this palace—could not be Darlyrede House, his father’s childhood home.
There was a curtain wall extending to either side of the tall main building, which could not be described as merely a keep. The fortifications snaked over the shoulders of the rise, meeting at the rear crest above the river and sitting on the hill as a crown rests upon the head of a king. It could—and likely did—house hundreds of people.
Padraig had stood alone on that far hill for a long while in the cold, considering the now apparent folly of what he had come to do. He’d brought no companion. He wore the only set of clothes he owned—rough island garb, the woolen shirt and breeches woven by his own mother in the year before she’d died. The shawl wound about his head and shoulders was his father’s, old and faded, and of a Highland design Padraig didn’t know, but it was still thick and warm. His boots had seen many years and veritable lochs of seawater and dung. The seams were more like netting now, the soles thin enough to cause him to curse the sharper stones hidden beneath the yellowed grass.
He carried only a blade, and his knapsack, which was largely empty save for a deflated skin pouch, an already worn parchment, and an intricately carved piece of tapered wood that was also Tommy Boyd’s. Padraig didn’t know what its original purpose had been, but once, when he’d been yet a boy, his father had said that the little decorative spear had saved his life.
Padraig had carried the carved wooden piece as a sort of talisman on his journey to claim Darlyrede House, but looking upon the truth of that immense, formidable stronghold, he had felt foolish and unsure. He had no defense, no proof of his claim besides the brief writing scrawled over the parchment in his sack.
But he had come to do this thing for his father, and he would not fail.
Now, eye to eye with Vaughn Hargrave, the elaborate entry to Darlyrede House was so silent that Padraig fancied everyone gathered there staring at him could hear the pounding of his own heart beneath his worn shirt and shawl. The beautiful servant girl’s eyes widened at his proclamation and her lips parted as though she were about to scold him.
Or warn him, more likely.
And so Padraig lifted his chin higher in this grand entry, meeting Vaughn Hargrave’s incredulous and scornful gaze.
A chuckle suddenly bubbled from the lips of the Englishman, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Your house, is it now, lad? Ho-ho!” Then he did give a true laugh. “I do have the feeling the king might have something to advise about that, but I’ll not have it said that the lord of Darlyrede ever turned away a man in want of a rest and a warm meal.” He glanced down toward Padraig’s feet. “Perhaps a new set of boots as well, to serve you on your return journey.”
Padraig’s pride took the blow, although his mind left the bait lay.
“I’ve a message in my bag,” he began.
“Yes, yes—I’m sure you do,” Hargrave cut him off in a condescending tone. “Why don’t you come through to the kitchens and fortify yourself with some sustenance, and then perhaps I will read your message to you and explain to you what it means.”
“I can read just
