A Knight's Pledge, page 29
“Fat lot of good that would have done.” James snorted. “Delayed it, perhaps. But I’d already cut the noose.” James grinned, so obviously—and rightly—pleased with himself. “Tommy might have broken a leg, but I was hoping he’d be stunned enough by surviving being hung that he would lie still beneath the platform till I came for him. I daresay I couldn’t have done it without my new mate, though.”
Lucan raised his goblet as he sought out the blushing steward standing to the rear of Lady Margaret’s seat. “To Stephen, and to James!”
Stephen inclined his head graciously toward Lucan. “I do hope all is forgiven now, Sir Lucan.”
“If only we had trusted each other, eh?” Lucan suggested.
The steward’s only response was a mild grin.
“Pass the pitcher if you would, Sir Lucan,” Bob asked, seated to Lucan’s left.
He reached across and accommodated the young man as the conversation about them rose and mingled. “I know everyone’s tale but yours, Bob. Chumley and James; Rose and Kit. Something at least of Dana. Gilboe, Winnie. But you’ve never told me how you came to be in the band. Why you’re known as Bob the Butcher’s Boy.”
He shook his head and looked down, his pale, round face a mask of sorrow beneath his orange hair. “It’s a bad tale, I’m afraid.” He pinched off a piece and bread, popped it into his mouth and chewed before glancing up at Lucan. “I’m not proud of it. Don’t know that I should tell you, lest you think poorly of me.”
“I can take it,” Lucan assured him kindly, and he could feel the gazes of everyone at the table on them now—especially Effie’s. Always Effie’s. “If it’s something you wish to share. You’re not obligated, of course.”
Bob nodded thoughtfully. “Most of ‘em know already, I suppose. Well, you see…it’s all because of me dad, of course.”
Lucan felt his brows draw together and he braced himself. “Yes?”
“He’s…a butcher.”
Lucan blinked. “You mean he’s killed people.”
“Naw, mate—I mean he cuts up venison and lamb and the like for folks. He and mum live just over in Newcastle.”
Lucan felt his head draw back. “But how did you end up…?”
“Ah,” Bob shook his head again with a grimace. “I didn’t want to be a butcher. We’d no money for a commission as one of the king’s men. I knew Gilboe from the abbey, and Effie agreed to let me stay. So I battle evil and eat stew. And I’ve very little to do with entrails.” He leaned forward to half whisper conspiratorially. “A mite squeamish, you see. Keep that bit to yourself, if you would.”
Lucan took a moment to process his surprise and then gave a huff of laughter that grew into a sincere guffaw, his ears reddening with how he’d been bracing for the worst.
To think, after all this, Bob the Butcher’s Boy was likely the most normal of them all.
“Mama, is Grandfather coming home with us?” George Thomas piped up in the midst of the laughter, from his location on Thomas’s lap. One spindly arm had been hooked around the old man’s neck since their first meeting, and already the child was mimicking every move his grandfather made.
Effie turned her head to look at Lucan.
The room quieted, and Lucan remembered that the band was still getting used to the idea of Effie without Gorman, even though George Thomas’s father had made no pretense about his suddenly obvious interest in the exotic Kit Katey, seated at his side at the far end of the table.
The Countess Elpis spoke up loudly. “Of course, my niece will return to Mystras with me. She and her son. They will wish to take their places in the family.”
Effie looked at once to the regal old woman. “Mystras?”
“Certainly,” Elpis said. “Your testimony shall be imperative in the trial of Caris Hargrave.”
Lucan saw Effie’s forehead crease, and he wanted to take away her uncertainty, but he knew he couldn’t. It was her right to choose to start over in a land where her own name guaranteed her freedom and power and wealth, where George Thomas’s future would be bright. Lucan couldn’t stop her—he wouldn’t stop her.
“Och,” Thomas lamented gruffly. “She canna go so very far. Not with so much of her family already here.” He reached up and stroked the little boy’s red hair and his whiskered chin flinched. “And me own grandson.”
Lucan felt everyone’s attention turn to Effie. She dabbed at her mouth with her napkin, and Lucan saw her take a deep breath, her mouth set.
Just like Thomas’s, Lucan realized.
* * * *
Effie’s heart beat heavy in her chest as the weight of her decision hung over the table. The presence of Lucan Montague at her side gave her strength—the fact that he had not at once denied the countess’s request made her love him all the more.
“Countess Elpis,” she said at last, looking at the woman directly and for a fleeting moment, again wondering if she was looking into a face like her mother’s. “I thank you for your offer. I do wish to know you more, and to come to know my mother’s family. But…” she paused, looking around the grand dining hall of the Strand house. At Gorman and Kit Katey; at the sons of Scotland, her brothers; at George, and Tommy; at the rest of her family of the Warren. And finally at Lucan.
“While perhaps it was brought about by the tragedy of my mother being stolen away to England so many years ago, I know that I am already surrounded by my family and people, for whom, like my father was willing to do, I would lay down my life. It is my duty to return to Northumberland and try to somehow help heal the barony, by starting to right the thousands of crimes committed by the Hargraves.”
Lucan reached for her hand when she continued. “I know that, together with Padraig and Iris, we can defend Northumberland.”
Lucan spoke then. “We cannot do it without Gorman. My friend. The only one of the Warren who didn’t want to kill me at first sight.”
Gorman chuckled. “Perhaps I should have.”
Everyone laughed good naturedly, as Kit Katey beamed a proud smile at him.
“This is unacceptable,” Elpis said suddenly. “While I understand your desire to stay in the land you have given up so much for, I do feel that I cannot abandon you here with no prospects. I must have something to show for my journey, to corroborate the adventure I have known.” She frowned, her jowls like a bulldog, and then her gaze softened as she too, looked upon Gorman and Kit Katey.
“Ah, that is just it. I shall have the father of my great nephew,” she said in a pleased voice.
Gorman’s eyes widened.
“Yes, of course,” the countess continued. “Your own father holds a position of honor in a noble home, does he not?”
Gorman nodded. “He did. He was the longtime steward of Darlyrede House, my lady.”
“That decides it,” Elpis said. “You will be given similar status in my own household. You may return within the year with Mystras’s ambassador to visit, or to stay in England if the position does not suit. And it will be a wonderful excuse for your son to visit the palace. Greece does not keep the same rules as does England in regard to marriage—in our eyes, you shall be equal to my niece.” She looked to Kit Katey. “Perhaps you might bring a companion with you? Mystras is home to many of our friends from the East.”
Gorman looked back to Effie, and she could see the uncertainty, as well as the excitement, in his eyes. Here was his chance to overcome his past in England, to fully become the man he deserved to be.
“But what of you and George? Where will you be?”
“Roscraig, of course,” Tavish said. When everyone looked toward him, he continued. “It’s not so very far that the overseeing of the construction will be a problem. We have plenty of room and our village thrives. Padraig as well, or at least Iris, while her husband seeks to confirm his place with the king.”
“Bah,” Lachlan said. “Young Padraig would rather spend his days in the shadow of Ben Nevis, on the sea.”
Padraig grinned. “That does sound fine, although I would make a living for my wife and child while Darlyrede is rebuilt.”
There was a beat of silence while everyone realized Padraig’s meaning, and then Margaret called for more wine to be brought to toast the announcement of Iris’s pregnancy.
After the well-wishes were all spent, Tavish continued. “Da, I’m assuming you’ll be joining us at Roscraig?”
“I’d be nowhere else.” Tommy smiled. “If your mam will still have me.”
Gorman turned to Kit Katey. “What say you, Qi QiangTing? Will you journey east with me?” Her shy smile and nod made Effie’s heart surprisingly light.
“It’s settled then,” Effie said, and turned back to Lucan. “We’ll spend our time between Roscraig and the Warren.”
“The Warren?” Lucan repeated.
Effie nodded. “Right after you marry me.”
“Look out, Sir Lucan,” Gorman interjected in a jolly voice. “She’s been harping on that for years. Relentless.”
Everyone laughed, even Lucan, while he leaned forward and kissed her lips gently. “Blasted Effie Annesley, I’ll marry you tomorrow, on the green, before the king.”
“I’ll say yes,” she answered in a whisper. “I love you, Lucan.”
“I’m to have two fathers?” George Thomas exclaimed suddenly.
The countess Elpis laughed. “Isn’t it grand, young man?”
George Thomas’s eyes were round. “Ever so grand!”
Tommy handed Effie’s son gently over to Gorman where he was snuggled at once between his father and Kit Katey, and her heart ached now with the fullness of her joy.
Her father stood from his chair and slowly raised his cup.
“To Cordelia,” Thomas Annesley said, his voice catching on the emotion in his words. “And to Scotland.”
The men all stood.
“To Cordelia, and to Scotland,” echoed the room, and the words were like a prayer.
Heather Grothaus, A Knight's Pledge
