The Black Knave

by Patricia Potter

  He relished her smile as they watched Gavin giggle as the terrier leaped up and took a swipe at his face. “Ugh,” Gavin said, even as he looked pleased.

  Bethia had wanted to come here today. They had traveled to this corner of Virginia four years ago. Still unwilling to take anything from Braemoor, he had reluctantly sold two pieces of jewelry. As Bethia pointed out, it was hers. Therefore, theirs. He compromised by sending the pearls back to Neil. Rory felt it Neil’s birthright, and mayhap he would marry one day.

  He and Bethia, and Mary and Alister, had married in France. Rory had taken the name of Logan, a common enough name in England, yet one that also belonged to a nearly extinct but proud Scottish clan.

  The Logans and Armstrongs pooled what else they had—Rory’s winnings, Alister’s savings—and added it to the sum they received by selling the necklace and earrings. It was enough for passage and the purchase of six horses, which Rory intended to breed. A few games in a Williamsburg tavern had produced more winnings as well as information about the country. None of them had fancied staying in a well-settled area with a heavy British presence.

  A Scotsman, though, told them of a valley in the Virginia Piedmont that was just now being settled. Most of the settlers there were opposed to slavery as they were. Land was inexpensive and grazing fine. A blacksmith was being sought and would almost immediately have a thriving business.

  Covey’s Crossroads was new, small and raw. A man named Alvin Covey had built a small inn, and merchants had followed to cater to those going further west, always looking for a place yet to be civilized. There were several small farms, and beyond the village a large valley. Covey held title to the land but his two sons had died of fever, and he no longer had interest in farming it. He did have interest in a blacksmith.

  Alister liked Covey and the area. The five of them—Rory, Bethia, Dougal, Mary and Alister—rode to the valley, approaching it from a hill. Bethia had exclaimed with pleasure. Framed by mountains that reminded them all of Scotland, the valley was rich and lush and green and fed by a clear, running stream.

  Rory had had something else in mind. A trading post, mayhap, or a stable, and yet when he saw the hope in Bethia’s eyes, he looked at it again. The grass looked fine for horses. Perhaps he could breed horses. A small farm would not be so bad, not with Bethia.

  And it hadn’t been bad at all. In truth, he had loved every moment. Everyone in town and within fifteen miles came to help frame and build a cabin, then raise a barn. He and Alister and Dougal cleared sufficient land to grow enough crops to sustain them through the winter. And then it simply grew. He found several fine horses at reasonable prices, traded some to those moving further west, keeping the best to breed.

  He was afraid, though. Deep down afraid that he wasn’t worthy of all this, that he did not deserve Bethia and that one day she would discover the fraud he really was. The valley still wasn’t home to him, the ever after place that Bethia considered it.

  When he found out Bethia was going to have a child, he added a room to the house, and he’d never known a greater joy than when he’d taken Gavin from his mother’s arms and held him awkwardly. He’d only hoped that he would not disappoint this boy of his, this miracle. Mayhap that was why God had blessed them with only one child.

  Bethia spread out a blanket and the feast she’d prepared. That was also a tradition that she’d started. Each year after completing the spring planting, they came to the hill and looked down on the farm, each time marking the newest field. Now they had two hired men, both indentured servants to whom they had given freedom. Both had chosen to stay.

  He took her hand. She was even more beautiful now. Her skin glowed, her body had developed a few more curves with motherhood, and her dark blue eyes fairly sparkled with life and love and pride.

  She had prepared a roast chicken and fresh bread with jellies and cheese. It was a fine, warm day with a breeze that caressed rather than a wind that buffeted. After they finished, she watched as Gavin tumbled with the dog, then went sound asleep with Jack sprawled in his arms.

  Rory wrapped his arm around her, wondering how he’d ever scoffed at the notion of love. He was amazed at it daily, and humbled.

  Bethia leaned into his arms and laced her fingers with his. “We might be thinking about adding to the house,” she said lazily.

  Since she had been the one to demur every time he’d mentioned the possibility, he looked at her with surprise and then he saw the slow, secret smile on her face.

  Emotion swelled in him. His fingers tightened around hers.

  “Bethia?” His hand hesitated at her stomach, then touched it with wonderment.

  “Aye, my love,” she said.

  A lump grew in his throat as his fingers wrapped around hers. So God had seen fit to bless them again.

  Then he looked back at the valley. The stream, sprayed by the rays of the sun, looked like a diamond necklace flung across a bolt of emerald velvet. Further north, newly turned earth formed neat rectangles that would turn to gold in late summer.

  The valley—the glen—nurtured them and had become a part of his heart. All of it had. Bethia’s unwavering faith. Gavin’s childish trust. Dougal who had become a son to him. Friends who had risked everything for him.

  Their love and warmth had made him whole. But always there had been a seed of doubt. He dinna deserve it.

  But now … contentment filled him.

  A bairn. Another new life. God’s gift.

  His family and the land. These were his jewels. They were real and solid and partly of his own making. No illusion. No dream to be abruptly shattered as he had feared for so long.

  His heart contracted. He leaned over and kissed Bethia, his lips brushing hers with a tenderness so strong, so piercing that he thought he might break with it.

  “Do you feel this is home yet?” she whispered.

  So she knew. He should have known. She read his soul. And his heart.

  “Aye,” he said, reaching out and placing a hand on his son’s sandy hair. And for the first time, he knew it was true.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Scottish Trilogy

  Chapter One

  Scotland, 1747

  No one should pray for another’s death.

  Janet knew she would go to hell for doing it. She’d couldn’t even confess her sins since Catholicism had been banished. It wouldn’t have mattered, in any event. She couldn’t repent them in her heart.

  How could she have ever deluded herself about Alasdair Campbell? How could she ever have wed him?

  But as she sat in the nursery, her body still hurting from the beating he’d just inflicted and rocking the cradle that held her young son, she knew exactly why.

  In the next room slept three little girls. She’d fallen in love with them, not their father.

  Oh, Alasdair had played the charming and loving father who’d needed a mother for his children. It was the one argument that had won her consent. She’d hungered for children.

  After Neil’s betrayal, she thought she would never again succumb to love’s seduction. And she hadn’t. She’d even thought her heart incapable of loving again.

  She’d turned down every suitor paraded by her father. Two years passed, then four and finally six since she’d received the note from Neil, saying that he’d decided against marrying her, that her dowry would not bring what he had expected. He’d not even had the courtesy to tell her in person. Instead, he’d fled Braemoor, leaving only the cruel note behind.

  She’d been shattered. Not only shattered, but she had lost her faith in her own judgment. She’d never regained what she had lost that day.

  She’d known she would not—could not—love a man again. It was far too painful. But she loved children. Her heart no longer yearned for a husband because she no longer believed that men could love as she wanted to love, and be loved. But she’d also wanted children. She’d longed to hold a bairn in her arms, to watch a lass take her first steps and a lad mount his first
pony.

  And when Alasdair Campbell courted her, bringing his three young motherless daughters with him, she’d promptly fallen in love with them, not him.

  And so she had agreed to marry him.

  He was handsome and outwardly charming. His daughters had been too well mannered, too quiet for children, but she hadn’t put the two together until it was too late. Even then, though, she may have taken the chance.

  She had been completely beguiled by the wee lassies. They’d been silent and shy. But then, they’d lost a mother. She wanted them to smile, laugh, play. And so she’d given her consent despite her father’s concern that the Campbells were Protestant and, in fact, loyal allies of King George, whereas the Leslies had favored the Jacobites.

  Janet had become the new Countess of Lochaene, wife to the Earl of Lochaene. She’d soon found a household ripped by hatred, envy and greed. Her predecessor, Isabella, had died in childbirth when she bore Annabella. Or was it, Janet often wondered, simply an escape?

  If so, it had been a disastrous one for her children. They lived in constant fear of their father; his mother, the dowager countess; and her husband’s younger brother. The latter had been particularly displeased at the birth of her own son, Colin, ten months earlier.

  Colin and the wee lassies were the only good things to come from her marriage. She loved the earl’s daughters as if they were her own. She nurtured them, taught them, protected them—which accounted for her recent bruises.

  Annabella, all of five years old, had failed to move fast enough when Alasdair had strode past her. In fact, she had been rooted to the floor in fear. Her older sister had stepped in and tried to push her out of the way, only to be struck by a crop.

  She’d screamed and Janet had interfered, placing herself between Alasdair and the children. He’d gone red with rage.

  “I’ll do as I wish with my children.”

  “No,” she said. She’d held her tongue so many other times. She’d realized defiance only spurred his bouts of rage. But she would rather be the focus of his rage than a child who didn’t even know what she’d done wrong.

  “No?” he’d replied, his voice friendly. But she knew what lay beneath it.

  His hand clenched her arm painfully and he dragged her into his room. They didn’t share the same room, for which she thanked God. She had an adjoining room, and she was more than aware of the women he took to his chamber. She was grateful each time because that meant he wouldn’t enter hers.

  She’d made an art of keeping out of his way, and more importantly keeping the children out of his sight. But this time they’d darted out the door, eager for a promised picnic. Janet had not realized Alasdair had returned from a hunting party.

  He threw her on the bed. “You will never say no to me again,” he said, as he flicked the crop still in his hand. “You have never learned your place, Jacobite bitch.”

  Her blood froze at the words. The last year had been a horror in the highlands. After the Battle of Culloden, every Jacobite family had been hunted and persecuted. Her brother had died fighting for Prince Charlie and her father’s lands and properties had been taken, but not before he’d died trying to protect them.

  She’d had no one to protect her then, no one who really loved her. No one but three little girls, ages five, six, and seven.

  And a memory. A memory of a lovely sun-kissed day.

  She’d hung onto that as he’d torn clothes from her, as the crop fell over her shoulders, then across her breasts, and finally her back. Then he’d taken off his own clothes and dropped down on her, oblivious to the pain of her body. Oblivious and uncaring.

  She tried to think of something else as he used her. She thought about leaving him, but where could she go with four children under the age of eight? How could she care for them? Feed them? Clothe them? She could leave on her own, but then what of the children? Alasdair would never let his son go. He’d comb the entire country before relinquishing his heir. The lasses meant nothing to him. They were lasses, worthless. But her son … he was something to mold into his image.

  Over her dead body.

  Or his.

  And he’d known it. His eyes had narrowed after he’d left the bed.

  “You haven’t learned obedience to your lord yet, my dear. How many lessons do you require, stupid wench?”

  She’d glared helplessly at him just as a knock came at the door.

  Alasdair opened it to MacKnight, his valet. He had a bottle of brandy on a tray. His eyes widened as she frantically tried to cover up her body with torn clothes.

  “A little lesson, MacKnight. One you need to remember if you are so foolish as to marry.”

  Janet had learned two years earlier not to give Alasdair the satisfaction of tears. But as the door closed, she said, “Someone is going to kill you someday.”

  “A threat, my dear?”

  “Nay, a promise, if you hurt the children again.”

  “I will do as I wish with my children. You will not interfere again. I will expect you at supper this evening. I have some guests.”

  He left then, the door closing behind him with deceptive softness.

  Janet lay still for a moment, her body aching from his abuse. She refused to cry. That would give him power. Even if he was not there to see it. After several moments, she rose, dressed painfully, then went to see the children.

  The lasses were huddled in the corner, and her son was screaming. Fixing a smile on her face, she’d told them they would have a picnic the next day. She soothed her son, feathering his face with kisses. When he’d finally calmed, she put him down in his bed and helped the lasses into their nightclothes. She stayed to tell them a story and sing a lullaby. Finally, their eyes closed.

  She sat next to her son, watching him sleep. Less than a year old and he already flinched at the sight of his father. She feared that one day Alasdair would lose his temper and seriously hurt one of the children. She’d seen him do that to a puppy that wandered in his way. She’d nursed it, found it a good home. She’d never allowed the children another pet.

  She swallowed hard … and thought of Neil Forbes, of how different she’d once believed her life would be. But then she’d been nineteen, and believed love really existed. She’d believed in his gentleness, in his kisses, in his awkward but seemingly honest words, the sweet explosiveness between them. She’d been ready to give up everything for him. The disillusionment had been bitter and long lasting.

  He’d had little then. And he had not been willing to settle for what little dowry she would bring. Now he was one of the wealthiest men in Scotland. He’d inherited the title of Marquis of Braemoor after the death of his cousin at the hands of the notorious Black Knave. His lands had expanded through his cousin’s marriage. He was said to have the ear of Butcher Cumberland.

  He hadn’t needed her at all.

  But he hadn’t married. She knew that. There had been talk of trying to interest him in her husband’s younger sister. Braemoor had rebuffed all overtures. He obviously was hoping for an even more advantageous marriage.

  He could have anyone in Scotland now. Not only was he wealthy, but he also cut a fine figure. She remembered his height, his raven hair that had curled around her fingers, the dark eyes that were always cautious until they looked into hers.

  She shook her head of the memories. He had not been what she had thought. He was probably no better than her husband.

  Then why did he haunt her dreams so?

  Loneliness sliced through Neil as sharply as the blade tore through the meat on the table at the wedding party.

  He stood in a corner and watched the merriment as one of his tenants danced with his new bride. A fiddler played a lively tune and ale flowed like a river.

  He would leave soon. He knew he was not an enlivening influence on the celebration. He knew he was respected though not particularly liked. He’d been alone too long, wary too many years to relax and enjoy the company of others.

  It was one of his greatest regr
ets. Only recently had Neil discovered how deep his cousin’s friendships had run, what great loyalty he’d inspired. Neil had learned that all too late. He wished now he’d looked behind his cousin’s outer facade to the man beneath.

  Rory, Neil knew, would have felt right at home here where he—well—felt like an intruder.

  He’d felt an intruder all his life, even now that he was Marquis of Braemoor. It was a position that he’d always wanted and even thought should be his. He’d thought he cared more for the land and people than Rory had. In truth, Neil now knew it was he, Neil, who hadn’t had the slightest idea of honor or courage or commitment.

  In the months since Rory’s supposed death, Neil had tried to rectify his own life, to make it mean something, but he didn’t know how to make a friend, or keep one. He didn’t know how to relax over a tankard of ale. When he tried, he’d been discomfitted and knew everyone with him was, too.

  And so he maintained his distance. He tried to do the right thing by his tenants, keeping them on the land rather than evicting them as so many other landlords were doing. The last vestiges of the clan system had been broken at Culloden Moor. Clearances were common. He had to pay heavy taxes to the crown to keep the land, which meant he had to produce revenue. Like others, he’d turned some land over to grazing, but he’d tried not to turn anyone out.

  The tenants knew that. Still, he realized he was never going to be their friend.

  He gazed around at the whirling figures. No bagpipes. They’d been outlawed by Cumberland, as had been plaids. Instead, the men wore rawhide brogans and cheap breeches.

  The music stopped and the dancers huddled in small groups, none of them near him. He sighed, then forcing his lips into a smile went up to young Hiram Forbes and handed him a small purse. “For you and your bride,” he said.

  The girl curtsied and Hiram looked surprised, then pleased. “Thank ye, my lord.”

  “I wish you many bairns,” Neil said, even as he felt the emptiness in his own soul, in his life. He would never have bairns, nor a wife looking at him as the young lass looked at her new husband. ’Twas obviously a love match, and he ached inside that he could never see that look again.