The Iron Earl

by K. J. Jackson

  He was never going to let another man harm her again. She was his. He was hers.

  Swaying, her stepfather tried to lift himself up onto his hands, only to lose grip on the stones and fall back to the floor.

  “Hah. Well done, Lach.” Lachlan’s grandfather hooted from his chair, a modicum of begrudging pride lighting his eyes. “Now that is doing, my boy.”

  Lachlan strode past Evalyn and grabbed Falsted’s back collar. Blood splattered from her stepfather’s mouth across his cheek. With a vicious jerk, he dragged him across the room to the door. For a long held breath, Lachlan paused at the door and Evalyn feared he was about to snap her stepfather’s neck.

  “You have five minutes to vacate these grounds, you despicable miscreant, or I find you and I kill you.” Lachlan lifted Falsted, pushing his forehead back as he leaned down to see him eye to eye. “And if I ever hear your name again—in connection to Evalyn, in connection to these lands, there is no place you will be able to hide from me. Take this mercy your stepdaughter is giving you and disappear.” He opened the door and with a kick and a shove, threw Falsted out.

  Lachlan slammed the heavy oak planks shut, then turned back into the room. His look met Evalyn’s, the blue in his hazel eyes sparking wild streaks. Vindication. Love. Pride.

  Her heart swelled so violently her ribs nearly snapped.

  He was across the room to her in four long strides, his arms wrapping her, lifting her up into him. His raw voice rumbled into her ear. “You were a goddess, my love. Pure lioness. Remind me never to cross you.”

  Evalyn laughed, the vibration of it cutting through the tears brimming in her eyes and sending them to her cheeks.

  Lachlan pulled back slightly to see her face and his eyes darkened at the streaks of wetness. “What?”

  “Happy. You. This.” She shook her head. “Relief, that is all.”

  A smile, wide and filling the hard contours of his face lit up his eyes. Tugging her up higher onto him, his lips traveled her cheeks, kissing away the salt of her tears.

  The sound of a cane slamming into stone broke through the air.

  Both Evalyn and Lachlan’s heads swiveled to his grandfather.

  “Swallowford lands, eh?” The marquess shifted on his worn wingback chair, scooting to the edge and looking almost as though he would come to his feet. “So ye come with a dowry, child?”

  Lachlan loosened his hold and Evalyn slipped down along his body until her toes touched the floor. Her arm threaded around Lachlan’s back as she turned to his grandfather. “I apparently do, my lord.”

  “Her father owned the majority of the Swallowford lands next to ours, Grandfather. Everything that Falsted has been ravaging and selling off these last decades,” Lachlan said, his right arm tightening about her shoulders. “But at least half of the lands are still intact. So no, we don’t lose a thing with my marriage. We double in size. And not only that, the upper Swallowford lands hold the finest flocks this side of Stirling.”

  “Ah, good, very good.” The marquess’s long bony fingers stroked the stark bones of his chin as he appraised Evalyn from toe to head. “So it’s not only coin ye bring, but the true blood runs through ye as well.”

  Evalyn’s eyebrows lifted. “True blood, my lord?”

  “The Viscount of Jaggerfall’s mother-in-law was second cousin to my bonny Charlotte. Ye got Scot’s blood in ye.” He nodded and lifted his cane, then thwacked it down on the ottoman. “Well then, this changes everything. Welcome to the family, lass.”

  Lachlan stiffened. “Not so fast, Grandfather. This comes with conditions.”

  { Chapter 23 }

  “Conditions? What are ye talking about, Lach? What conditions?”

  “My conditions.”

  His grandfather leaned forward in his chair, his wild eyebrows pulling together. “What cow-brained ideas do ye have rattling about in that skull of yers?”

  Lachlan’s arm sank away from Evalyn and he stepped toward his grandfather, pausing a foot away and looking down at him. “You stop.”

  “Stop what, boy?”

  “Stop every single one of your machinations over my life, Grandfather. They end now.” For a moment, Lachlan’s hands curled into fists like they always did when dealing with his grandfather. But without thought, they relaxed, calm flowing through his limbs.

  “Machinations?” The old man’s withered lips pulled into a thin line and he flipped his cane in front of him, jabbing the tip into the floor and settling his hands atop. “I don’t do that, Lach.”

  Lachlan scoffed. “You were sitting and laughing—laughing—with a sworn enemy, Grandfather. An enemy of our lands and our people for the last twenty years. You let him into this home—all in effort to control my life. So yes, you do do that. Is it worth it—are you willing to trade hatred for power? For your need to control everything here at Vinehill?”

  “All of this I do for ye, Lach. I did it for yer brother and now I do it for ye.”

  “Exactly. You want me to stay and preserve the legacy of Vinehill.” Lachlan sank to one knee on the floor so he was eye-level with his grandfather. “You want me to preserve the estate and the name and everything you’ve worked for. Your lands, your people.”

  His head bowed for a moment before his look lifted to his grandfather. “If you want that, if you want me to stay, then you are no longer in charge. I am. I will take from you all the wisdom you have, as it is considerable, but you are no longer in control of me. In control of Vinehill. Combined with Evalyn’s lands, our estate, our name, our people have a way into the future. But it cannot be a future full of your edicts.”

  His look hardened, pinning the marquess. “Agree, or we leave.”

  The marquess’s boney hands twisted on the brass handle of his cane, his knuckles glowing white in the light of the fire. “You would not dare leave here, boy.”

  “I would. I have spent my life willing to leave. I left to fight for the crown—all for the glory of the Vinehill name. I left to create my own lands and trade that I have scraped together to have a life outside of Vinehill. Even without Evalyn’s lands, we would lead a comfortable life, free of the shackles of a four-hundred-year-old title.” Lachlan paused, sighing. “Leaving one last time would be, frankly, a blessing.”

  His grandfather’s head shook, the iron tone of his voice slipping. “But ye—ye cannot leave, Lach.”

  “Then give me a reason to stay. You’ve never once done that in your life—given me a reason to stay.”

  “What are ye speaking of, boy?”

  Lachlan’s head tilted to the side and he looked back at Evalyn, staring at her for long seconds. Her gaze focused on him with all the pride, support, and faith in the world that whatever he was doing in this moment was right and just.

  That was it.

  She was it.

  What Evalyn was to him was the one thing that had been missing for so many years of his life. He’d had his brother and his sister, but this—her unconditional love—was everything.

  His gaze slowly traveled back to the marquess. “I do not fancy something as grand as love from you, Grandfather. But since grandmother died, since my parents died, in all these years I would have settled for the slightest fondness from you, a mild consideration in the least. One nod, one word of affection. Something you could never bring yourself to do.”

  “Ye don’t understand, boy.” The wrinkles about his face deepening, drooping, the marquess exhaled a wheezing breath and sank back into his chair. His look went to the fire, his fingers fiddling with the tip of his cane.

  He sat in silence for an extended moment before his look swung back to Lachlan, his ancient hazel eyes turned glassy with unshed tears, his words gravelly. “Ye don’t understand, after yer father, after your grandmother—it—it was too much. I couldn’t…” He shook his head. “How can ye love something ye ken ye’ll lose?”

  A heavy boulder settling into his chest, Lachlan moved to stand, his look pained as he looked down at his grandfather. At the wi
thered man time had ravaged. “Except you never lost us, Grandfather. That is the difference. I am still here. Sloane is still here. And we deserved more. We always deserved more. We still do.”

  His grandfather lifted his eyes, the blue streaks in the hazel long since dulled to colorless streaks of grey. The marquess stared at Lachlan.

  Judging his words, his worth.

  Lachlan accepted it fully, returning the stare. Whether he walked out of Vinehill today, or stayed, it didn’t matter. What mattered was the woman standing three feet behind him. What mattered was that she would be by his side. What mattered was her love.

  “Fine. Fine boy.” His grandfather’s left hand lifted from the cane, waving in the air. “I cede the running of the estate.”

  No words of endearment. No pride.

  But a start.

  A start.

  It took Lachlan a full breath to dislodge the lump in his throat. “Very well. The first order of business is to rescind that petition of divorce you sent.”

  ~~~

  Atop her horse, Evalyn looked over her shoulder past the four rolling hills they’d just traveled over. One last glance at the far-off group of cottages and barns set into a small circle.

  It was the first thing she demanded to do the day after the confrontation with her stepfather. She needed to make sure the families Molson had threatened were alive and well. Lachlan had insisted he could send men to see to the task, but it wasn’t enough for her.

  She’d needed to see it with her own eyes. That the children were all alive and healthy. And she made sure Lachlan brought extra coin to leave with them.

  It was another hour on the journey home before Lachlan broke the silence.

  “Your worries are eased?” he asked from his horse next to hers. His eyes flicked back to the direction of the farm they’d spent the majority of the afternoon at.

  “They are. For these families.” She shook her head, her look shifting forward on the road. “But it scares me to think of the terror that my stepfather unleashed on this land. How many others were not so lucky. How many others ended with the fate of your brother and your relations.”

  Lachlan’s gaze went to the rolling hills, an unsettling darkness creeping into his look.

  His brother.

  She could see it in the hazel of his eyes, the toll his brother’s death still took upon him. The forgiveness he couldn’t afford himself on the matter.

  They traveled onward for thirty more minutes before they came upon ruins of several cottages and barns.

  Her throat tightened.

  All the structures had been burned to the ground some time past. Maybe in the previous summer. Maybe in the year before. Grasses had overgrown what looked like a once tidy vegetable garden centering the structures. Rectangles of five charred buildings’ remains marked the footprints of what had once been modest cottages and barns.

  A pit in the bottom of her stomach expanded, sinking. “We didn’t pass by here on the way to the tenants.”

  “No. We took the long way there.” Lachlan’s eyes stayed oddly forward. “We stayed longer than I anticipated with the tenants, so this is the most direct way back to Vinehill.”

  She slowed her horse, her eyes riveted on the burnt wasteland. “This. This is what I fear—it’s what I fear we’ll find all across the lands.” Her voice cracked.

  A few strides ahead of her, Lachlan halted his horse and looked back to her. “You cannot take this on as your burden to bear, Eva—you were just as helpless against your stepfather and Molson as all the tenants.”

  She stopped her horse, unable to hold the weight of his stare, and she couldn’t help her look from traveling over the destruction. All of it had burned to the dirt. Had to have burned for a long time. Just rubble. Ashes.

  She glanced at Lachlan. His look remained fixed on her, unmoving.

  It struck her then. His eyes hadn’t moved toward the devastation of the buildings. Not once.

  Her jaw dropped. “This—this is it. This was where…” Her eyes swept across the destruction, searching—searching for the slightest clue that this was the spot. Not finding one, she looked to her husband, pinning her gaze on him. “This was where Jacob died, isn’t it?”

  His jaw flexed, but he didn’t look away. He nodded.

  She tugged her foot from her stirrup and slid off her horse without thinking. Dropping the reins, she walked off the trail, moving onto the dark ground still scorched black.

  Standing in the center of where the structures once stood, she looked at what was left of them, one by one. A long rectangle, fieldstone marking stalls. A barn. Another rectangle, small with stones that dipped into the ground. A larder house. Another barn.

  And two larger rectangles on opposites sides of the clearing.

  Cottages.

  Her stomach rolled.

  She walked to the far large rectangle.

  “Stop, Eva. Stop.”

  She looked over her shoulder. Lachlan had dismounted and walked halfway to her. Halfway, but no farther. His face tortured.

  All air left her lungs and she turned from the spot, walking toward him. She stopped an arm’s length away, her look intent on him through tears welling in her eyes. “If this is not my burden to bear, Lachlan, then it isn’t yours either.” Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “What happened to Jacob—you cannot continue to flog yourself for not arriving in time to save him. You think you were too late, but maybe you were right on time for your life to be spared. You don’t know what would have happened if you had arrived earlier than you did.”

  A deep-set frown dragged down his face. He glanced past her shoulder, his look settling on the black outline of the cottage for long seconds. “I know what you’re saying, Eva, but the past is a vicious mistress—I will never be able to convince myself away from the belief that if I had just gotten here in time, all would be different. My brother would still be alive. I was late, and there is no changing the fact.”

  “Lachlan—”

  He shook his head, looking to her. “But I also cannot wallow in that belief as I once did. The anger that came with it—that festered within me for too long—is not to be revisited. And nor should you let the sins of your stepfather stain your soul.”

  Her shoulders lifted in a heavy sigh. She could see the worry for her in his eyes, knew how desperately he wanted her to let this go. Yet it didn’t lessen the guilt settling into her chest. “It is heavy in my heart, that is all.”

  He reached out, grabbing her shoulders and stepping toward her. “The solace in all of this is that the path led me to you, my wife, and that, I would never forsake. I cannot change the past, but I can embrace the future.”

  “Our future?”

  He nodded. “Our future. And we can visit all the lands, check in on all the tenants, right what we can as we build what will come. That is how we need to honor those of the past that have been wronged.”

  A soft smile broached her lips. “I like that—it will be balm to my soul.” Her eyes met his, and she lost herself in the blue strands weaving through the hazel. Lost herself like she did every time she looked at him. “You are balm to my soul. Everything I never could have hoped for, and everything I ever needed.”

  He smiled. “May I never disappoint, my love.”

  { Epilogue }

  Evalyn stepped through the door that led outside from the conservatory and inhaled the heady scent of early summer boxwoods. She was late, but it had taken far longer to get dressed than she had anticipated.

  The sunlight blazing into her eyes, she lifted her hand, blocking the rays, and debated for a moment on going to retrieve a parasol.

  But then a balmy breeze caught the wisps of her hair along her brow, calling her forward into the day. She moved forth, weaving along the granite pathway that led into the gardens at Vinehill.

  Past the beds of roses closest to the conservatory, she veered to her left and started down the long formal walk lined with evergreen hedges. This part of the gard
en with roses and immaculately trimmed topiaries and shrubs stretched at least two furlongs from the castle to a rolling hill that swept down to a pond. Halfway down the grand walkway, an arm jutted out from a break in the tall evergreen hedge lining the path.

  Yanked to the side, a laugh spurted from her lips as her husband spun her into him.

  Her hands landed on his chest, splaying out along his crisp coat to his impossibly wide shoulders. “I am late to the party as it is. Now you are as well.”

  “I was already down there and they can wait.” Lachlan leaned down, his lips ravaging her neck as he walked backward, dragging her farther into the alcove she hadn’t ever noticed before. “And I wasn’t about to pass up this opportunity to trap you. Revenge.”

  “Revenge? For what?” Her hands drifted up, threading into the back of his unusually neat hair.

  His lips moved from her neck, dipping down along the swell of her breasts as he talked. “For that first time we met—when you trapped me in a much similar alcove wearing this exact same dress.” Holding her in place, he tore his hungry mouth from her skin and took a step backward so his gaze could sweep her from head to toe. The smile carving onto his face spoke volumes—pride, love, and an inordinate amount of lust. “And you are more beautiful than ever.”

  Her hands sweeping along the front of her stomach, Evalyn looked down at her mother’s dress. “That woman that you found to salvage this a marvel of the highest order—it was worth the year-long wait.” She pointed to the line on the white fabric between her breasts where she had sliced the fabric long ago. “Her stitches are miniscule and she was flawless in recreating the pattern of the gold embroidery. One cannot even tell the horrors of what this dress survived. Blades. Bloody rabbits. Mud. Rivers.”

  “Stew.”

  She laughed.

  Lachlan ran his hands down her sides, his fingers settling along her hips. “Seeing you radiant in it, this was worth the wait—and the coin.”

  “You’re still not going to tell me what the cost was to fix it, are you? Do we need to sell some land?”