Page 21 of The Knight's Pledge
The kerchief came down and a reedy breath of air whistled in through the stingy lips. “No, Your Grace. I assure you I was in no condition to abduct anyone. I had just crawled from the rubble of Darlyrede. Dazed. Bleeding. My hands burnt from the heat of the stones—look, the wounds yet heal. Darlyrede was deserted. I thought I would die at any moment.” She gasped a pair of breaths. “One of the horses had been overlooked. Not saddled, but with a bridle.” Another gasp. “I managed to hold to it. It took me into the woods where George Thomas, my angel, foundme.”
“He had sneaked away from his dinner to follow me, Your Grace,” Effie interjected.“He’s always—”
Henry held up a palm, silencing Effie. He looked back to Caris. “You did not force him to go with you.”
“He could have easily run away,” Caris whispered. “Instead, he led the horse to a place where he could help me mount. I wasn’t very steady. I did however ask him to come with me to Elsmire Tower, where lived my only friend in the world, lest I fainted along the way. I promised him a goodly coin if hewould help me.”
“Is this true, George?” Effie asked.
“Yes, Mama. You and Father always told me that is our duty to help people who need help. She was ever so ill.”
“I intended to send him home right away,” Caris continued. “I’d no idea who he was. It wasn’t until I asked him where his parents were that I realized that I was holding”—she broke off, pressed the kerchief to her lips again briefly—“I was holding my own flesh and blood, abandoned in that dangerous, snowy wood.”
“He wasn’t abandoned,” Effie shot back.
“When I understood he was Euphemia’s child, and then heard of the animal den in which he was being forced to live, I knew that I had no choice but to bring him to you, lord. To throw us all upon your mercy.” She looked back to Effie and, perhaps to an outsider, Caris Hargrave’s expression could have been construed as pleading sorrow, but Lucan saw the cunning there, hiding in the wrinkles, shimmering in the white streaks of hair, like a malevolent phantasm.
“It’s time we told the truth, Euphemia. To the king andto each other.”
“What are you talking about?” Effie demanded. “Nothing resembling the truth has ever passed your lips.”
The king pulled a rope on the wall behind him, and the door opened at once, admitting a servant.
“Bring in the others,” Henry commanded.
The servant stepped aside, and Iris Montague appeared, looking serious and wary. Lucan’s sister was followed by her husband, Padraig Boyd, who, while not at all as decrepit as Caris Hargrave, seemed also to have aged a decade since last Lucan had seen him. Then Tavish Cameron and Lachlan Blair appeared followed by two women—a blonde and a redhead—both of whom Lucan recognized.
Each of them met Lucan’s eyes.
Once they were all standing nearby, the king looked to the old woman again. “Proceed, Lady Caris.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.” She gasped a pair of breaths and then swung her gaze to Effie. “Euphemia. Your suspicions all those years ago were correct. You are in fact my granddaughter, the child of Cordelia Hargrave and Thomas Annesley.” No one in the room seemed surprised by this confession, and Lucan wondered at the information that had already been passed before his arrival.
“I tried to protect you from it, but I can see now how wrong of me itwas to do so.”
“Did you cut me from my mother’s womb?”Effie demanded.
The atmosphere in the hall tingled with anticipation.
“I did,” Caris allowed crisply.
* * * *
Effie felt the room tilt ever so slightly at this admission. The hall was as silent as a tomb.
Atlast.At last.
“I did it to save your life,” Caris continued in her raspy whisper. “Had I not done, you would have died along with your poor mother, who was dead even as you emerged.”
Effie was glad she hadn’t eaten anything that morning, else it would have ended up on the stone floorin that moment.
“You killed her,” she managed to choke out. “Yourown daughter.”
The king interjected. “You make a very serious allegation for one who was not cognizant of the goings-on at the time, Euphemia. Thomas Annesley has been well known as the perpetrator of your mother’s murder. He’s been convicted of it.”
Effie’s gaze flicked to the right of Henry, where her brother Padraig had moved to stay his wife. His face was grim and the warning for Iris on his face was clear:Hold your tongue.
Why?
