Page 56 of The Knight's Pledge
“Harriet,” Lucan said softly. “He’ll want to meet her.”
The older woman looked up again, her eyesworried. “Her?”
Lucan nodded and then he looked over his shoulder, down the length of the bridge, where Effie Annesley had dismounted and now stood at the side of her horse, the reins in her hand hanging down by her side. She looked young and wary and beautiful in her braid and her trousers and her quiver. Lucan waved her on.
She hesitated. Then she turned and handed the reins to Gorman, paused to say something Lucan couldn’t make out. Gorman shook his head and nodded toward the keep. Effie wiped her palms on her trousers and then stepped on to the bridge, crossing to Lucan on her own, each fall of her boots ringing out hollowly in the dry moat below thewooden bridge.
She locked eyes with Harriet and the two women held one another’s gazes until Effie arrived at Lucan’s side.
“Harriet,” Lucan said, “this is Effie Annesley, Cordelia Hargrave’s daughter. She’s come to see her father.”
Chapter 14
“Effie,” Lucan said, “this isHarriet Payne.”
The old woman stared at Effie for a long moment after Lucan’s proclamation, and Effie took the opportunity to stare back. She was a handsome woman, the hair beneath her kerchief streaked white within the dark, and Effie recognized the resemblance between her and the man called Tavish Cameron, whom she had seen atHenry’s court.
Her brother, with whom she had never spoken.
This was the woman to whom her father had fled the night her mother had been murdered. The night Effie had been cut from hermother’s body.
“Cordelia Hargrave?” The old woman looked up at Lucan with confusion and perhaps a bit of suspicion, clear onher lined face.
“It’s true,” Effie answered, drawing Harriet’s attention once more. “Thomas Annesley is my father. Is he here or not?”
“But…how is that possible?” Harriet Payne seemed lost as she looked back and forth between Effie and Lucan, and then her eyes went to the crowd beyond the bridge. “Andwho are they?”
“Harriet,” Lucan said quietly. “Perhaps it would be best if we explained everything to you both at once.” He held her gaze, not unkindly,but pointedly.
“Please don’t take him away again, Sir Lucan,” Harriet choked in a whisper. “I couldna bear it. I’ve waited so long…”
Effie’s heart stuttered. Hewashere.
Lucan reached out and took the old woman’s hand between his own. “On my honor, mistress. I shall not force Thomas to do anything he doesn’t wish to do. Shall I send our friends around to the postern gate for the time being? For you can be sure that theyarefriends.”
Effie glanced up at Lucan. He considered the group from the Warren his friends now?
“Aye,” Harriet said distractedly. “I’ll send a maid with food and drink for them.”
Lucan turned as if he would go to them, but Effie laid a hand on his arm—she would never have admitted it aloud, but she couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving herin that moment.
“Where is the gate?” she asked. “I’ll tell them.”
Lucan pointed to the eastern side of the hold. “Just there. The back of Roscraig is a point over the bay.
Effie nodded and quickly relayed the information to the group through sign. She then looked back to Harriet.
“I’m ready.”
The older woman stepped back from the door and Effie preceded Lucan into a long central corridor connecting the two towers, a tall, arched opening at the far end with the portcullis raised and the view of the gray firth beyond the long finger of structures beckoned like a peaceful dream. Harriet closed the door behind Lucan and then at once crossed the stones to the stairs curving up the right wall intothe East tower.
Effie’s guts felt atremble as she climbed behind the old woman, but Lucan Montague’s presence at her back encouraged her onward. Her lips, nose, fingertips, toes, felt frozen, but her neck was hot. She shivered.
They came to a wide landing that boasted a doorway on the right, the stair picking up once more at the far end of the floor and disappearing up into the darkness of the tower. Harriet Payne passed through the doorway, andEffie followed.
The hall was beautiful. Tall ceilinged, with a long, dark trestle in the center, ringed with carved chairs and topped with a trio of ornate candelabra. Colorful tapestries adorned the walls on either side, leading like sentinels to a pair of soaring windows that flanked a massive hearth which hosted a crackling fire. Above the mantle, a wide portrait featuring three figures watched Effie’s approach.
But it was beneath that portrait, one hand on the mantelpiece, his head turned away to watch the goings-on through the left-hand window, that the only occupant of the hall stood. A man with graying hair beneath a pushed-back fisherman’s bonnet, his trousers thick and sturdy looking, his practical blade on his belt below his billowing, long tunic.
