October 1871
Prologue
Payden MacTavish Thompson stood at the rail of the ship at sundown near the end of his two-week voyage from New York to Scotland. With his cousin and best friend, Robbie McClintok, he’d taken a steamer across the Atlantic, docked at Plymouth in southern England, and boarded a boat carrying mail and a few passengers to the port in Stranraer, Scotland. They would be on dry land by the morning, and he was glad of it. He was impatient to get to the task at hand and weary of the getting there.
“Have you decided?” Robbie asked. “Are we going to Dunacres or on to Dumfries?”
Payden scanned the rocky shoreline of Scotland. He’d been thinking about that very question late into the previous night. Dunacres was the ancestral home of the Earls of Taviston, including its massive castle, outbuildings, stables, and acreage. It had all been described to him in detail over the years, mostly by his great Aunt Murdoch, but he’d never seen it. Dunacres was their home in the old country, according to Murdoch, rich in history and valuable beyond words. He'd not quite understood his family’s affinity for a place so far removed from their home on Locust Street in Philadelphia, especially as he’d arrived in America as a babe, with no recollection of a prior home or place in the world. But he knew now.
He most definitely knew now. Because he was the Earl of Taviston. It all seemed too fantastical to be true, but it was. His parents, the previous earl and countess, had left Scotland when their home and family had been threatened, his father intending to settle his family for six months in New York City, while he returned immediately to Scotland to help authorities arrest Cameron Plowman and secure Dunacres once again for his family.
But it hadn’t happened that way at all. The earl and countess had been murdered on the voyage to New York, leaving Aunt Murdoch and Payden’s sister Muireall, all of fourteen years old, to care for the family and build a new life in America, as they had no way to battle Plowman on their own. Muireall had changed their name to Thompson, and she, Murdoch, and his cousin James had kept their antecedents a secret from him and his other two sisters—and everyone else—for more than fifteen years. No one knew he was an earl and their family the owner of extensive properties until two years ago, when Plowman found them in America and began to do his worst, including kidnapping and terrorizing Payden’s family.
Payden intended to put an end to the danger. Finish Plowman for good. He was the earl and would do his duty to the title, his people, and his family.
“We’ll go to Dumfries first. We’ve got to find out where he is, and with Dumfries being the closest town to Dunacres, someone there will know.”
Robbie nodded. “’Tis best to get a lay of the land first.”
“Hopefully, there’ll be some decent horseflesh to buy at Stranraer.”
“Since neither you nor I have ever bought a horse and have only ridden a few times in our lives, I’m not sure we’ll know decent horseflesh when we see it.” Robbie smiled.
Payden laughed. “Oh, but what an adventure we’ll be able to tell our children, you know. We’ll be able to brag to James, Alexander, and Anthony, although Albert won’t care. But your mother’s suitor, Mr. Bamblebit, will care. What will you bet me that your ma and he are married before we drag ourselves home next spring?”
Robbie slapped him on the back. “I won’t bet you a penny! I say they’ll be married before Christmastide. I’m heartily glad for her. He’s a good man, and he treats her royally. She deserves it.”
Chapter One
May 1876
“I’m ready to get off this ship,” Robbie said as the New York harbor came into view.
Payden nodded and scanned the horizon, unwilling to look at his cousin, his most loyal friend, to whom he owed his very life. Although it was no longer just the two of them, as it had been as long as he could remember. There was a woman between them now. Robbie said no promises had been made, but Payden did not believe those promises were far off in the future. Colleen Sinclair stood on the other side of Robbie, looking up at him with adulation.
“I can’t wait to show you all the sights in Philadelphia, Colleen. You’re going to be happy there. I promise,” Robbie said, smiling down at her.
“I know I will,” Colleen said, looking toward the shore. “I can hardly wait!”
Payden rolled his eyes as Robbie laughed at her enthusiasm. “I can’t wait for you to meet my mother. She’s going to love you too.”
The two of them blushed as if no one else knew they fancied themselves in love.
“Mrs. McClintok is going to take one look at your face, cry her eyes out, and blame me to boot, which she has every right to do,” Payden said quietly. “Don’t make the lass think this homecoming will be anything less than a disaster.”
“Quit your moaning, my laird,” Robbie said and turned to Colleen. “Let’s take a walk around the deck. It will make the time go faster until we are on solid ground.”
Payden turned back to his view of the New York harbor. As much as he wished to be home, he was also wishing he’d never arrive. Because once he arrived, he’d have to face his relatives. His brother, James, and his sisters, Muireall, Elspeth, and Kirsty. And their husbands and James’s wife too. And Mrs. McClintok, Robbie’s mother, his family’s housekeeper, who mothered him as much as Muireall, his eldest sister. The only person he really wanted to talk to was his great aunt Murdoch. He’d completed the task she’d set him those five long years ago. He needed her to know that he’d finished it, that he’d been triumphant, that she could be proud of him.
It looked as though the ship’s captain was taking the steamer right up to a dock, which Payden was thankful for. He didn’t want the bother of boarding a small boat to be taken to shore. He didn’t want the bother of anything. He imagined they’d take the train rather than waiting a few days for a boat sailing to Philadelphia, and the railway would be trouble enough as he did not think he could board another boat, even knowing the trip would be a quick one. The train it would be.
After disembarking, Payden stood on the dock, getting his bearings and ridding himself of his sea legs. The New York Harbor was teeming with people speaking every language imaginable, only a few he recognized. Women, men, and children moving slowly to their destinations, carrying bags and leather pouches and their servants toting trunks. It was a clear day, the May sun warming his shoulders and arms that seemed relentlessly chilled. Robbie was pointing out things to Colleen as she stood in awe beside him.
“Let’s find a streetcar to take us to the train station. Surely there’ll be a hotel nearby if we must wait until tomorrow,” Payden said.
“Good plan. A hotel that serves food too. I’ve a mind to eat in a chair that isn’t moving!”
“Payden! Payden!” he heard and turned sharply, searching through the crowd of milling faces.
“There!” Robbie pointed. “There! It’s James! By God, it’s James!”
And then he was before him. His eldest brother in the flesh. Alive and smiling and reaching out his arms, wrapping him up as he’d always done, and crying too.
“Payden,” he said and held him at arm’s length, looking him up and down. “You’re here, boyo. You’re home.”
“James,” he whispered.
James turned then to Robbie and pulled him into his arms, the two of them laughing and crying, James remarking on how tall he was and how glad his mother would be to get him home. Payden watched Robbie introduce him to Colleen and her shy smiles and blushes when James, still able to charm a woman, remarked on the boys bringing home a rare Scottish rose.
“We’re not boys anymore,” Payden said.
James turned his head. “No. I don’t imagine you are.” He looked at Payden for a long moment. “Where are your bags? Is this everything? I’ve got a carriage on the street.”
“We put nearly everything we had in a burn pile at the dock we sailed from after we bought new, although there were old men sorting through our leavings. I doubt any of it was burned. Our rags were a sight better than what they wore, the poor sods,” Robbie said.
James looked at the both of them again and gruffly pulled them to him by the back of the neck. “My God. I worried we’d never see you both again,” he said. “Come along, then. Let’s get some food in your bellies. You both could use some fattening up.”
Payden shook off his brother’s hand before he committed violence. He was inordinately angry, with little sense as to why his stomach was rolling or his hands were shaking. Why he hated, hated, hated this ridiculous homecoming as if he were a hero. At best, he’d hoped to arrive in New York and slowly prepare himself for seeing his family again as they traveled to Philadelphia. But that was not to be. James was here in New York.
“Where’s the carriage, James?” he said as he picked up his satchel and looked around the dock.
James was staring at him again, hearing his overly sharp tone.
“Lead on, James! I’m nearly starved!” Robbie said cheerfully after a glance at Payden.
This was what it would be like for him, Payden realized suddenly. His family wrapping him in their cocoon of brotherly and sisterly strength and attention and Robbie stepping in to stop him from being cruel to the people who loved him the most in all the world. He needed to talk to Murdoch. She would help him sort out some of the pain and horror and regret. He knew she would.
The carriage ride took them to a neighborhood of well-kept homes with blooming flowers and shrubs and graveled drives to brightly painted doors. Robbie and James had talked the entire ride while Payden stared out the window, ignoring the chatter around him.
“Here we are,” James said as the horses slowed in front of a two-story brick home. “Vermeal Industries keeps this house for their use as the lot of them travel to New York regularly. We can eat our dinner and rise early to catch the morning train.”
Payden looked around the quietly elegant foyer as a woman bustled in from a domed hallway.
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