“Other than my father, I rarely remember anyone coming up here.” His gaze swept the chamber. “Nothing’s changed in the interim. The same bed, the same desk. This letter probably sat here all this time.”
“What does it say?”
He looked back down to the yellowed parchment. “‘I thought fit to send this trumpet to you, to let you know that, if you please to walk away with your company, and deliver the house to such as I shall send to receive it, you shall have liberty to carry off your arms and goods, and such other necessaries as you have. You have harbored such parties in your house as have basely and inhumanly murdered our men; if you necessitate me to bend my cannon against you, you may expect what I doubt you will not be pleased with. I expect your present answer, and rest your servant, O. Cromwell.’”
“Dear heavens.” Kendra released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Words from the devil himself. Can you blame your mother for wanting to walk away?”
He shrugged uncomfortably. “Father refused at first. He’d fought well and bravely in support of Charles, but when Cromwell opened fire…well, I was inside.” He drew a sharp, shuddering breath, obviously remembering.
Kendra was horrified. “He opened fire with a child inside?”
“Aye. The bombardment destroyed the east parapet and tore a large cavity in the stonework—did you not see it as we came in?”
“I wasn’t looking.”
“At my mother’s behest, Father sent word to the Lord Protector that he saw the point, and he walked away, taking me with him and never looking back.”
She folded the bed’s simple white coverlet back and lowered herself to the plain sheets below. “She wanted to save you.”
“She wanted to save her family’s castle.” He turned in the chair to face her. “If she’d cared for me, she would have come along with us.”
“Maybe your father wouldn’t allow her.”
“Maybe,” Trick conceded. “He was certainly mum on the subject.” He shoved the paper into the desk and slammed the drawer. “And I wouldn’t blame him if he did leave her that coldly. She was no mother or wife to be proud of. Besides being a Covenanter, she was an adulteress, and—”
“You judge her harshly.”
A momentary look of self-doubt crossed his face, then disappeared so fast, she wondered if she’d imagined it. “I’ve told you how I feel about infidelity.”
She’d told him how she felt about infidelity as well, but she knew better than to bring that up. Living with three brothers had taught her how to deal with men’s moods. Gingerly. “Do you remember her as being that terrible?”
“Nay, but I was only a child.”
Kendra glanced down and smoothed her cranberry-colored skirts, then lifted her head to meet his gaze. “If your father and she were at odds, why do you believe everything he told you about her?”
“For the longest time, I didn’t want to,” he admitted. “But then so much time passed and she never, ever came for me…”
“There are two sides to every story, Trick.”
If his sudden silence wasn’t agreement, at least he was man enough to consider she had a point. The only sound in the chamber was that of the flames that danced in the fireplace, until at last he said, “But I’ll never hear her side of it, will I?”
Pain radiated off him in waves, but she knew that now was not the time to talk about that. It was too fresh. “What is a Covenanter?” she asked instead. “I know English history by rote, and Greek and Roman, but I’m afraid I was never taught much of Scotland’s past.”
“I cannot say that I’m surprised,” Trick said dryly, but the remark didn’t sound at all disparaging, merely resigned. He leaned back in the chair and began untying his cravat. “Many men, including my mother’s father, signed a document known as the National Covenant. When the Civil War broke out, the Covenanters sided with the English Parliament against the king, in return for Cromwell’s promise of a religious reformation in England and Ireland, based on the Scottish Kirk.”
“And Cromwell never followed through.”
“Nay, he did not. But it took a long time for the Scots to realize they’d been duped.”
“They’d thrown their lot in with the devil.”
Nodding, he slowly drew off the cravat. “I’m afraid this castle was instrumental in Cromwell’s victory. My father never forgave my mother for that.”
With a flick of his wrist, the cravat landed on the desk in a flurry of frothy white. She stared at it. He was undressing. Whether or not he’d spent the whole day thinking about it, she was sure he expected to make love with her tonight.
A little ball of anxiety lodged in her middle.
She tore her gaze from the lace-trimmed linen. “My father fought with King Charles, too. And died, along with my mother. He would have sympathized with your father’s stance.”
