A Laird and a Gentleman (All the King's Men #4) - Gerri Russell

Prologue

The Old Parish Church, North Berwick, Scotland

August 15th, 1592

The air in the tribunal chamber was heavy with the smell of tallow from the multitude of candles burning in the sconces on the walls. From her position in the crowded room, Mariam Swinton coiled her fingers together, twisting and retwisting them as each witness came forward.

She should be there, in the witness box, telling them what she knew, telling the tribunal panel the truth about the statement she had given supporting Donald Ruthven’s claim that Lachlan had used sorcery while at Ravenscraig Castle.

Her words were lies that had not only caused Lachlan’s arrest, but also his torture. Her lies helped streak his back with bloody wounds. Her lies had allowed her own father to prick Lachlan’s flesh with his torturous needle.

And despite all the agony Lachlan had suffered, he had not confessed to any crimes or revealed the names of other witches. Lachlan could have turned her confession back on her and named her as a witch for being different than everyone else.

He had not.

The man had chosen silence over betrayal.

Mariam clamped her teeth together to keep from crying out as guilt coiled tight in her chest. There was still time to speak the truth. Mariam’s gaze met her father’s. His icy expression warned her that if she belatedly spoke out in Lachlan’s defense, she would regret doing so. She bit down on the inside of her cheeks, fighting the urge to object until she tasted the sharp saltiness of her own blood inside her mouth.

She knew Lachlan was innocent. She knew Donald Ruthven had fabricated all of the charges against him. And no matter how much she wanted to intervene; she was powerless to do so. For if she did, her father would take her betrayal out on her flesh as he had done her whole life.

Mariam reached for the shell necklace her mother had given her before she died. The feel of the smooth shell against her palm calmed her even as Cameron Sinclair looked her way, begging her with an intensity that equaled that of her father’s to speak out, to tell the truth, stop the tribunal and all the suffering.

Why could she not do what was right by defying her father and freeing Lachlan of the charges against him? Was it because after all the years she’d spent alone with her father she was as depraved as he was? For it was said that the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.

Determined to do what was right for the first time in her life, Mariam stepped forward and opened her mouth, ready to speak until her father’s hiss of protest filled the chamber. The others beside her thought the sound was in response to the testimony Elizabeth Ruthven Douglas gave against her husband, but Mariam knew the sound was directed at her. A warning, a command, a promise of what was to come if she intervened.

Mariam snapped her mouth shut. No matter how much she wanted to do what was right, her father would never allow it. Her heart dropped and hope fled. She’d spent her whole life fighting him, trying to grasp hold of the future she wanted. A future he denied her.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Forget the past. Forget your father. At the moment she was safe thanks to King James. Fearing others might hunt her down in order to seek revenge on her father, the king had placed her under the guardianship of Cameron Sinclair. The last year at Ravenscraig Castle had been one of the least fearful of her life.

She opened her eyes only to see Cameron watching her from across the crowded chamber. The look he gave her spoke volumes. It demanded she speak up. It begged her to do something to help. And it promised his own kind of retribution if she did not.

Her fingers trembled as she wrestled with the decision. If she spoke the truth there would be hell to pay from her father. If she did not, and if Lachlan was found guilty, Cameron might never forgive her . . .

The breath she’d been holding whooshed out of her lungs when Lachlan finally stood before the magistrates’ table, waiting for the five men in white wigs and scarlet gowns to either free him of the charges of witchcraft or send him to the hangman’s noose, as if doing so would rid the world of evil.

Lachlan’s accuser, Donald Ruthven, was brought forward to stand before the panel. While