Page 101 of The Iron Earl
He was across the room to her in four long strides, his arms wrapping her, lifting her up into him. His raw voice rumbled into her ear. “You were a goddess, my love. Pure lioness. Remind me never to cross you.”
Evalyn laughed, the vibration of it cutting through the tears brimming in her eyes and sending them to her cheeks.
Lachlan pulled back slightly to see her face and his eyes darkened at the streaks of wetness. “What?”
“Happy. You. This.” She shook her head. “Relief, that is all.”
A smile, wide and filling the hard contours of his face lit up his eyes. Tugging her up higher onto him, his lips traveled her cheeks, kissing away the salt of her tears.
The sound of a cane slamming into stone broke through the air.
Both Evalyn and Lachlan’s heads swiveled to his grandfather.
“Swallowford lands, eh?” The marquess shifted on his worn wingback chair, scooting to the edge and looking almost as though he would come to his feet. “So ye come with a dowry, child?”
Lachlan loosened his hold and Evalyn slipped down along his body until her toes touched the floor. Her arm threaded around Lachlan’s back as she turned to his grandfather. “I apparently do, my lord.”
“Her father owned the majority of the Swallowford lands next to ours, Grandfather. Everything that Falsted has been ravaging and selling off these last decades,” Lachlan said, his right arm tightening about her shoulders. “But at least half of the lands are still intact. So no, we don’t lose a thing with my marriage. We double in size. And not only that, the upper Swallowford lands hold the finest flocks this side of Stirling.”
“Ah, good, very good.” The marquess’s long bony fingers stroked the stark bones of his chin as he appraised Evalyn from toe to head. “So it’s not only coin ye bring, but the true blood runs through ye as well.”
Evalyn’s eyebrows lifted. “True blood, my lord?”
“The Viscount of Jaggerfall’s mother-in-law was second cousin to my bonny Charlotte. Ye got Scot’s blood in ye.” He nodded and lifted his cane, then thwacked it down on the ottoman. “Well then, this changes everything. Welcome to the family, lass.”
Lachlan stiffened. “Not so fast, Grandfather. This comes with conditions.”
{ Chapter 23 }
“Conditions? What are ye talking about, Lach? What conditions?”
“My conditions.”
His grandfather leaned forward in his chair, his wild eyebrows pulling together. “What cow-brained ideas do ye have rattling about in that skull of yers?”
Lachlan’s arm sank away from Evalyn and he stepped toward his grandfather, pausing a foot away and looking down at him. “You stop.”
“Stop what, boy?”
“Stop every single one of your machinations over my life, Grandfather. They end now.” For a moment, Lachlan’s hands curled into fists like they always did when dealing with his grandfather. But without thought, they relaxed, calm flowing through his limbs.
“Machinations?” The old man’s withered lips pulled into a thin line and he flipped his cane in front of him, jabbing the tip into the floor and settling his hands atop. “I don’t do that, Lach.”
Lachlan scoffed. “You were sitting and laughing—laughing—with a sworn enemy, Grandfather. An enemy of our lands and our people for the last twenty years. You let him into this home—all in effort to control my life. So yes, you do do that. Is it worth it—are you willing to trade hatred for power? For your need to control everything here at Vinehill?”
“All of this I do for ye, Lach. I did it for yer brother and now I do it for ye.”
“Exactly. You want me to stay and preserve the legacy of Vinehill.” Lachlan sank to one knee on the floor so he was eye-level with his grandfather. “You want me to preserve the estate and the name and everything you’ve worked for. Your lands, your people.”
His head bowed for a moment before his look lifted to his grandfather. “If you want that, if you want me to stay, then you are no longer in charge. I am. I will take from you all the wisdom you have, as it is considerable, but you are no longer in control of me. In control of Vinehill. Combined with Evalyn’s lands, our estate, our name, our people have a way into the future. But it cannot be a future full of your edicts.”
His look hardened, pinning the marquess. “Agree, or we leave.”
The marquess’s boney hands twisted on the brass handle of his cane, his knuckles glowing white in the light of the fire. “You would not dare leave here, boy.”
“I would. I have spent my life willing to leave. I left to fight for the crown—all for the glory of the Vinehill name. I left to create my own lands and trade that I have scraped together to have a life outside of Vinehill. Even without Evalyn’s lands, we would lead a comfortable life, free of the shackles of a four-hundred-year-old title.” Lachlan paused, sighing. “Leaving one last time would be, frankly, a blessing.”
His grandfather’s head shook, the iron tone of his voice slipping. “But ye—ye cannot leave, Lach.”