Page 55 of A Stranger’s Promise

The doctor arrived, and Alistair left the man to tend to her injuries with Oliver by her side, while Alistair joined Nicholas at the desk. Nicholas didn’t look up from the papers spread out before him.

“What is this?” Alistair asked as he halted beside the man’s chair.

The baronet glanced at him. “I…don’t know how to tell you,” he replied in a solemn voice. “Other than to say…” His voice trailed away.

“Say what?” Alistair squinted over his shoulder at the papers on the desk.

Nicholas selected two aged sheets of parchment and held them out. “The piper’s irrefutable proof,” he said. “These are the papers that Lady Cassilis has been so desperately seeking.”

Alistair froze.

“Nae, they’re not,” Oliver piped up from the chair near the fire. “She got her papers in the icehouse, Uncle.”

Taking the papers from Nicholas, Alistair turned to his nephew. “The icehouse?” he asked. “What do you mean?”

The boy left Charlotte’s side to join them at the desk, his eyes darting nervously from man to man.

“I will not thrash you, lad,” Alistair promised, feeling drained. “The truth. I simply need the truth.”

Oliver hesitated, then answered with a rush, “I followed her, Lady Cassilis, you know. You said to watch out for the man with the green hat. I saw him the first day when I went to the stables with Lady Cassilis. He dropped his hat near the kitchens. He’s been here every day, wanting money and liquor. She called him Thomas.” The boy looked up at him, his expression earnest.

It all began to make sense. Alistair exchanged a long look with Nicholas. They hadn’t been asking the right person.

“What did they speak of at the icehouse that day? Thomas was there, was he not?”

“Yes.” Oliver nodded. “I followed him from the kitchens. She came later. She wanted her papers. She’s always talking about papers. She was angry he kept taking so long to fetch them and he demanded more money. He gave them to her at the icehouse and she left.”

“What of the fire?” Alistair asked.

Oliver fidgeted a little before admitting, “After Lady Cassilis left, Thomas started drinking. I waited until he fell asleep and took his hat to show you, but he woke up, so I hid in the back. I waited and waited, but he kept drinking. I don’t know how the fire started, but he had a lantern with him. I fell asleep, and when I woke up, the fire had started. I ran out as fast as I could.”

“So, the drunken sot started the fire.” Nicholas snorted.

“It would seem so.” Alistair nodded, then addressed Oliver. “These papers he gave Lady Cassilis, what did they look like?”

“He gave her a leather package tied with red string. Said it came from the best scribes in Scotland.”

Alistair looked at Nicholas. “No doubt, they are papers proving my birth as illegitimate, though coming from scribes, I wager they are forgeries.”

To his surprise, Nicholas laughed. “I suspect you are right, but there’s no need when you hold the answer to this riddle in your hand.”

Alistair looked down at the parchment. The first sheet bore the Cassilis family crest emblazoned in the wax seal at the bottom of the page. He scanned the contents, surprised to discover it a certificate of his birth.

“The next paper,” Nicholas said, “is a wee bit more interesting. Lady Cassilis won’t like the tale those dates tell.”

Alistair shuffled the papers and peered at the next sheet. A special license of marriage issued to his parents with a date a good year before his birth.

“You never were illegitimate,” Nicholas murmured. “The piper’s had this proof the entire time, hidden in the caves.”

Alistair stared at the document in stunned disbelief. “So, the old earl wasn’t referring to Foster,” he whispered. “He spoke of the ghostly piper this entire time.”

“Aye.” Nicholas nodded at the remaining papers scattered on the desk. “You have always been the rightful heir to the title and the estates, and you were a good seven years of age when your mother died. The old earl’s marriage to Lady Cassilis was never legal, lad. He needed her money, so he hid your existence with the ghostly piper and swept you away, as if you had never existed.”

Alistair swallowed. “This castle consumed him.” He glanced at the finery surrounding him. “There wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t have done to save his castle.”

“Aye. Even sacrifice his firstborn as they do in the tales,” the baronet commented with a shake of his dark head.

Alistair snorted and dropped the papers on the desk. “Then, we shall see this matter of Lady Cassilis settled once and for all.”