Lindsay McKenna - Lord Of Shadowhawk

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

March 1, 1798

Where’s that crippled half brother of mine? Vaughn wondered in irritation, his sensual mouth pursed beneath the full, luxuriant growth of his blond mustache. He gave the docked ship he stood on a negligent look, then walked to the gangway, idly watching as some prisoners from Wolfe Tone’s rebellion, captured in Ireland, were dragged off in chains. The dead and mortally wounded were being hauled out of the hold and carted away to some unknown destination.

Vaughn hated Colwyn Bay, a wretched port town on the moody Irish Sea. It was too near Shadowhawk, his family’s country manor and hub of their agricultural concerns. Theirs? He snorted, raising a polished, booted foot onto a crate, idly resting one elbow on his thigh. Shadowhawk was his half brother’s domain. Tray was perfectly suited to being a farming clod alongside his beloved Welsh compatriots and the Irish servants he insisted upon keeping at the estate.

Where in the devil was Tray? He had sent Sergeant Porter on the whip to fetch Tray from Shadowhawk two hours ago, after they had docked. Shadowhawk was a mere hour away.

A slow anger flared within Vaughn, his blue eyes icy as he contemplated his half brother. Tray might be the eldest son of the Trayhern family but he was least liked, least understood and least a man. A smile twitched Vaughn’s mouth—a mouth used to giving orders and having people obey immediately or face swift retribution. He didn’t wear the red uniform of an officer in His Majesty’s cavalry for nothing. Scanning the busy quayside dock, Vaughn pulled his cloak more tightly against the sharp winds. The clouds that churned above the sleepy village reminded him of Tray’s eyes, light gray among other shades, depending upon his half brother’s many perverse moods. Tray was true Welsh, dark and unfathomable. At least to everyone in the Trayhern family. Except for Paige.

Paige…Vaughn felt his throat tighten at the thought of his deceased older sister. Beautiful, dark-haired, gray-eyed Paige, who had been beloved by all. Even himself. Although she was only his half sister and slated to inherit the vast Trayhern wealth when their father, Harold, died, Vaughn couldn’t hold that against Paige. She may have been almost pure Welsh, like Tray, but her sunny disposition and gentleness appealed to everyone.

Vaughn’s eyes narrowed upon the raggedly clothed forms of several dead Irishmen being dragged down the wooden gangway to an awaiting cart already littered with bodies. His lips drew away from his teeth in a bloodless snarl. “We’ve finally avenged you, Paige. I killed five of them myself.” To his great surprise he felt hot, blinding tears, and he quickly bowed his head, not wanting anyone to see them. Damn! Tears? Vaughn rubbed his eyes angrily.

It was Tray’s fault that Paige was dead. If Paige hadn’t stayed at Shadowhawk that summer, she would never have fallen prey to those bastard Irish brigands. Tray knew attacks by the starving and rebellious Irish happened frequently along the coast. He should have protected Paige. Vaughn snorted violently, dropping his booted foot to the deck. Everything Tray touched died.

Slight satisfaction lingered in Vaughn’s eyes. At least Tray got some of what was coming to him. Two years ago Tray had married some local Welsh farm girl, and she had died a year later in childbirth. His child was stillborn, and deformed, like him. Pleasure flowed through Vaughn as he savored that low point in Tray’s life. Finally! Tray was being punished for all the deaths, the misery and the unhappiness that had been caused by his ill-fated birth. Served the cripple right. Vaughn watched as two sailors carried the body of another dead Irishman by him. Paige had been properly avenged.

Vaughn’s eyes narrowed and his blood chilled. There, on a blood bay stallion with black mane and tail, was Tray, making his way toward the ship, the sergeant riding behind him. He glared down at his half brother, familiar feelings of hate stirring in him once again.

Tray wore a simple white peasant’s shirt, open at the throat, a black coat and a wool cloak around his broad shoulders, canary yellow breeches and unpolished boots with traces of mud on them. The fool couldn’t even dress properly! He wore no white powdered wig, and even his black hair was cut ridiculously short! Tray defied English tradition. He defied everyone, Vaughn thought in fury. He looked like one of those untitled industrialists instead of the eldest son of an earl. The one who would inherit all the Trayhern wealth and privileges someday. Bitterness swept through Vaughn.

“Country bumpkin!” he muttered beneath his breath. Tray should have come in a coach drawn by at least two horses. Instead, the lover of the Welsh and the bloody Irish rode his spirited Arabian stallion through the shouting confusion as if he were accustomed to the rabble that ebbed and flowed around him. No titled Englishman would be seen in hacking clothes on a dock! Vaughn’s hatred rose, constricting his throat. The less he saw of Tray, the better. His half brother reined his stallion to a stop and dismounted with enviable grace, always having been an excellent horseman. But that was the limit of his grace.

Vaughn smiled in silent satisfaction as Tray handed the reins to the awaiting sergeant. He watched through slitted eyes as Tray limped through the milling traffic on a clubbed left foot. The wind jerked and pulled at Vaughn’s cloak as he measured Tray’s progress up the ramp. Their mutual father had rued the day Tray had been born with the deformed foot. Among the titled gentry, the deformity was thought to be the mark of the devil or a curse. In Vaughn’s estimation, it was both. Tray looked like the devil—tall, powerfully built and ever watchful. He had black hair and, as often as not, gray eyes dark with brooding anger. And his skin was tanned, proof that he was out in the fields alongside his own people, something an English earl’s son would never contemplate doing.

Vaughn felt his gut tighten reflexively as Tray drew closer. He forced himself to relax. Why should he feel fearful around Tray? He was the one sent to Eton. He was the one who had become his father’s pride, while Tray remained at Shadowhawk to till the soil and raise the sheep, cattle and horses.

A grimace pulled at one corner of Vaughn’s mouth. It was well-known that Tray harbored no bitterness toward the Irish. Vaughn absorbed Tray’s anguished expression as a woman in a blood-soaked and shredded dress was carried between two sailors to the awaiting cart, her red hair hanging as lifelessly as her limbs. Good, Vaughn thought, feel the pain, half brother. She’s Irish. Dead in the name of the King of England. And there’s not a thing you can do about it, Tray. Not one damned thing. You’re always standing up for the rights of the Welsh and Irish. Well, swallow your bile, pale brother of mine. Don’t retch and shame our name. But you’re only half a man, aren’t you?

By the time Tray maneuvered clear of the gangway activities and faced his younger half brother, there was a pallor beneath his taut, bronzed flesh. His gray eyes were almost black with anger as he approached Vaughn. They stood of equal height. Because of his English mother, Vaughn was slender and by far the more conventionally handsome of the two, while Tray personified typical Welsh blood, and was heavily muscled, stocky and full-faced.