The Earl’s Match by Holly Bush @hollybushbooks

PROLOGUE

October 1871

Payden MacTavish Thompson stood at the rail of the ship at sundown near the end of his two-week voyage from New York to Scotland. With his cousin and best friend, Robbie McClintok, he’d taken a steamer across the Atlantic, docked at Plymouth in southern England, and boarded a boat carrying mail and a few passengers to the port in Stranraer, Scotland. They would be on dry land by the morning, and he was glad of it. He was impatient to get to the task at hand and weary of the getting there.

“Have you decided?” Robbie asked. “Are we going to Dunacres or on to Dumfries?”

Payden scanned the rocky shoreline of Scotland. He’d been thinking about that very question late into the previous night. Dunacres was the ancestral home of the Earls of Taviston, including its massive castle, outbuildings, stables, and acreage. It had all been described to him in detail over the years, mostly by his great Aunt Murdoch, but he’d never seen it. Dunacres was their home in the old country, according to Murdoch, rich in history and valuable beyond words. He’d not quite understood his family’s affinity for a place so far removed from their home on Locust Street in Philadelphia, especially as he’d arrived in America as a babe, with no recollection of a prior home or place in the world. But he knew now.

He most definitely knew now. Because he was the Earl of Taviston. It all seemed too fantastical to be true, but it was. His parents, the previous earl and countess, had left Scotland when their home and family had been threatened, his father intending to settle his family for six months in New York City, while he returned immediately to Scotland to help authorities arrest Cameron Plowman and secure Dunacres once again for his family.

But it hadn’t happened that way at all. The earl and countess had been murdered on the voyage to New York, leaving Aunt Murdoch and Payden’s sister Muireall, all of fourteen years old, to care for the family and build a new life in America, as they had no way to battle Plowman on their own. Muireall had changed their name to Thompson, and she, Murdoch, and his cousin James had kept their antecedents a secret from him and his other two sisters—and everyone else—for more than fifteen years. No one knew he was an earl and their family the owner of extensive properties until two years ago, when Plowman found them in America and began to do his worst, including kidnapping and terrorizing Payden’s family.

Payden intended to put an end to the danger. Finish Plowman for good. He was the earl and would do his duty to the title, his people, and his family.

“We’ll go to Dumfries first. We’ve got to find out where he is, and with Dumfries being the closest town to Dunacres, someone there will know.”

Robbie nodded. “’Tis best to get a lay of the land first.”

“Hopefully, there’ll be some decent horseflesh to buy at Stranraer.”

“Since neither you nor I have ever bought a horse and have only ridden a few times in our lives, I’m not sure we’ll know decent horseflesh when we see it.” Robbie smiled.

Payden laughed. “Oh, but what an adventure we’ll be able to tell our children, you know. We’ll be able to brag to James, Alexander, and Anthony, although Albert won’t care. But your mother’s suitor, Mr. Bamblebit, will care. What will you bet me that your ma and he are married before we drag ourselves home next spring?”

Robbie slapped him on the back. “I won’t bet you a penny! I say they’ll be married before Christmastide. I’m heartily glad for her. He’s a good man, and he treats her royally. She deserves it.”