
Barb Massabrook
Book:The Scot’s Oath By Heather Grothaus Series: Son’s of Scotland, Book #3 Overall Rating: Rating: 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Installment III of The Lord of Darlyrede continues…. Caedmaray, Western Isles Scotland, 1428 This story starts thirty years earlier Thomas Annesley, Lord of Darlyrede, he is running from the devil, a man who killed his own daughter Cordelia Hargrave the night before she and Thomas Annsley were to wed. Now he was after Thomas. So on the run for the past eight months he finds a job on a fishing boat. The problem is in rough water he is thrown overboard with no one realizing he is gone and in the dark cold Scottish Isles! Plus the fact no one realized he was still alive in the freezing cold ocean. This is where he ends up on small fishing village in Caedmaray in the Western Isles of Scotland. Except it was a place where they didn’t exactly welcome intruders, strangers, especially English Sassenach! Plus most were speaking fluent Scottish gaelic a foreign language he did not know. Luckily the beautiful Jessie Boyd spoke English and gaelic as she and her father welcomed him. Unfortunately a man named Dragan who had designs on Jessic Boyd and was immediately threatened by this Sassenach’s presence and wants him gone now! Dragan was very smitten with Jessie and was immediately jealous of this man and tries to murder Tommy. Except Tommy was stronger than Dragan, only defending himself, but Jessie warned if Tommy killed a local man, the entire village would convict and have him executed, Dragan became an immediate enemy of Tommy’s also wanted to marry Jessie Boyd. Except one problem for this blackguard, Jessie Boyd was his savior and eventually became his Tommy’s wife! Northumberland, 1458 Darlyrede House Thirty years later….Padraig Boyd the son of Baron Thomas (Tommy Boyd) Annesley, Lord of Darlyrede, who is finally caught and they are planning his execution. He is taken into custody because of Dragan who really holds a grudge and still wants revenge against Tommy, even all these years later. Padraig wants to finally clear his fathers name and Tommy again escapes once again. The difference is the King’s man, Lucan Montague, has his own secret agenda and wants to help Padraig get his family home back and have the King listen to his plea and evidence. Lucan believes him it seems there had been many secrets and indiscretions at Darlyrede House still. Plus Padraig falls for Lady Hargrave’s maid Beryl quickly. Except she too is afraid with his unsophistication and his brogue, the English nobility will chew him up and spit him out. As it turns out she is actually a lady herself and only disguising herself as a ladies maid. Beryl’s name is really Iris Montage, and she is looking for proof that Vaughn Hargrave, burned her family home Castle Dare, that killed both her parents and orphaned both her and her brother Lucan. .So she turns out to be Padraig’s tutor as she will care for Lady Hargrave in the evenings. She is documenting everything she discovers in this house of horrors. As there are missing teenage girls including their own daughter and niece as Hargrave is an absolute evil psychopath! It seems he is obsessed with sixteen year old girls! Vaughn Hargrave is the big thorn in his fathers side, accusing him of the heinous crimes,. from murder to trying to have him removed from his own land and stealing his family home and even trying to have him emxecuted! Padraig knows his father as a kind. thoughtful, loyal, loving and hard working, quiet man that would not harm a soul! Padraig course at first he was not taken seriously just another fortune hunter. Well that is until the evil tyrant Vaughn Hargrave who is suspected of many gruesome crimes involving young teenage girls which includes torturing his own servants where everyone fears him. Yet he has to agree with the King but does everything he can to get rid of Padraig but I won’t spoil that for the readers, A fast paced book from start to finish!
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