The Stablemaster's Son

The villainous murderers are dead, put in the grave by the hand of a Channel. Liam Channel and his mother Finnie can rest now, revenge having been meted out to those deserving. In this third book of The Channel Legacy, the peace mother and son enjoy is short-lived when Sottish thugs nearly beat Liam to death in 1745 in a plot to take over his Philadelphia stable and livery business. While recuperating from his injuries, Liam's ward Raynes Bridger discovers the secret withheld from him the entirety of his life. When fifteen-year-old Raynes learns he is the son of a stable hand and a scullery maid, not the legitimate heir to the successful Shenandoah Horse Farm, his world is shattered. In blind confusion, Raynes runs from the man whom he admired as mentor and friend, the man who protected him from the truth so that Raynes' future of education and privilege would be secured. He leaves behind those who love him including Lilith Trammel, the adopted daughter of Madame Lucille Trammel, the former owner of La Belle Plantation in Virginia.

Lucille and Finnie have plans for Lilith, a beautiful and talented girl with her own secret to be kept. She is sent from Philadelphia to Baltimore where her talents as an opera singer are perfected, and then to Italy where she performs for the governor of Milan. Lilith pines for Raynes, her childhood playmate, and prays for his safekeeping. But her loneliness leads her to the arms of an Austrian officer.

What becomes of Raynes is an uncharted journey through rough living as he makes a hasty choice drastically altering the course of his life. He finds himself a private in the British Army, assigned to the stables. Raynes and one hundred men are led to the icy regions of Nova Scotia by a man who claims to be a British captain, but who is a member of the colonial militia appointed by the governor of Massachusetts to fight King George's War against the French. For months, Raynes is lead on on a treacherous journey, then endures the bitter cold and near starvation while waiting for the fighting to commence in the Siege of Louisbourg on Cape Briton Island. As he lays on the frozen ground, he dreams of Lilith and regrets his decision to run from Liam. Little does he know that Liam is hunting for him throughout the colonies of New England. Liam, while putting on hold his own plans to start a horse farm in Virginia and of telling Oralena Cutter he loves her, follows the trail to Louisbourg. After searching for months, he arrives just as the siege is in full scale, and discovers he may be too late when the bodies of British soldiers wash to shore after a nighttime fight in the frigid water of the Atlantic.