MacAllister’s thin lips curled up in a cruel smirk. “Oh, I do dare, Niall. Because unlike ye, I have honor. I dinna squander my family’s hard-earned wealth on trivial pursuits.”
Niall’s anger boiled at the base of his spine, radiating heat throughout his body. He wanted to leap across the table and strangle MacAllister until his face turned as red as the flames that consumed Niall’s mill. “Ye know nothing about my family.”
“Oh, dinna I?” MacAllister replied. “I know plenty.” He leaned forward, hands clasped. “I know what ye are, Niall Campbell. I see ye.”
Before Niall could respond, MacAllister waved a hand at one of the guards. “Would ye go fetch our guest down for breakfast?”
As the guard nodded and left the room, Niall took another step towards MacAllister. But the guards drew their swords and crossed them in front of him, stopping him from going any nearer.
For a second, Niall considered throwing himself at them. He was a big man, used to hard labor, and he’d been a brawler in his youth. He had no doubt he could take these two down and have his hands around MacAllister’s throat in a heartbeat.
Then the door opened and a figure strode in. “MacAllister, what the bloody hell is going on? Yer man all but dragged me down for breakfast and I dinna take kindly to—”
The man’s voice trailed off as he spotted Niall. Niall’s own voice clogged in his throat, all thoughts of throttling MacAllister momentarily forgotten.
The man before him was tall and athletic, with hair a shade lighter than Niall’s, high cheekbones and pale blue eyes like a winter sky.
Niall blinked, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. “Bryce?”
Bryce Campbell looked as surprised to see his younger brother as Niall was to see him. But his surprise lasted only a moment before he pulled on the hard, emotionless mask that Niall was so used to.
“Niall.”
Niall opened his mouth and closed it again. He looked between MacAllister and Bryce. MacAllister had a smug little smile on his face that Niall ached to wipe away with a well-aimed punch. Damn the man. Damn him to hell.
“What are ye doing here?” he asked his eldest brother.
Bryce drew himself up and frowned at Niall, looking every inch the earl addressing a subordinate. “I wasnae aware that I had to explain my actions to ye, brother.”
Niall took a step towards him. “Ye do when ye’re standing in the house of the man who has just burned my mill to the ground!” Niall spat, jabbing a finger towards MacAllister.
Bryce glanced at MacAllister. “Is this true?”
“Of course it isnae true!” MacAllister snapped. “Do ye think I would endanger our alliance over petty jealousy?”
“Alliance?” Niall said, glancing at his brother. “Ye mean beyond turfing yer tenants off both yer lands? Bryce, why are ye here?”
Bryce’s scowl deepened, his pale blue eyes flashing. “Naught that concerns ye, little brother.”
Oh, is that right?Niall thought.Rebelliondoesconcern me. Why else would ye be here, under Boyd MacAllister’s roof?
MacAllister had long courted Niall’s older brother, coveting his power and influence. If the rebels had somehow won Bryce over to their cause...
“Listen to me,” Niall said, moving closer to his brother and turning his back on MacAllister so he couldn’t hear what he said. “Whatever this man has told ye, ye canna trust him. If ever ye bore any love for me at all, dinna get involved with his schemes. I beg of ye.”
Bryce said nothing. They were of a height and as Niall gazed into his brother’s pale blue eyes, he thought he saw a flicker of doubt. For that split second, less than the length of a heartbeat, he saw a glimpse of the youth that Bryce had been, the serious, protective elder brother who had once dived into a pond to save Niall from drowning and often stood between him and their father’s wrath. But that had been long ago, before their father’s death and the subsequent squabbles over inheritance that had torn their family apart and sent their mother to an early grave.
He opened his mouth as if to speak, as if there weren’t years of bitter recriminations lying between them both, but then his expression hardened and the moment of vulnerability passed.
“And ye think I can trustyeinstead?” he hissed. “After what ye did to me? After how ye betrayed me?”
“Betrayed ye?” Niall snapped, his gut roiling with that old familiar feeling of rage and frustration he felt whenever he tried to speak to his older brother. “It was the other way around! Ye had no right to take all the family lands.”
“I had every right! I am the Earl of Newborough! I am the eldest son!”
“And that gives ye the right to turn the rest of us out on our ear?” The old arguments rose up in an instant, as fresh and bleeding as the first time they’d had them. Wasn’t time supposed to dull such hurts? Niall saw no evidence of that. His brother’s words cut just as keenly as they always had.
“Ye would have been provided for,” Bryce said. “Ye were meant for the king’s regiment. It’s what father wanted.”
