The Scot released Conall with a shove. He bowed in Evelyn’s direction and Conall felt a sickly rage in his stomach at the man’s reverent “missus.”
He heard Duncan thrashing behind him. “You’d better turn me loose if you know what’s best for you, you stinkin’ pig’s arse!”
A moment later, the large house was filled with heavy silence. The old man’s eyes went over Conall’s shoulder.
“Lana MacKerrick,” he said.
“Angus,” she replied. “I never thought to see you again. Forgive us this intrusion.” She stepped to Conall’s side, her attention now on the woman still seated. “Is this her? Is this…Eve?”
Eve raised her eyes to look at Lana. “Yea. I am Evelyn.”
“What business do you have at the Buchanan town, MacKerrick folk?” Angus interjected. “You are nae welcome here. State your intent and be gone, else I’ll have you all bound and given over to the depths of yonder loch.”
Conall stepped forward, away from Lana. “As I said, I have come for my wife, and to beg pardon from you, Angus Buchanan. I ask you to lift the curse placed upon the MacKerrick town by your own sister.”
Angus scoffed. “If I am to believe Eve—and I do—she isna your wife any longer. You renounced her. She belongs to us now, part of the Buchanan clan and with our full protection.” The old man studied Conall with obvious contempt. “Isna that what you always wanted, any matter, MacKerrick? For Eve to be Buchanan? Now you have your wish. I give you no pardon. Be gone.”
Conall’s jaw tightened and he saw Eve flush and turn her face away.
“Aye, ’tis what I wanted in the beginning, but it matters not to me now.”
Eve shot to her feet, sending Bonnie clattering behind her chair in fright. “Then why did you leave me?” she shouted. “You disavowed me”—she placed her hands on her swollen belly—“this innocent child who asked not for such a life! You left us in the wood to die because we served you no further purpose!”
“Nae. Nae, Eve,” Conall said and took a step toward her. “I know that’s what you must think, but I swear to you that it’s nae the reason I left.”
“You lie!” Eve insisted with a stamp of her foot. “You tricked me into carrying your child and then when you discovered it would not lift some imagined curse, you discarded us like rubbish.”
“This curse, this curse,” Angus cried. “You beg me for mercy, MacKerrick, but I have no knowledge of this curse, though deserved of one your da was!”
Lana held out a supplicating hand. “Angus, Eve—the curse isna imagined. Please, only listen.”
Eve’s eyes turned cold. “I know you not, woman, and naught you say to me holds any sway.” She glanced at Conall, then Duncan, before pinning Lana with cold eyes once more. “The Buchanan has told me that you bore only one son—that Minerva is the one who attended you. So which is yours, hmm? Can you tell the truth? Or is it in the MacKerrick blood to deceive?”
Lana blanched, and had any other person dared to speak to the woman Conall had known as his mother in such a manner, he would have flown into a rage.
But ’twas Eve. And the question she’d raised was the very one tormenting Conall. He, too, wanted answers, and so he let Eve’s condemning words hang in the room like dirty linen.
Duncan also came forward. “Aye, Mam. You vowed you would tell us, and it seems as though the Buchanan knows more about our lives than is proper.” Duncan looked to the old man. “Would you indulge this explanation, Buchanan?”
Angus Buchanan sat once more. “Indeed, I demand it. Eve, please.” He gestured to the chair beneath her. “You’ve had nae rest.”
Conall wanted to go to her. To kneel at her feet, to take her hands in his and kiss them. To just sit at her side and soak up her presence. But the look she gave him forbade it, and so he chose instead to stand near Duncan, leaving Lana alone in the center of the room to tell her tale.
“There was—is—a curse,” Lana began. “Cast by Minerva Buchanan. But ’twas nae the day that Ronan or your wife”—she looked sorrowfully to Angus—“fell. And ’tis nae to be blamed on Dáire.” She swallowed. “’Twas me. The curse was meant for me.”
“Mam!” Duncan exclaimed. “What on earth—?”
Lana held up a hand for silence. “Minerva and Ronan had been living at the hut in the vale for nearly a year—since Dáire and Ronan had their row.” She looked to Angus once more. “I assume you and your sister had words, as well?”
Angus nodded, almost regretfully. “I would nae have her carry on in such a manner. She wasna a young girl any longer, having so far never married, denying each suit offered her. A spinster healer, the clan wise woman. Acting like a brazen wench with the brother of the man she had boldly refused.”
Lana pressed her lips together briefly. “Aye, Minerva was nearly two score when I met her. Late in life indeed, to be entertaining a younger woman’s thoughts of marriage.”
She swallowed. “On the night Ronan was to meet you, Angus, he brought Minerva to me, against her will. To the one place he knew Dáire wouldna be and the last place his brother would think to look. He somehow knew that Dáire would try to stop him. So Ronan brought them to me for safekeeping—his woman. And their newborn son.”
“Holy Christ,” Angus whispered, and his hand moved to his chest.
Duncan sank to a seat near Conall’s feet. Conall stood through the waves of warning washing over him. He would hear his truth like a man, before the woman he loved, and with what little pride he retained.
