Chapter One
Eoin Gordon raised his chalice once more to toast his twin brother, Ewan, and his new sister-by-marriage, Allyson. As he did, he had a sense that someone was watching him. As the hairs on the back of his neck rose, Eoin passed a quick glance over the diners seated below the dais, but no one seemed to be paying attention to him. He raised his chalice again but didn’t take a sip; instead, he continued to scan the crowd. He looked for anyone doing the same: studying him while attempting to ensure no one else noticed.
“What’s amiss?” Ewan, the elder twin by five minutes and the heir to Clan Gordon, leaned toward him. The brothers had been inseparable since the day of their birth. They possessed an uncanny intuition for one another and seemed to share the same thoughts more often than not. Until Ewan fell in love with Allyson, neither trusted anyone more than they did each other. As he heard Allyson laugh, Eoin’s memory flashed to her courtship with Ewan. Their relationship started poorly when Allyson ran away rather than consider a marriage to Ewan. More than once during that time, Eoin had wanted to shake Ewan, whose views on marriage and fidelity had changed all too slowly. Eoin was grateful for Allyson’s influence; he was certain his brother was a better man for it.
“Naught. I just have a sense that someone is watching me,” Eoin explained. “It’s making me want to squirm.”
“I haven’t a clue why women find you so attractive, but it’s probably some bored wife or lonely widow,” Ewan grinned. His reputation as a rogue was entrenched in many women’s minds, but his obvious devotion to Allyson no longer caused Eoin concern that his brother intended to stray from his marriage vows. “You do have a reputation as a rake. One of them is hoping they’ll warm your bed tonight.”
“Only one?” Eoin cocked an eyebrow and grinned. “My charm must be slipping.”
“You assume you had any to begin with. Perhaps it was my charm that lured the women, and they figured two is better than one,” Ewan teased. The twins were mirror images in every way except for their battle scars. Ewan had a scar that split the left corner of his lip, and Eoin had a less noticeable scar above his left eyebrow. While their scares weren’t in the same place, they were still on the same side. There was little to distinguish them apart, and they’d relied upon that throughout their lives, often trading places.
“That very charm had me running for the hills,” Allyson elbowed her husband as she leaned around Ewan to speak to her brother-by-marriage. “It’s Cairstine Grant. I don’t have a clue why she keeps looking at you, but she can’t seem to distract herself.”
“Cairstine? Why would she be staring?” Eoin wondered aloud.
“Perhaps she’s accepted she’ll have to settle?” Ewan once again teased but threw his hands up in surrender when Allyson pinched his wrist. He responded by pulling her in for a searing kiss that had many banging their chalices on the tables. Ewan’s undivided attention returned to his bride as he whispered something in Allyson’s ear that made her blush and nod her head. With that, Eoin turned his attention back to the crowd, once again pretending to drink wine from his cup. At court, neither twin overly imbibed. While they allowed others to believe they were sotted half the time they were in attendance, it was a ruse to learn more that they could report to their father, Laird Andrew Gordon, who sat to his right. Shifting his gaze to his father, Eoin wondered if he might soon have a betrothal thrust upon him. Ewan’s betrothal to Allyson had come as an unpleasant shock to everyone. Andrew arrived at court and within an hour, his sons were facing down an irate young woman in the king’s Privy Council chamber.
Eoin grimaced as he recalled the scene in the passageway between Allyson, her friend Cairren Kennedy, Ewan, and himself only a brief time before Robert the Bruce summoned them to that dreadful meeting. The young ladies discovered the brothers leaving a young widow’s chamber, tucking their leines into their leggings. There was no mistaking what they’d been doing. He and Ewan had taunted the ladies, but only a few hours later, Allyson was retelling the tale in front of the king, her father and his own, and anyone within earshot. Ewan abandoned any charm he might have possessed as he defended himself. Eoin had wanted to drag him out by the ear and shake him for antagonizing Allyson.
“Your brother is a lucky mon,” Andrew clapped Eoin on the shoulder. “He’s found more than I ever did. The love of a good woman.”
Eoin nodded. “That he did. We should all be so fortunate.” He raised his chalice.
“There’s time yet for both of us,” Andrew chuckled. A widower for many years, the twins’ parents had been very unhappily married. “Would that I could change the past, but your mother was better suited for the life of the nun she longed to be. I can’t entirely blame her for refusing my attention once you lads were born. But neither should she have encouraged me to stray nor should I have done it so eagerly. I can see now how my disastrous marriage influenced both of your views on marriage. It still surprises me how it did so in opposite ways. Ewan entered his betrothal seeing no reason to pledge fidelity because, to him, marriage was a business transaction. But you’ve always believed marriage is a sacred institution, one that both parties should protect and honor.”
It stunned Eoin to hear his father not only to speak aloud what he’d been thinking, but to hear him admit to the errors of his ways. His father was never so introspective, and it was disconcerting. Eoin leaped to the assumption that he was next.
“You needn’t scowl as though you’re aboot to be tossed in the dungeon.” Andrew continued. “I won’t arrange a betrothal for you; not until you ask for one. I learned my lesson with your brother. I’m lucky to have a daughter-by-marriage who doesn’t want to kill any of us in our sleep.”
“Allyson isn’t that underhanded. She’d kill us while staring us straight in the eye,” Eoin mused. Ewan and Eoin learned not to underestimate Allyson when they rescued her from capture at Chillingham Castle. She killed a man in her chamber while Ewan fought two others. “I should be so lucky to find a woman like Allyson.”
Andrew cocked an eyebrow at Eoin as he cast a skeptical glance over his younger son. “Covetousness is a sin, son.” Andrew warned.
“Oh, no,” Eoin shook his head. “I might be lucky to find a woman like Allyson, but I don’t want a woman just like her. I don’t wanther. Ewan and I might be alike in everything else, but we’re not exactly the same.”
“Didn’t you threaten to marry her yourself?” Andrew asked pointedly.
“Only if Ewan didn’t pull his head out of his arse. She didn’t deserve an unfaithful husband, and someone had to knock some sense into him. He wasn’t too keen on the idea that someone else might want her. It made him take a long, hard look at his own beliefs.” Eoin stopped there, not wanting his father to feel he was being judgmental about Andrew’s past choices.
“You are right, and I wish I’d given you lads a better example. I would have saved Ewan and Allyson a great deal of heartache if I’d done a better job as a father. You’ve taken the more honorable path from the beginning.”
“There was nothing honorable aboot the way Ewan and I teased Allyson and her friend that day. And I’ve made plenty of excuses for bedding married women. A marriage in name only. Their husbands have mistresses. I never forced them. They approached me.” Eoin shook his head as he looked his father in the eye. “I may have pledged to myself that I will never stray from my marriage vows, but I’ve done little to prove I care aboot the sanctity of anyone else’s marriage. I’ve been a hypocrite.”
“Do you intend to mend your ways?”
“I believe I must.”
“You’re not one to visit whorehouses, and you’re refusing married women. That leaves you widows or celibacy.”
“I’ll take the widows, but I can accept celibacy.” When Andrew shot him a knowing glance, Eoin added. “At least for a little while.”
Their conversation faded as the music began. Ewan and Allyson left the dais to dance, and Eoin joined the line of dancers. He avoided Lady Bevan, the woman whose chamber he and his brother were leaving when Allyson and Cairren had discovered him. He wouldn’t revisit that part of his past; he would never slight Allyson. He spotted Cairren and attempted to partner with her. He owed her an apology and a debt of gratitude, since she was the one to inform them of Allyson’s disappearance. They’d danced numerous times, and he liked the young lady-in-waiting, but the women’s line shuffled down, and he found himself staring at Cairstine Grant, who looked uncomfortable staring back at him.
Chapter Two
Cairstine Grant couldn’t believe her luck--in this case, rotten luck. She’d been lost in thought for most of the meal and caught herself staring off into space, except that Eoin Gordon had filled that space. He’d sat in front of her on the dais, and she realized he must have thought she was staring at him rather than knowing her mind wandered. Her cheeks heated as she stepped forward, and she curtseyed while he bowed. As their palms touched with their arms raised, Cairstine glanced at Eoin, who gave a knowing smile. She wanted to kick him in the shins for his smugness. He knew nothing.
