“I can tell you’re not the one who will inherit the lairdship. I’m the oldest. I should be marrying a laird or his heir, not my bastard sister.”
Allyson staggered backwards as she listened to Mary. Allyson turned to escape, but Ewan held her against his side.
“Eoin, you still need to explain, and unless you want me to be an only child, you’ll do it now.”
“I wanted to discover why Allyson’s family treats her as they do. Mary assumed I was you, and before I realized it, she was kissing me. I decided to test just how far she was willing to go, but I wouldn’t have tupped her. I do intend to tell Laird and Lady Elliot though.” Eoin cast a look of revulsion at Mary, who seethed as though she were the wounded party. Eoin turned toward Allyson. “I regret you saw that, my lady. That was not part of my plan. I found Mary out here, and she said she’d overheard Ewan saying he intended to meet you here. She wanted to find him first, hoping you’d catch her with Ewan. She assumed I was Ewan and wasted no time throwing herself at me. Now we understand your sister is so jealous, she’d sin to get what she wants. And we know that at least one of your siblings believes you don’t share the same parents as her.”
“But I still don’t understand why anyone believes that.” Allyson looked at Ewan, pleading for someone to make sense of the nightmare she couldn’t wake from. “Mary, you’re old enough to remember when I was born. You must have been here when Mother labored with me. I didn’t just turn up. Are you saying Mother had an affair? That’s not what was said the other night.”
“I wasn’t here. None of us were. We were at the Hermitage with Father. Mother didn’t join us because she’d been ill. Just like Alice said the other night, we never saw Mother increasing. We returned to discover we had a new sister. One with blonde hair and blue eyes.”
“All babies have blue eyes,” Allyson reasoned.
“But not a one of us has blonde hair.”
“You believe Mother has been lying all this time about me being her daughter?”
“Yes. I still believe Father sired you, and your whoring mother dumped you on us.”
“Is that what everyone in this clan believes? Hasn’t Mother denied it?”
“And admit her husband was unfaithful? Hardly. Besides, why bother when it’s obvious.”
“I want to go inside,” Allyson murmured as she swayed on her feet. Ewan lifted her into his arms as he cast his brother a scathing glare.
“Lady Allyson, I truly am sorry. This was not how the scene played out in my head,” Eoin stepped forward and bowed. When he stood, Allyson noticed the remorse, but she wasn’t prepared to forgive him yet.
“It might not have been. But after she kissed you once, that should have been enough. You enjoyed yourself. I suspect you’d be swiving my sister if we hadn’t found you. That would be a slight against your brother, and for that, I’m not sure I’m ready to forgive you. Ewan has been trying to make things right, and you nearly destroyed it all. He might accept your apology, but I need to decide if I will.”
Ewan turned toward the keep and carried Allyson through the side door. He prepared to carry Allyson up the stairs to her chamber, but she stopped him.
“I can make it on my own. I’m well now, and no one can see you outside my door.”
“We still haven’t had the conversation I intended, and I believe we need to.”
Allyson cast him a long stare before nodding her head. “Put me down, and I will take you somewhere no one will know to look.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Allyson turned away from Ewan but reached back to offer him her hand before leading them to the stairs. They climbed to the fourth floor, and Ewan assumed they headed to the wall walk. He doubted it was as private as Allyson claimed, not with a sentry posted every ten feet. Unlike Chillingham, Kenneth was determined that no side of his keep should be unguarded. It surprised him when Allyson opened a door, and he found himself in the attic. She led the way after he closed the door behind them. She skirted around barrels and old furniture covered in large linens. She guided Ewan to a space where there was a child’s set of dolls and toy soldiers on a small table, a tapestry laid on the floor, and stacks of books strewn about. He had a sickening feeling Allyson would explain this was where she spent much of her spare time as a child. He picked up a piece of vellum that had a drawing of a castle with a city surrounding it, and he recognized it as Stirling. Outside the city gates was a couple mounted on a single horse. The woman had blonde hair and was smiling at the man seated behind her. The man’s face wasn’t visible, but the woman was Allyson. Ewan wondered if there was another man Allyson had wished to marry.
“He isn’t real,” Allyson murmured. “I mean, there isn’t a real man that I drew.” She shrugged her shoulders as she lifted a shawl from the back of a chair. She wrapped it around her shoulders before moving aside to make room for Ewan on the tapestry she’d laid on the floor as a rug many years ago. She sat with her knees curled and her arms wrapped around them. Ewan thought she looked so small and defenseless, even her body language said she wanted to guard herself.
“But this is what you dreamed of? A man who would take you away from Stirling, away from court? Maybe away from here?”
“That, or someone who makes these places bearable.” Allyson refused to meet his eyes as his seemed to penetrate any defense she had left. She was too tired to hide any longer. Mary’s words, ones she had heard whispered her entire life but were never said before someone outside her clan, cut her to the quick. Ewan put the drawing aside and eased onto the rug next to Allyson. He wrapped his arms around her and tucked her head under his chin as tears poured down her cheeks. “I don’t want to cry every time you embrace me, but that seems to be all I can do this eve.”
“You don’t need to hide from me, Ally. Let me be the shoulder you lean on. I didn’t understand any of this until recently. But I do now. I understand why you ran, or at least I think I do. You may have felt powerless like I did, but you were the one who truly was powerless. I’ll be laird one day, and I’ll govern my clan as I see fit, but no one other than the king will tell me how to lead my life. Everyone seems to be able to dictate how you lead yours. You felt trapped, and you feared not just that I might mistreat your body, but you had a real reason to worry I would mistreat your soul. Less than a moon ago, I was too selfish to understand or care how being a philandering husband would matter to a wife who would have a keep and children to fill her days. Or so I thought. I assumed I would marry, and expected the king or my father, or even I would arrange it, but I also assumed my bride would enter the marriage under the same circumstances and would view it as a business arrangement as much as I did. Perhaps another woman would. But I understand something now, two things really, that I didn’t then. I know you’ll never see a marriage that way, and I know I don’t want to marry anyone but you.”
“What’re you saying? That after everything I put you through, you’re willing to be shackled to me? That you’ll take a shrew home to your people at Huntley?”
“We both said things that day we shouldn’t. I know I did, and I’ve had time to realize how regrettable they were.”
“You’ve had time to pity me,” Allyson attempted to pull away, but Ewan lifted her into his lap. He left his hands resting lightly on her back and thigh, showing her that she could leave if she wanted. Instead, she leaned against him, and he tightened his hold.
“I don’t pity you, Ally. I feel badly about how things began. I feel guilty for my role in this. But when I removed myself from this and tried to see things as you do, I’m amazed by your courage. You might be naïve at times, and perhaps need protecting from yourself, but you’re nobody’s fool. The qualities that led you to run are the ones that will make you a fine lady to a clan, my clan. You’re resourceful, determined, brave, not easily cowed by anyone, and you can experience remorse when you choose poorly. That’s what I want and need in the woman who will lead alongside me.”
“But you said you didn’t need anyone to lead with you.”
