“Why?” The word scraped her throat. “Why would ye do this to yer own braither?”
Lachlan gave a soft, empty laugh. “Is it nae obvious? Because he was never supposed to be Laird.”
He looked right at her. The light cut across his face and turned his eyes to chips of iron.
“I am older than Neil. Did ye ken that, Kristen?Icame first. But I came from the wrong woman. The woman our faither discarded like dirty linen.”
“So it is true,” she said, her voice thick with vindication. “Ye reallyarea bastard.”
The bandit barked a laugh, his eyes twinkling. “Oh, I like her.”
Lachlan turned and slammed his fist into the man’s jaw, then returned his gaze to Kristen.
“Aye, in a manner of speaking.” His mouth twisted. “Our faither doted onher. Onherson. The favored one. I was the bastard in the corners. The sword on a day he needed a sword. The afterthought at every table.”
He tipped his head back, looking up at the ceiling.
“Neil inherited the name, the lands, the tower. Therespect. All because his maither wore a ring that mine never did. Tell me, lass, would that nae eat at ye?”
Images ran through her mind in quick flashes. Lachlan laughing with the men. Lachlan kissing Davina’s brow. Lachlan lifting Finn until the boy’s giggles echoed under the rafters.
She had thought that was his truth. She had been wrong.
“And what does that have to do with me?” Her voice shook, but she did not try to hide it. “Is that why ye were kind to me? Helping me raise Finn and Anna? Pretending to be on me side the entire time? Was it because ye were preparing to kill me? So ye can become Laird?”
His face barely moved. “Partly.”
The bandit snorted again, the sound slithering down the passage like grease.
“Ye really like being punished, do ye nae?” Lachlan shot back without turning around.
“Ye wanted me dead the minute ye saw me, did ye nae?”Kristen probed.
“Nay, ye were only a means to an end. I needed Neil unsettled,” Lachlan explained. “Needed him tired and filled with doubts. I thought if he took a wife, he might soften and root himself deeper. So I made sure the lass sent to him was one he would never believe he deserved. A good lass with a dark past. Someone who is easy to wound.”
Heat rose in her chest.
Someone who is easy to wound.
“Ye picked me because I would bleed tidy?” she snapped. “Because a wound in me would look clean on yer hands?”
“When he left and didnae come back,” Lachlan continued, ignoring her, “I saw me chance. If Neil sent ye away when he returned, ye would be disgraced, and he would lose the one thing that made his absence forgivable.”
He lifted one shoulder, the motion lazy.
“Then Davina and I could take the children. Raise them properly. Give the people a line that was safe from the Pirate’s curse.”
“Ye hoped for me heartbreak,” Kristen said, her voice low. “So ye could steal his life from under him.”
“Ye call it stealing his life? I call it reclaiming what should have been mine.”
“Does Davina ken?” She clung to the question like a handhold on a cliff. “Does she ken that ye sent men after yer own braither? That ye have a hand in Alex’s death. In that poor woman’s death.”
For a moment, his eyes flickered. But then they hardened again.
“God, nay,” he grunted. “Davina is far too good for that. She wanted children and a peaceful life. I aimed to give her that, but I kent she wouldnae have agreed to the cost.”
“So ye lied to her,” Kristen hissed. “As ye lied to me. Ye used her kindness the same way ye used mine.”
