Dougal would have been furious at the thought of Robert taking over the duties he’d held, but he would not know now. He would most likely die before Robert arrived, without ever knowing the boy was even here.
What would he be like? In spite of the fact that Duncan had sent reports and invited him to visit, Struan had not laid eyes on the boy since he left. He was a gangly thing, all legs and arms, back then. Thin, his manly growth yet to happen. What would he look like now? Would more of his mother’s or father’s features show through? The clan may know him without a word being spoken in his behalf.
He was almost a year older than Sandy. Well, at least training him for a stewardship would keep him from expecting more than his due. As a natural son, he could inherit if Struan and the clan elders chose him, but that was unlikely since a legitimate heir lived and breathed.
He glanced at the bed where Dougal lay dying. Struan now deeply regretted that he had never forced the issue between them into the open and had never explained his actions of the past to his steward, and his former friend.
“Sometimes just saying the words out loud will help yer conscience.”
Moira, it sometimes seemed to him, could also read thoughts—or guilty minds.
“It will do no good, Moira, he canna hear me.”
“Ye’d be surprised what he could hear, mayhap with his heart and no’ his ears. If ye speak from yer heart.”
Struan ran his hands through his hair. So many years gone, so many kith and kin gone without time to speak from the heart.
“Make yer peace with him as ye did with Edana. ’Tis time, Struan.” Moira gathered her things together in a basket and left the room, closing the door behind her.
Struan walked to the bed and sat on the chair next to it. He leaned over and placed his hand on the other man’s arm.
“Dougal, old friend, I have some things to be telling ye.”
And the laird spoke from his heart for the first time in a long time.
4
Breaking through the last barrier of trees that blocked his view, Robert reined in and dismounted his black stallion. Dunnedin lay before him, the village spread out to the other forest, the castle and keep in front of him.
Eight years.
Not a day passed in those years when he did not think about returning. He never knew why he wanted to return— there was nothing here waiting for him.
Dougal made it clear the night of the argument that Robert was no longer his son. His actions in the next weeks were the proof—Dougal shunned him and threw his few meager belongings out of the room they shared in the keep. The insults were the worst. His chest tightened with the memories of the words flung at him in anger.
Bastard son of a lying whore.
At first, he thought it couldn’t be true, the accusations about his mother, dead all those years. But the look on the laird’s face and his lack of denial about his affair with Dougal’s wife told the truth well enough.
Robert remembered waiting, waiting for Struan to say more after admitting by default to his fathering Glynnis’s child. He had held his breath, fisted his hands, and waited. The laird looked at his wife and legitimate son, and then at him.
Please, please, please.
He’d offered a silent prayer to the Almighty, one that He chose to ignore at the time. ’Twas not meant to be, then or now. Nothing in Struan’s message even acknowledged their true relationship.
And, of course, Robert couldn’t forget that his half-brother had married the MacNab heiress and the marriage was about to bear fruit. There was no need in the clan for recognition of an additional son—an heir and another on the way protected the future of the MacKendimens.
Robert pulled on the reins of his horse and began walking towards the castle gate. A rock sitting in the pit of his stomach told him that this was probably not a good idea, no matter how much time had passed. Well, if he was lucky, Dougal was beyond expressing his hatred.
What about Struan? This had to grate on him—asking his true son to return to take over the duties of the man everyone in the clan thought was his father. Would anyone know the truth? How would he be treated now? Did they even know of the rank and power he held in the clan MacKillop? He may have started out as a steward, overseeing supplies for the castle, but his fighting and strategic abilities soon led him to the higher role of castellan.
Coming back to take over Dougal’s duties was a step down for him and he knew that Duncan thought he did it only because of the family ties involved. He was not certain if Duncan had been told the truth about him or not. The only one at Dunbarton Keep who was privy to his side of the sad story was Ada. And she told no tales.
“Come, Dubh, ’tis the dragging it out that makes it worse.” He rubbed his stallion’s nose and mounted in one jump. The horse snorted steam into the frigid winter air and pawed at the dirt. “They’ll no’ see Robert Mathieson, castellan of Dunbarton, walking into Dunnedin like a common beggar.”
He wrapped his heavy cloak and his pride around him and sat up straight. Taking a deep breath, Robert squeezed the horse’s sides, urging him into action. He steeled himself to expect nothing from Struan or the clan. When his time of duty was over, he would return to the MacKillops and be welcomed.
He did not need the MacKendimens.
