Chapter Twenty
Torin didn’t knowwhere the hell MacPherson was leading him or why. He looked back but could no longer see Braya. Damn it, he hadn’t wanted to leave her. He’d done it for Adams. This was what caring got you.
He looked around. Lismoor was guarded well. How had Rothbury gained so many men?
William Stone. Torin had always thought him an Englishman who had turned traitor on his king. If that was true, why did even Highlanders follow him?
“How do you know the earl?” Torin asked him as they crossed the walkway.
“He is my brother.”
Torin stopped. The earl was a Highlander? “When did he take Lismoor?”
“Two years ago.” the Highlander told him with a slant of his mouth. “And he didna take it. He is not a warrior at heart. But he can fight when he has to, and fight well.”
“Two years ago. I do not understand. I was told that William Stone was the earl.”
“He is, but his true name is Nicholas. Nicholas MacPherson.” The commander stared at him as if he were waiting for some sort of reaction from Torin.
Torin smiled then picked up his steps again. The earl must use Stone when the king needed him to sound more English. Hell. How would he explain this to Braya and Adams?
“That sweeping move you used was very impressive,” he told the commander. “Where did you learn it?”
“My wife taught it to me.”
Torin laughed. “Your wife?”
“Aye. She is the most ferocious woman I have ever met. Dinna cross her.”
Torin shook his head. “I will not.”
They reached the tower and climbed a row of narrow stairs to a door that led to another set of heavy wooden doors. They stopped, and MacPherson turned to him in the dim light before they entered.
“My mother had a brooch just like that one,” he began. “My father forged it fer her.”
Torin wasn’t sure if his heart was beating. What was MacPherson saying? Why was he talking about his mother having a brooch like Torin’s?
“The brooches are similar,” Torin told him. Were they going inside to talk or not?
“I remember the day he made it,” the commander went on. Torin wasn’t sure why he felt as if the world was about to change, or why it scared the hell out of him.
“’Twas a surprise.” The Highlander smiled, as if he were there, reliving that day. “She had no idea he had been craftin’ it fer her. But we knew. My brother and I.” He paused to take a deep breath.
Torin didn’t breathe at all.
“Fergive me,” the commander begged with a short laugh. “I dinna remember how ye signed yer name on yer letter to the earl. Is it Thomas?”
“Torin.”
Commander MacPherson’s eyes grew moist. Torin felt as if he were in a dream. One he’d had hundreds of times before. But it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. He refused to allow his mind to entertain the idea that this could be one of his brothers. It was all just a strange manner of events—as events were sometimes wont to be. ’Twas just a brooch. There had to be a hundred of them like it. But there was only one. He had always referred to his father as a blacksmith. He had made it. There was only one.
“At first,” the commander continued, clearly trying to keep his voice from quavering, “my father couldna find her to give her the brooch.”
Torin’s eyes fill with tears as a memory flashed across his mind. He swallowed back the rush of emotions, including guilt and shame threatening to erupt from his long forgotten heart before he spoke. “We were in the garden.”
“Aye, aye, ye were in the garden with her. Ye always were, Brother.” The commander held Torin by the face, a rough, strong hand on either cheek, and stared into his eyes. “Och, hell, ’tis ye. ’Tis ye, Torin.” He dragged Torin into his tight embrace. “We thought we would never find ye. I am Cainnech, yer brother.”
Cainnech, his brother. This was real. He remembered. Nothing was more proof than that. The man squeezing the air from him was real. Cainnech, his brother. Aye. Torin recognized the strength in his brother’s eyes and the defiant, determined dip of his brow.
