“Aye. I was,” Torin told them.
“You were at Berwick?” Cainnech asked him. “At the massacre of the villagers?”
“No,” Torin said quickly. “Not that. I was there. I took down the castle and killed Governor Feathers. But then I left to take his daughter to safety. I—”
“His daughter?”
“Aye, Julianna. I took her to an abbey in—”
“I know where ’tis,” Nicholas told him, looking as if he were haunted by more than the death of his wife. “I spoke to her there.”
“You know the governor’s daughter?”
He nodded, looking off into the distance. “I did. I lived in Berwick Castle all my life.”
Torin’s heart sank. Oh no! He’d just found his brothers only to learn that he’d destroyed the family of one of them. Now, he didn’t want to tell Nicholas MacPherson who he was. Now, he wanted the ground to split wide and swallow him whole. “You were adopted by the Feathers?”
“No,” Nicholas said hollowly. “I was purchased by them. For a stone. I was a servant until the siege.”
He grew up a slave? Purchased for a stone? William Stone. It was the name the English had given him. Torin closed his eyes, hating the English even more for casting them on these paths. “Did Feathers treat you well?”
“No. He did not,” Torin’s youngest brother told him, making Torin glad he had killed him. “Sometimes Julianna made being alive bearable, so…thank you for saving her.”
Torin wanted to drop his head into his hands and sigh with relief that he hadn’t done something to make his brothers hate him.
“I do not remember seeing you there,” he admitted to Nicholas.
His brother shrugged. “I was not permitted into the great hall, or into any of the governor’s private rooms. I stayed mostly in the servants’ quarters or in the stables.”
Torin nodded, feeling ill, and slipped his gaze to Cain, who looked the same. Their brother had been a slave.
“What are you doing here?” Nicholas asked him, his voice hardening to a threat of warning. “In my castle? Are you here to try to kill me as you did to the governor?”
“Nicky,” Cainnech said gently. “He is Torin, our brother. He carries the bronze moth Father fashioned fer Mother.”
Torin pointed to his brooch.
“I do not remember any moth,” Nicholas sighed into his cup.
“I do,” Cainnech told him, sitting beside him. “And that is it. He is Torin, our brother. He remembers Mother and her garden.” He turned to smile at Torin and, for the hundredth time, Torin let it sink in that he had his brothers back.
“Torin?” Nicholas stood up, as if coming awake. He looked at Cain first. “You are certain? We have only your memory to go by.”
“Aye,” Cain said, “I am certain.”
Nicholas’ eyes were pools of moonlit seas spilling over his long lashes onto his cheeks. “Torin? We have been searching for you.”
Torin rose and made his way around the table and into the embrace of his brothers.
He was home. Finally. Everything he had ever dreamed of was here. Everything he ever wanted. A family…
Everything but Braya. He wanted to tell her about finding his brothers and the joy of today. It made him feel a bit guilty that he was so elated when his brother’s heart was broken. Braya would tell him that perhaps Nicholas needed a fresh, light heart in his life right now.
“Brothers, I must go see to Miss Hetherington. I promised her safety and have abandoned her.”
“Miss Hetherington?” Nicholas asked, then answered his own question. “Ah, one of the two of whom you penned me about. She is English?”
“She is,” Torin confirmed.
