“Looks to me like ye’ve finally got yerself a family. Whether ye want it or not.”
And as Ivor looked back at Callum, at the boy he knew now would always be by his side, he realized that she was right once again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Kirkyard
Jonah Reilly stood at his father’s grave. He hadn’t been able to face his mother or sister since it happened. He’d been planning on finally visiting them today – and yet here he was, back at the site where his father’s body lay once more.
What happened to ye, Faither? Why can ye nae just come back once more, just to tell me the truth?
Eithne was here now, and Ivor was gone. Laird MacDuff was thrilled, and Jonah knew that he should be pleased too – after all, he would likely be promoted after all this was said and done.
None of it entirely made sense, though, no matter how he thought about it. Ivor Sinclair had not seemed a monster. Eithne Kinnear didn’t seem like a victim. And Rory’s plan, the plan in which Jonah would be instrumental…
What’s the right thing to do?
He didn’t know. He was a man, but he was still a boy, too. His father hadn’t been supposed to leave him yet. He had so much that he didn’t know, so much that he still had to learn…
“What have I gotten meself into, Da?” he asked miserably. All of the energy seemed to fade out of him, and suddenly, he was sitting at his father’s graveside on the cold ground, not caring who might see. “It all seemed so simple.”
And it had. When Rory MacDuff had announced Ivor’s slaughter of Jonah’s father, he’d thought of nothing but vengeance. He’d accepted the rooms arranged for him by their contact within the castle – they’d be integral to the plan – and be ready to kill if he had to.
But Ivor wasn’t the monster that Rory had portrayed. In fact, something felt…off…about the whole thing. Jonah’s father had been found with a dagger through his belly, meaning he’d bled to death slowly and painfully. But hadn’t Ivor said he didn’t like to use them in such a blunt way unless he had no choice?
“It seems he’d give his enemies more of an honorable death than that,” he told his father’s headstone, frowning. “He’d have at least slit yer throat. What possessed him to treatyedifferently?”
And there was Eithne, as well. She obviously loved the mercenary, no matter what Rory MacDuff had to say on the subject. She was a sensible, lovely, brave woman, and Jonah found it extremely unlikely that she would have been led by the nose into the romance.
“And of course, there’s the worst part, Da, because if I betrayher, then I betrayMyrna.”
Myrna.
He’d only known the girl a little time, and yet she seemed to bring the sun in her wake. He loved her more fiercely than he’d ever loved anyone. She’d acted as a soothing balm against the burning pain of his father’s death, and she’d leaned on him for comfort from all that she’d lost.
“She and her sister,” he said. “Which makes this even more confusing.”
Something wasn’t right about this – about any of it. He’d wanted revenge for his father, and he’d wanted to return Rory’s love to his side because he thought it was best. Now, though, he wasn’t sure what to believe.
He got to his feet. It was time to go and speak with Rory once more.
* * *
Jonah arrived at the house that was serving as Rory’s hideout not long later. He was let in without issue when he sounded the secret knock, but what he saw inside made him freeze in place.
Rory was not alone at the table in the middle of the room. A woman sat there across from him, looking pale and drawn. A tiny baby was in her arms, and she was unsuccessfully trying to hush the child. On the table between the woman and Rory shone a deceptively small, wickedly sharp knife.
Laird MacDuff smiled as he saw the look on Jonah’s face. “Jonah Reilly! Betty here and I, well, we were just talking about ye. Welcome!”
“Betty,” Jonah said weakly. It was his sister, older by two years, who as far as he knew was safe back home with her husband, their mother, and the baby. “Where’s Rab?”
“Dead,” Rory answered for her as Betty looked at him with pain in her eyes. “A terrible shame, really. Seems he fell off a horse and into the swords of some of me men who were just trying to protect Betty here.”
Rab was a good man. And now me sister’s a widow at nine and ten.
“Where’s me mither?” Jonah asked, trying not to let his voice shake. There must be an explanation for this. Theremust.
“She went to stay with her sister after she got news of what happened to Da,” Betty said, still bouncing the baby in her arms. “She wasnae here when thismonster…”
