“The papers, Lachlan. Hand them to me, will you?”
Again, Lachlan did as his mother bid. Instead of reading them, his mother sagged against her pillows. Her thin fingers clutched at the yellowed sheets. “Perhaps I was wrong to keep this from you, but I’ve never had much use for regrets. They serve no purpose, and they won’t do us any good now. When I die, Lachlan, I wish to be buried beside Niall Ramsey.”
Niall Ramsey. Not ‘your father,’ but Niall Ramsey.
He should have anticipated what would come next, but he didn’t.
He didn’t, because how could he? How could anyone?
“Once I’m buried, you will take your sister and brother to Buckinghamshire—to an estate there called Huntington Lodge. Present yourself to Phineas Knight when you arrive. He’s the Marquess of Huntington. He may not be pleased to see you—by all accounts, he’s a proud, stern sort of man—but that doesn’t matter. He can’t refuse to acknowledge you.”
Lachlan stared at her. “Acknowledge me aswhat?”
“As his brother.” Her fingers tightened around the sheaf of papers in her hand. “The previous Marquess of Huntington recognizes you as his son in these letters. The current marquess, Phineas Knight, is your elder brother, Lachlan.”
“Ciaran’s my only brother.” Dozens of confused images of Ciaran flooded his mind—Ciaran as an infant, cradled in their mother’s arms, and later, Ciaran as a boy, always running after Lachlan on his stout little legs, tedious in his adoration, in the way of all younger brothers.
“No, Lachlan. Ciaran is your half-brother, and Isla your half-sister. Niall Ramsey is their father, but he…he’s not yours. He loved you as his own—no man could have loved you more—but your real father is the late Marquess of Huntington, father to the current marquess.”
Lachlan took the papers from her hand and stared at them blindly for a moment, then tossed them aside. Even if they did prove his claim to another life, he couldn’t make them mean anything, or connect them to himself in any way. They were just marks on a page, rendered in fading black ink.
“I’m the bastard son of a marquess?” It was odd, how calm he sounded—almost as if his life hadn’t just been torn apart, and the pieces rearranged in a pattern he didn’t recognize.
“You’re not a…I was married to Lord Huntington when you were conceived. When I met your fa—when I met Niall Ramsey, you were already growing in my belly.”
Lachlan sucked in a quick, hard breath, as if he’d just taken a powerful blow to the stomach. “You fled your marriage, and left your first son behind? What kind of mother—”
What kind of mother leaves her son? What kind of father lets her go, knowing she’s carrying his unborn child?
He bit down hard on the bitter words, because what did it matter what her reasons had been? There was no answer she could give that would make any of this right in his head, and recriminations were as useless as regrets.
Then something else occurred to him and his chest tightened with dread. “What about Ciaran and Isla? The Marquess of Huntington divorced you after you left him, didn’t he?”
Because if he hadn’t, if there’d been no divorce…
“No. He died several years later. I married Niall Ramsey then, but not before—”
“Not before Ciaran was born.”
“Not before, no.” There was no hesitation, and no shame—only determination. “You’re my son, Lachlan, the legitimate son of the late Marquess of Huntington, and younger brother to the current marquess. Isla is my legitimate daughter with Niall Ramsey, and Ciaran—”
“Was born a bastard.” Lachlan stared at the wooden box, half-expecting a nest of poisonous snakes to slither out. “It’s dumb luck he’s not a bastard still, and I’m…Jesus. I’m not even Scottish. I’m an Englishman.”
He shook his head, dazed. Less than an hour ago, he’d entered this room as Lachlan Ramsey, son of Niall and Elizabeth Ramsey, brother to Ciaran and Isla.
Now he was someone else. Someone he didn’t know, and didn’t have the first bloody idea who to be.
“Not just an Englishman, but an Englishlord, son to a marquess. It’s your birthright, and your future. Listen to me, Lachlan.” His mother gripped his hand with surprising strength in one so ill. “When you leave Lochinver, you must leave your past here. Isla’s…misfortune, and everything that followed it—you can’t breathe a word of it to anyone. Promise me.”
He jerked his hand away, repulsed by the touch of her cold, shrunken fingers. “More lies? Haven’t they done enough damage?”
“Not nearly as much damage as the truth will do, should anyone in England discover it. You need look no further than Lochinver for proof of that. These people have known you your entire lives, and they’ve all turned their backs on you. Do you suppose strangers wouldn’t do the same, if they knew the truth? I lived among the Englisharistocracy, Lachlan. I know them, how vicious they can be. The past must stay in the past. If it doesn’t, Ciaran and Isla will be the ones to suffer for it.”
And Ciaran and Isla have suffered enough.
His mother didn’t say it, but she didn’t need to. Lachlan had witnessed their pain. Their wounds had left scars on his own heart.
“Protect them, Lachlan. I’m begging you, on my deathbed, to keep the secret. Start a new life, without the burdens of the past weighing on you.”
