Finn reacted much as one might expect when he discovers he’s been deceived. His eyes narrowed, and his face hardened. “Very well. What did you lie about?”
“It wasn’t a lie!” Isla broke in. “It was, well, we didn’t tell you the entire truth about why we left Scotland, but we didn’t lie about it, precisely.”
“We hid the truth. Same damn thing as a lie, I’m afraid.” Ciaran glanced at Lachlan. “But it wasn’t just Lachlan who did it. We all did.”
“If Ciaran’s defending me,” Lachlan said, “This must be worse than I thought.”
Ciaran shrugged. “We’re in it together, Lach. We have been from the start. I believe you’ve mentioned that a few times since we left Scotland.”
“I have. I didn’t think you were listening.”
Another shrug. “I wasn’t. Until now.”
A long, silent look passed between them, then Lachlan gave his brother a half-smile, and turned to face Finn again. “My father, Niall Ramsey—” He broke off abruptly, shook his head, and began again. “Niall Ramsey, Ciaran and Isla’s father, died last year. Our mother,” he included Finn in his glance, “Was never the same afterwards. Looking back, I think we all knew she wouldn’t live long after he passed, and she didn’t. We buried her less than a year later, but it wasn’t just grief over his death than sent her into an early grave.”
Finn remained silent, his arms folded over his chest, waiting.
A corner of Lachlan’s lip turned up, but his smile was bitter. “Since the night we arrived in London, I’ve marveled over the irony of it, but in the end it’s a simple enough thing. One way or another, our crimes catch up to us.”
Finn stared at Lachlan, his face expressionless. “Indeed. What crimes would those be?”
Lachlan wasn’t looking at Finn anymore. He was looking at Hyacinth, and his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “That first night, you accused me of being a murderer. You were right all along,leannan. Iama murderer. Before we left Scotland, I killed a man.”
Both Lady Chase and Lady Huntington gasped, and their faces went white, but Finn, oddly enough, didn’t even twitch. He was watching Hyacinth, assessing her reaction, his eyes narrowed in thought. After a moment, he turned back to Lachlan, an eyebrow raised in question. “It’s not as simple as that. Let’s have the rest of it.”
“Why should you think there’s more? Is it so hard to believe I’m a killer?”
“Yes,” Finn answered at once. “It is.”
Lachlan stared at him, at the brother he hadn’t trusted, the brother he’d lied to, the brother he might never have known had circumstances been different, and something cracked open in his chest.
“You’re right, Lord Huntington. There is more. Much more.” Isla got to her feet to stand beside Lachlan. “It wasn’t a murder, but an accident. A terrible accident. Lachlan was protecting me from…well, from someone we thought we had every reason to trust. It’s a long story, but for now you only need to understand this man, he…he tried to hurt me. He attacked me. Lachlan heard me screaming, came running, and pulled him off me, but my attacker—he stumbled and fell, and struck his head on a heavy wooden beam on the way down. He died instantly.”
For a long moment, the only sound in the room then was the hiss and crackle of the fire, but then Lady Huntington rose to her feet, crossed the room, and put an arm around Isla’s shoulders. “Oh, my dear,” she murmured, gathering Isla into her arms. “Oh, Isla.”
“If you ask me, the scoundrel got what he deserved,” Ciaran said. “But the rest of the townspeople didn’t share that opinion. Lochinver is a small village. Too small for us, after James Baird’s untimely demise. If we hadn’t left on our own, I have no doubt they would have run us out, or worse.”
“We never would have known any of you then,” Isla added softly. “At the time, leaving Lochinver felt like the worst thing that could ever happen to us, but now, well, it’s strange, isn’t it, the way hope so often lies at the heart of a tragedy?”
Finn had been listening to Isla with a pensive expression, but now his gaze swung to Lachlan. “You mean…”
Lachlan nodded. “It was only after Baird’s death that my mother revealed the truth about my parentage. She knew she wouldn’t live much longer, and she was desperate for us to leave Lochinver, and start a new life far away from Scotland. What better chance than as the second son of a marquess? If none of it had happened—if Baird hadn’t died—I don’t think she ever would have told me the truth.”
“Jesus,” Finn muttered, shaking his head.
“I loved my—our—mother, but when I found out the truth, I was angry. To discover the man I’d believed to be my father wasn’t my father at all, that Ciaran and Isla weren’t my full sister and brother, and I had another brother, one I never knew existed…those lies seemed the worst sort of betrayal to me.” Lachlan ran a hand down his face. “Christ, I’m not even Scottish.”
“No, you’re a bloody Englishman. What could be worse than that?” Ciaran glanced at Finn. “No offense, my lord.”
Finn’s lip curled in a reluctant grin. “And our mother?”
“Buried in Lochinver, beside Niall Ramsey. I don’t suppose we’ll ever see their graves again. None of us will ever go back there.”
“She made us swear we’d leave the past in Scotland, that we’d never tell anyone the secret about what happened.” Isla turned a pleading look on Finn. “She believed it would ruin us wherever we went, that we’d become outcasts, and after what happened there, we believed her. Our friends in Lochinver—we’d known them our entire lives. They were like our family, but after James died…” Isla wiped a tear from her cheek. “They turned their backs on us. We couldn’t risk it happening again, not even when we met you all, and found out how kind you are.”
“It was a mistake. I thought I was protecting Isla and Ciaran by keeping our secret, but I was wrong, and I…” Lachlan swallowed, but he met Finn’s eyes. “I beg your pardon for it. We thought that secret would stay buried, but as I said, our crimes catch us in the end.”
Ciaran snorted. “It wasn’t our crimes; it was Lord Dixon’s bloody cousin in Achiltibuie. As it happened, this cousin had heard the whole story, related it to Dixon in a letter, and Dixon, being the blackguard he is—”
