Page 68 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

“MacDonald.”

He took her in a moment longer. “Lady Brighde?” She nodded curiously at his tone, as if he knew something far deeper, and he muttered wistfully, “Indeed… Eh, this row here contains yer entire family histories.” He hurried to show her.

“My thanks.”

She moved to the row indicated as the friar returned to the main library to shuffle books to their respective shelves. Her fingers traced them. Stopping to tip one out, only to replace it, until she withdrew a thick history. Opened it. A list of peers dating back more than one hundred twenty years, as Friar John said. She took it to the table and sat.

Earldoms, baronies bestowed, along with their birth and death dates, page after page. An entry caught her eye.

The Earldom of Stornoway: 1539___________

There was not yet a recipient named. But it had been created. The year after Marjorie’s marriage to Owen.

“Friar John?” She pushed to standing, leaning around the shelf.

He returned to her, setting aside his stack.

“I have a question. Why is there an issue date for this title, but no name attached?”

“The issue’s name was never provided to the royal registers.”

Her heart leaped into her throat, and she breathed, “But…a-a bairn was born?”

He inclined his head in a nod. “The birth was recorded and the Crown was notified in secret. They had only awaited the Laird MacLeod and his wife to come before them and present their son’s baptismal records.”

Her breathing shallowed, and she grasped his hand. The reason…Owen and Marjorie had traveled to Stirling… But the men who’d brought her home to Tioram had said she’d displeased Owen. That she was barren. “Ye seem to ken a lot about this particular matter.”

He’d provided the information without referencing any documents, as if by heart.

He gazed gently upon her and patted her hand, gripping her with his other one. “Dear lady, it’s because the bairn was brought here, in secret. And it was I who performed his baptism.”

Her stomach nearly dropped. Her breathing, shallow moments before, raced now. The monk was a priest, too? It was now that she finally noticed, despite his humble cassock, that upon his finger he wore a ring bearing the pontifical insignia. He wasn’t just a monk and a priest. He was St. Bartholomew’s abbot!

“Ye held the wee laddie. Mon dieu.” She crossed herself, voice wavering. “What happened, Reverend Father?”

The abbot shook his head with dismay. “I received word of the babe’s tragic passing about a month after the baptism. The bairn didna survive.”

“I had a nephew?” she whispered, then scrambled back to the history, back to the blank name.

A missive sat scrawled beside it, written in a notetaker’s hand. Issue must be declared or else the Peace is forfeit.

“Forfeit… Why tell me this now? If it was meant to be secret? For no’ even my sister uttered a word to me.”

He squeezed her hand again, smiling down on her. Then strode away, leaving the boc-hord entirely. Dumbfounded, she turned back to her parchments, when the abbot swept back up to the niche where she sat, another portfolio in hand.

“These are my personal records. They are not the official ones, for those went with Laird and Lady MacLeod after the bairn was blessed.” He laid it out, opened it, and showed her baptismal records, turning to the second page where it was signed. “But Owen the laird and Lady Marjorie named his brother, Tormund, and ye, Lady Brighde, as the bairn’s godparents, at his baptism.”

How?

He answered as if sensing her question. “They had a proxy stand in, for the nature of the child’s security was delicate. In his birth, there was great opportunity, but also the knowledge that some enemies would no’ approve, and so, the proxy was allowed. But it was never intended to be a secret from ye or Tormund.”

Excitement brimmed. Pain lanced. Owen and Marjorie had likely been waiting for the bairn’s birth to become official before they sent word to her and James.

“Did Tormund ken?” Had he kept it from her and her kin all these years? Was this his secret? Such a sentiment angered and yet, the years of fighting and bloodshed and retaliation spoke for themselves. The bairn’s existence had been kept secret to protect him. And after the babe had passed, there was no further need to pretend he’d ever existed.

“That is nay my place to say.”

She pulled out the documents. Her sister’s betrothal and the one bearing the royal insignia. “Do ye ken what these documents mean? What is this Great Peace the late king wished to establish?”