Page 79 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

The red fiber on her tent stake. The lurker in the woods yesterday. The cut on his hay cart.

“And ye were so exasperated, Jamie, and said it sounded as if MacNicol had a stake in the matter. Which he did, because if I marry Alasdair, then I can never marry Tormund, and any issue we might have created would be illegitimate.” Her hand slipped over her belly now, as if palming a life that there was no way to know yet if it had taken root. Chewed her lip. Twisted her finger. And finally, blessedly, dropped her gaze from him.

He hated the shame he sensed. Or maybe it was regret.

“Because if Tormund married me, our first son would become the Earl of Stornoway, and then the powerful alliance MacNicol needs would be impossible. A marriage to me would bring rich dower lands to them and increase their influence to eventually challenge Torm for the Hebrides.”

How does she know about the earldom?

“Of what do ye speak, sister?” James said. “What is this earldom?”

She took a deep breath as Tormund took up Niall’s flask and imbibed a long pull from it to wet his parched throat, passing it to her so she might do the same. She brought it to her lips and he watched hungrily, wanting those lush lips to taste the moisture he’d left behind on the rim. She seemed to think better of it at the last moment, and dropped the flask, denying him the tiny pleasure as she wet her lips with her tongue nervously and shook her head.

She spoke to James. “Remember when I said I found those documents of Marjorie’s? They’re Marjorie’s marriage documents. They mentioned a marriage union designed to create peace betwixt our people through the issue of a son.”

She turned now to Tormund again, but avoided his gaze.

“The abbot explained that each time a MacLeod has tried to achieve peace betwixt our folk, it was sabotaged. The MacNicols, in particular, have an interest in ensuring it’s nay possible, for if the Earl of Stornoway is bestowed, then the MacLeod hold of the Hebrides will be uncontested. Marjorie and Owen were traveling to court to declare their issue, were they nay?”

Tormund held still. Felt James’s attention resting heavily upon him. Could feel everything that he and Brighde had built this sennight crumbling, realizing she’d been targeted somehow, just as I knew would happen, for a demon’s bloodline was cursed.

He finally nodded once to her. “But when yer sire’s retinue attacked us and Owen fell, he begged me to hide the bairn, for it was then we realized he, too, might be in danger.”

“The baptismal records never arrived to confirm our nephew. Our godson,” she said softly now, and he could still hear the hurt laced into her voice.

He dared not touch her to ease her distress, not when he knew what he had to do. To protect her. To protect the life they might have created.

He could find a way to cope with letting her go and never knowing his progeny if he at least knew they were cloistered safely away, even if the sentiment roiled within him to give up what he’d almost had this sennight. A love. A family. And what if she married another in the future? The thought made him want to punch something until his hand went numb, to envision another man coming home to her. Would he love her like she deserved to be loved? Like he would have loved her?

James paced, brimming with words he couldn’t seem to order. “They said Margie couldna’ have babes.”

“They lied,” Brighde said. “They never wanted us to know the truth, and we were but pawns to their command.” She swallowed. “But I saw the Reverend Father’s baptismal notes, Jamie. Owen and Marjorie kept Goraidh secret to protect him, until they could secure his earldom. From enemies who fight first and nay listen to the truth.”

Enemies like James, MacNicol, and others. Tormund didn’t need to hear James recognize that fact. He could see the realization dawning in his eyes.

“Which leads me to wonder… What does Ghost have at stake?” she concluded.

Niall, quiet all this time, finally spoke up. “Revenge for the death of his sire at the hand of James’s sire?”

Tormund shook his head as the millstones ground in his mind. Ghost was vengeful, aye, but the earldom thwarted him in some specific way.

“Does he want this earldom for himself, then?” Niall asked, when Tormund’s face fell and everything tumbled into place: the puzzle of Ghost’s odd behavior. His ominous threats. His defiance.

“What?” they chimed in unison to him.

Tormund raked a hand through his hair once more, pacing, then whirled back around. “When I die, the chiefdom will pass to him. For he kens I have no legitimate issue.” His eyes dipped to Brighde’s belly again. “I’ve raised Goraidh as my illegitimate son in secret. Sacrificed his earldom—keeping him safe and loved was more important. As far as Brodie kens, he’s my closest relative, of the same noble blood as the grandsire we share.”

“But with Owen, the chiefdom would have passed to Goraidh?” Brighde asked.

Tormund shook his head. “When Goraidh came of age, the chiefdom, as well as the earldom Owen would have held for him by proxy until such time, would have been consolidated under his new title. It would have been obsolete.”

“As would Brodie’s lairdship over Skye,” Niall added.

How had Tormund not seen it before now? He, Owen, and Brodie had all come of age together. Been like brothers, withstanding the slings and arrows of the world. And while he knew what to expect from an enemy, the betrayal from his own kin was a bitter tonic to swallow.

“Brodie would then have had no lairdship to pass on to any of his own seed,” Tormund realized aloud, balling his fist as he affirmed the truth. Brodie’d been loyal, but only when he thought he’d been protecting his long-term aims.

“He said the strangest things to me when he, when he…snatched me in the wood.”