Page 14

She peered up at him. The man nearly always smiled, and it was difficult not to return it. Maisie shivered again, but this time it had naught to do with the cold.

“I should return to the hall, but . . .”

“You will, soon enough.” He began to walk the path that led to their stables. She followed.

“Was your trip to Aberdale a successful one?”

As they circumnavigated the stables, she and Kieran continued on a path that eventually led to the village, though they would not walk so far as that.

“It was not as successful as I’d hoped. I spoke to many but learned little.”

“You said before that the wayward cattle had been investigated before? Do you truly believe to learn more than you have already?”

Kieran slowed to a stop. Looked down at her with such intensity, Maisie considered looking away. But she did not. Instead, she held his gaze, something passing between them that was unexplainable.

He wanted to tell her something.

“I would not break your trust,” she found herself saying.

“I do not believe you would, though there is little cause for such a thought. I know you not at all—”

“You know some.”

“But not enough to share my true purpose today. And yet, I will do so anyway.”

Of course she wished to know what he would tell her, but Maisie was also curious why he’d do such a thing. And so, she asked.

“Why?”

“I do not know. Perhaps because you have agreed to lodge me for the duration of my stay. Perhaps because . . . I wish to tell someone.”

“Tell me,” she said, so softly Maisie was not certain if he’d even heard her.

The woods behind the Red Stag Inn stables were so quiet, Maisie could hear her own heartbeat as she waited for him to continue.

“My oldest memory as a child is as the son of the chief of Duncraig. When I’d just seen ten and two summers, my mother told me what others knew already. I was not their natural-born son but adopted as such three years prior.”

“How could you not have known this already?”

“As the story goes, I was found on a riverbank, near death, and taken in by the chief’s wife. When I finally did awake, I knew not my name nor from where I hailed. I was told, by my mother, that she and my father had sought my identity far and wide, to no avail.”

“You say, ‘I was told,’ as if you do not believe it?”

It was odd to see such a man as Kieran, fearless and brave, obviously very strong, with an expression almost soft.

“Because I no longer do. My brother, when we traveled to Castle MacKinlay to inquire about the cattle, fell in love with the chief’s sister. Married her.”

“Your brother married a MacKinlay? I’d not heard that before,” she said, shocked.

“It was only a fortnight or more since it occurred. Our father was incensed, refusing to accept her into our family. There was a time, as he would take her to wife anyway, my brother Niall believed he might no longer be the clan’s second and spoke of Father naming me as such. Though our father—or Niall’s father, rather—eventually did welcome Lady Avelina into the family, my brother continued to tout my merits as second. Apparently, our mother—his mother—paid Niall a visit to tell him why he should cease such talk. That I could never be the Duncraig’s second.”

Even knowing something big, something disturbing, was coming, Maisie was unsure if she was properly prepared.

“Why,” she asked hesitantly, “can you never be the Duncraig’s second?”

Kieran’s jaw clenched. Yet she did not press him. Instead, Maisie waited.

“Because,” he said finally, “apparently my parents knew more of my origins than they’d told me. It seems . . . I am a MacKinlay.”