Quest of the Highlander (Crowns & Kilts #5) - Cynthia Wright Page 0,6
I was a fool.”
“Where did she go?” he pressed.
Magnus shook his big head. “She would not tell me—or speak to me at all. Her nurse, Isbeil, brought a brother to travel with them in one of our galleys. The day they sailed away, with little Ciaran sitting between them on the bench, I thought my heart would break.”
Lennox mulled this over, imagining the scene and Magnus’s despair as he stood on the cliff outside Duntulm Castle and watched his family depart. Yet there must be more to the story. His mother, Eleanor, had been a strong, kind woman, and it surprised him that she would walk away without giving Da a second chance. “How long were they away?”
“The full summer. When Ellie returned, she said she came back to me because she’d discovered she was with child and knew we must restore our family bond. I was overjoyed and did not question the notion that ye had been conceived before we parted. Later, when ye were born, everyone agreed ye resembled the long-dead, distant Viking ancestors of clan MacLeod.”
Grandfather hacked up some phlegm, as if offering his opinion of that theory.
“And then what happened?” pressed Lennox.
“We were happy, all of us. Years passed.” Magnus sighed deeply. “One day, I discovered a letter hidden in your ma’s things. It was filled with words of love.” He pointed an accusing finger at the miniature. “From him.”
Lennox’s heart pounded with a mixture of dread and anticipation. “And what name was signed to this letter?”
“No name. Only an initial. R, I think. And no matter how I raged, she would not reveal to me his identity.”
Lennox’s mind spun at the thought of all the men in Scotland with a surname or Christian name starting with R. It was a useless clue! “How can I believe you truly do not know more than this?” He wanted to grab Da and shake the answers out of him. “Swear to me!”
“Lad, I swear on the robe of St. Columba, on the memory of your beautiful mother, that I do not know who that man is.” Magnus swiped a hand across his eyes and pointed at the miniature again. “If I could tell ye, I would. But there is one thing I can say…”
Lennox felt a spark of hope that Da would actually divulge a secret. “Go on.”
“Ye may have that man’s blood, but I raised ye, Lennox MacLeod. I was the one who made a home for ye and taught ye to sail, to hawk, the way to wrap your first clan tartan.”
“That’s well enough, but all of it pales next to the truth,” Lennox whispered. “I have felt for years that I was different from the rest of the clan, but I couldn’t understand why. Now I do.” Lennox paused to stare at Alasdair Crotach, who looked back under hooded lids. “This is the reason I have not been given a proper clan brooch, is it not?” He pointed to the circular brooch that fastened Grandfather’s plaid to his linen shirt. It featured the MacLeod bull’s head in the center and was inscribed with the clan motto: Hold Fast.
Before Alasdair Crotach could speak, Magnus interjected, “Perhaps ye have forgotten that I too was misbegotten? I have spent my manhood standing in line behind the legitimate offspring of my own da, taking the leftover scraps tossed to me by William, Tormod, and the others.”
“But it’s all different!” raged Lennox. “Ye are the natural son of the chief of clan MacLeod!” He pointed to the brooch that gleamed at Magnus’s shoulder. “Ye have every right to wear this, as does Ciaran. Your place in this family is rightful, but I am not even a true Highlander. Ma was born near Edinburgh.” Lennox brandished the miniature. “And this fancy fellow looks more like a member of the royal court than any Highlander we know!”
Grandfather reached over to pluck at Lennox’s sleeve. “Has it ne’er occurred to ye that ’twas your openly expressed discomfort with the clan that stopped me from fixing a brooch to your sash?”
Lennox stared. Perhaps that had crossed his mind, but now it seemed everything he’d once casually considered had been twisted with new meaning. Even Dunvegan Castle, the fortress at the center of his life, felt unstable today.
“’Twould seem I do not belong here on Skye,” he murmured. “Perhaps I never did.”
A loud knock sounded at the bedchamber door, and Lennox crossed to open it. There stood Ciaran.