The Red Drifter of the Sea (Pirates of the Isles #3) - Celeste Barclay Page 0,17

Sean was born. I had Aidan’s son to care for just as I’d daydreamed, except he wasn’t mine.”

“Was learning that you were no longer a maiden what made Dónal mistreat you?”

“Sort of. He’s been a bully all my life. I’ve always been small, so he took advantage of it. He’d do little things to intimidate me while our father was alive. But once he was chieftain, and there was no one to stop him, he began to pinch my arms or push me. Lizzie revealing what started as a secret and became my greatest shame let Dónal think he could forever berate me about everything. Fighting back wasn’t worth the fear of a more severe beatings, so I remained quiet, did what I was told and what I had to, and kept out of sight most of the time. That’s why I didn’t meet you until last year. Once things went sour with Aidan, I avoided being around him. I avoided being around any of my brother’s associates. Once bitten, twice shy.”

“Did you run away? Is that why you were a stowaway?” Kyle pressed, but he regretted it as soon as he did. He watched Moira withdraw, and he wanted to kick himself for pushing when she’d already told him she didn’t trust him. But she’d confided so much already, he assumed she was willing to tell him more. “Did you know I have a twin?”

Moira frowned as she tried to follow the abrupt change of topic. She shook her head but tried to imagine what it would look like to have two men standing side-by-side with the same appearance. She knew Ruairí and his cousin Rowan were so close in appearance that many mistook them for twins.

“Keith. We don’t know which one of us is the elder. Our mother said she could never tell us apart. To this day, we’re not sure whether either of us has the correct name.” Kyle attempted to laugh, but he feared it sounded brittle. He wasn’t sure why he was sharing things no one but Keith knew. He’d never even told Ruairí that. But he felt he owed Moira something secret since she’d shared hers. “Our father abandoned us when we were bairns. Mother said he couldn’t stand the sound of two squalling bairns when they’d only married because he got her with child.”

Kyle paused, lost in a memory. Moira watched him until he turned a soft smile toward her. She nodded, encouraging him to tell more of his story.

“Mother was sickly for as long as I can remember,” Kyle continued. “One village woman or another was always shooing Keith and me out of the cottage to let her rest. We played with some other children, but most parents didn’t want us near their weans. They feared we’d give them bugs or the ague, since we always seemed to have a runny nose. When our mother died, a neighbor took us in but soon decided that two seven-year-old lads ate too much but couldn’t do enough work. She turned us out.”

“Merciful saints,” Moira breathed. She suddenly felt shallow, complaining about thwarted love that never was and obnoxious siblings when Kyle grew up with nothing. He reached out and covered her hands with his.

“Don’t feel guilty because your life wasn’t what mine was. You’ve had more burdens on your shoulders than you should have, too.” Kyle squeezed her hand and was prepared to pull his back when she turned her hand over. Their palms rested together as Kyle continued. “There was no poorhouse in our tiny village, but we did odd jobs for scraps of food and cast-off clothing. Keith and I stole when we had to, and I’m certain people turned more than one blind eye because we were always polite. We learned early that minding our Ps and Qs let us get away with mischief. But Laird MacLean learned of the twin urchins when he visited the spring after Mother died. He refused to allow us to remain homeless and penniless. He sold us into indenture instead. We would run away every time someone would threaten to separate us until Laird MacLean finally grew too fed up. He dumped us on the coast and said we would sink or swim, but we were no longer his problem. That night we were pulled from the crates we hid behind and brought on our first ship.”

“You were only eight?”

“As best we ken. We might be a year older or a year younger,” Kyle said