Page 66 of My Scot, My Surrender
“Aye,” she replied, her hand coming down flat upon the table, as if reaching for him. There were two chairs between them, though, and Brandt had the urge to stand up and fling them through the air.
“I thought he would kill ye,” she said, blinking back tears. They continued to fall, streaking down her cheeks.
“My father?”
She shook her head sharply. “Nae. Robert adored ye. We both loved ye, Brandall, more than anything in this world, and ye hadn’t even yet been born.”
Brandall.What had she just called him? The answer to that could wait.
“Then why send me away?” he demanded, his jaw so tight it ached. “Who wanted to kill me?”
Again, Lady Glenross shook her head, shutting her eyes as if against a terrible memory. Her voice lowered to a whisper, though the great hall was empty, and on the dais they would have had a clear view of anyone approaching. “I was entering my confinement when Robert fell in the quarry. He had no business being there that day; he’d told me he and Rodric were riding out on a hunt. But Rodric said it wasnae so. He had men claim he’d been with them, but there were whispers, ye ken. And there had never been any love lost between Robert and his brother.”
As she spoke, Brandt began to cobble answers together.
“He wanted to be laird, Rodric did, and Robert had often told me to be wary of his brother. To keep a keen eye on him.”
“Sorcha told me about the rumors,” he admitted.
Lady Glenross looked at him, her eyes tortured with the secrets she’d kept and the sorrow she’d borne all these years. “I thought he’d take another bride. A younger lass, perhaps. But Robert wasnae sooner in the ground than Rodric was telling me that we were to be wed. That he’d take on my bairn as his own.” She paled, her chin quivering as she looked around the great hall, as if checking to be sure they were still alone. “But I dinnae trust him. Lad or lass, my bairn would be the true Montgomery heir, and Rodric would no’ hesitate to cut down anyone who stood in his way. But it was that or leave Montgomery forever.”
Brandt felt restless, his muscles kinking and begging for action. What he wouldn’t give right then for Rodric to come walking into the room. To confront the man who had ruthlessly stolen a father, a future, and a family from him. He was not a violent man by nature, but he yearned for justice with a desire that frightened him with its intensity.
“So you sent me away with Monty,” he said. Then corrected himself. “Pherson Montgomery.”
“Pherson was my cousin, and there was no one else I trusted more. Rodric had everyone terrified; he made every clansman, down to the last child who could speak, all pledge our oaths of allegiance to him, and when one man—one who had been openly suspicious of Robert’s death—refused, Rodric ran him through with his sword.”
The vicious act reminded Brandt of Malvern. His mind leaped to Sorcha, and he fought the desire to stand up and go after her, to see her safe at his side. She was with Aisla and, though the young girl wouldn’t be much when it came to protection, he knew his wife could protect herself. He also hoped that Rodric wouldn’t be fool enough to lay one finger upon a Maclaren.
“You didn’t have to stay,” he told her. “You could have left.”
“And go where? A pregnant woman on her own traveling through the Highlands? I wanted ye alive and healthy, and Montgomery was the only home I had with midwives I trusted.” She smiled at him, a sad, pitiful grin misted by more tears. “And ye don’t ken Rodric. Even if I had run, he would have hunted me down and killed us both. Nae. I could no’ put ye in danger, my sweet boy. The moment ye were born, I had to say good-bye. For yer sake.”
He looked away from her, unable to see her tears and not feel the answering tug at the base of his throat. He didn’t want to feel sorry for her. He’d spent so many years hating her. Despising her for what she’d done. And yet within the space of a few minutes, everything he’d thought he’d known about his birth mother had started to crumble around him.
“The midwife and the lasses attending the birth vowed to protect ye. They spread word ye were weak and struggling to breathe. That ye had a strange rash and fever. They would no’ let anyone into the birthing room, and no’ a soul wished to enter, either.” She bit her lower lip and looked to her lap, where her hands were twisting a cloth napkin. “A day after ye were born, the midwife announced ye had passed. They took a bundle from my room, wrapped in layers of muslin, and buried it. They said the laird didnae even bother to look upon the wrapped bundle.”
Brandt frowned, his chest feeling as though a boulder had been dropped upon it. “What did they bury?”
Lady Glenross exhaled sadly. “Pherson had come to my room to fetch ye in the night. He brought with him a dead piglet. ’Twas similar in size.” She lifted her shoulder in a helpless shrug and let it drop heavily.
He startled both her and himself with a harsh bark of laughter. “A piglet? You traded me for a piglet?”
Wounded eyes snapped to his. “I traded my heart. I would have done anything to protect ye, even if it meant losing ye.”
His mouth flattened out again, the humor gone. In its place settled the weight of empathy. Damn it all, he’d never imagined he’d feel a shred of compassion for the woman who had given birth to him and sent him away. Why hadn’t Montytoldhim? But as soon as the question formed, the answer did as well. Nothing would have stopped Brandt from riding, hell-bent on revenge, into the Highlands, straight to Montgomery lands. Monty had been protecting him.
He’d been doing exactly what Catriona, the Duchess of Glenross and his heartbroken mother, had trusted him to do.
Brandt tapped his fingers against the wooden grain of the table, uncertain what to say. He’d always had so many questions, but now they were all changing. He leaned back in his chair, numb fingers drumming the table, and perused the hall…the aged stones surrounding him that made up his home. A burst of anger shot through him at the childhood he’d lost. He would have grown up running barefoot in this hall, being read to by the hearth, eating at this very table with people who loved him.
Monty had loved him; he had no fault with that.
But he’d been cheated of the life that had been owed to him…that he had been born for. All those fears of not knowing who he was and where he belonged came back to haunt him. He was a Montgomery, which meant he belongedhere. Or did he?
“You called me Brandall,” he murmured.
She sniffled, and after a moment, cleared her throat. “’Tis yer name. Robert said ye would be christened Brandall if ye were a lad, and so I asked Pherson to change it slightly…just in case Rodric ever discovered my deceit and tried to hunt ye both down.”
