Page 60 of My Scot, My Surrender
Brandt exhaled, his fingers clenching into fists on his lap. “Did Jean and Una have any children?”
Lady Glenross blinked at the question, her pale brows coming together in concern. “Several. Why do ye ask?”
“No reason.”
And Brandt had none. None that would be acceptable. He had no way to ask outright if either of the Montgomery girls had been ruined by her friend, the stableboy, and given birth to a son some twenty-five years before. He wished that Monty had given him more to go on, a name even. But the names Jean and Una were not familiar. Brandt was certain Monty had never mentioned either of them.
“What was yer father like?” The soft question came from the duchess.
“Monty?” He smiled, noticing that Sorcha had also leaned forward in interest. Brandt didn’t see any harm in talking about his father now that Rodric had left.
“He was a good man. Brave. Principled. Believed in the inherent goodness of men, and that one did not need to be born a nobleman to be noble. He managed the Duke of Bradburne’s stables for years, and when he died, I took over.” Nostalgia for the old codger crept over him. It had been a long while since he’d felt such a sharp yearning to see him again.
“Was he kind to ye?” The duchess was focused on her hands that were knotted tightly together on the table, but she waited intently for his reply.
“Yes, he was. Monty didn’t have a malicious bone in his body.”
“And yer mother?” she asked, her voice wobbling slightly. Her bloodless fingers weaved and cinched together as if in agitation, though her countenance remained rigidly composed. “Was she there with ye in Essex?”
“No,” Brandt replied, not curbing his bitter tone. “My mother remained in Scotland while my father raised me on his own. I was born a bastard.”
Aisla gasped, as did Sorcha. Callan watched him with interest. But it was the duchess’s response that stunned Brandt the most. Her shoulders curled backward as she gave a short bark of laughter, and then leaned across the table to meet his stare directly.
“Ye’reno’a bastard.”
The furious intensity of her reply hit him first, but Brandt couldn’t breathe. All the oxygen was sucked out of the room the minute her eyes connected with his and held them. They weren’t dark as he’d initially assumed.
They were hazel, flecked with gold and green. Fey eyes.
Hiseyes.
Everything tilted on its axis. The floor, the hall, his entire world. Brandt lifted narrowed eyes to the woman seated across from him. “Who are you?”
Lady Glenross’s mouth opened and closed, but then she stood. Tears replaced her laughter and streamed down her cheeks as she rushed from the hall. Brandt’s chest felt too small to contain his hammering heart. But if he had her eyes, and he looked like the dead duke, then that would mean…
Good God, it was impossible.
No.Montywas his father. His motherhadto be the laird’s sister. It was the only thing that made sense. Unless Monty had lied. The room spun in tune with his brain as Monty’s broken parting words came back to haunt him.
I never told…you…truth. I’m no’, no’…
His father. He’d been about to saynot your father.
Chapter Seventeen
The torches had all been lit and the fire stoked by the time Sorcha and Brandt returned to their room. As she’d promised, Morag had sent a few maids in to clean and tidy during sup. Neatly tied sprigs of bog myrtle and thistle lay on the pillows, and Sorcha smelled freshly laundered sheets along with the soap she’d used during her bath, rather than the musty, closed-up air of the room as they’d first found it. Though she’d barely touched her food, she didn’t feel hungry. Her stomach churned, but it was from unease, and the silence Brandt had wrapped himself up in ever since Lady Glenross had fled the great hall.
Their conversation had gone from pleasant and polite, to murky and barbed within moments, it had seemed.Who are you?Brandt’s question had sent Rodric’s wife running, with tears in her eyes. Aisla had excused herself to follow her mother, and soon after, Callan had also bid them a good night.
All the while, Morag’s hushed and fervent advice to Sorcha and Brandt earlier, to leave as quickly as they could, that it wasn’t safe here, and that devils roamed these lands, repeated in the back of her mind. There was something wrong with the Montgomery, and as Sorcha toed off her slippers and felt the shock of the cold stones against her feet, she wanted only to lock the door and stay safely tucked away in her room with Brandt.
He went to stand before the hearth, his jaw screwed tight just as it had been since the great hall. She watched the shadows play over his profile—the strong, sharp lines of his forehead and nose, the concerned furrow of his brow—and wished she could read his mind. She had her suspicions; all the talk about Monty had likely dredged up memories. Though before, when speaking of his father, there had been a softness to Brandt’s expression. A softness that was not there now.
“Tell me,” Sorcha whispered.
Brandt turned his ear to her, not bothering to soften his reply. “Tell you what?”
She flinched at the bleakness in his voice. “What was that with Lady Glenross?”
