Page 22 of Rebellion's Fire

The lady nodded, and the girl scurried off. Gormflaith’s brothers gazed at each other expectantly until Eithine returned bearing a bundle, which she placed in Donald’s arms.

Gormflaith was a great admirer of her first little nephew, but right now, she anticipated greater entertainment from Adam’s reaction to him. So, clearly, did Donald.

Adam’s lips twitched. A breath of something that might have been laughter hissed between them. “White Christ, is he yours, Donald?” he demanded. “You have a child?”

“What’s his name?” Gormflaith asked, to tease him.

Adam hesitated, but only for a moment, before he reached over and touched the baby’s fat little cheek and tickled him under the chin. The baby made a grab for his finger and held it, gazing up at him. He smiled at his uncle.

Adam blinked. His breath caught. “Adam,” he said. “You called him Adam.”

God, he was good. Eerie, not to say terrifying. But he was good.

“His mother wanted to pretend he was yours,” Donald said.

A smile flickered across Adam’s face. “Liar,” he said, without taking his eyes off the baby.

Eithine, the baby’s mother, had her gaze fixed on Adam’s face. “What do you see for him, my lord?” she whispered.

The lady’s hand jerked and was still. Donald scowled. The family never asked him questions like that. They were too liable to upset Adam and everyone else.

Adam dragged his gaze from the child to his mother. “Happiness,” he said. “And strength.”

“And a long life?” Eithine asked eagerly.

Adam’s eyes didn’t move. “Of course.”

Eithine’s face split into smiles. So did Donald’s.

Gormflaith wanted to weep. Because the man who always told the truth had lied.

*

They’d extended thehall at Brecka, his mother’s most favored dwelling, before Adam had left, giving his mother a private chamber, and a chamber each for himself and Donald and Gormflaith. After months of sleeping among men, Adam was grateful for the peace. Home had always been where his mother was, and Brecka was a good, secure location around the coast and almost hidden among the hills. Lanson, without native help, would struggle to find it. And if the king came with a massive army, the family could retreat over the mountains into Wester Ross while he and Donald harried the royal troops in land they’d known intimately all their lives.

Scrubbed clean, with his beard trimmed, Adam decided not to shave it off just yet. Instead, he wrapped himself in a linen sheet and sprawled on the bed, resting his back against the solid headboard and thinking of Donald’s baby.

He was glad to be home among his family again. Being with Somerled had been both educational and fun—in between the fighting and the slaughter, which were more or less the same the world over. By the time he’d left his uncle, he’d known he would die for Somerled. He supposed he must love him. But there was a warmth that only came fromthem.

A knock on his door interrupted his thoughts.

“Come,” he called, and a girl came in with a tray, on which was a flask of ale and a cup, a bowl of dried fruit, and a loaf.

“From the lady,” she said, setting down the tray.

“Thank you.”

The girl hesitated, fidgeting. Now that he looked at her properly, Adam remembered she’d warmed his bed the night before he left for Argyll. Unfortunately, her name escaped him, but the memory of what they’d done together remained strong enough to tempt him.

He said, “Is there anything else from the lady?”

The girl shook her head and blushed. But she didn’t leave.

Adam, who rather liked the cyclical nature of events, rose from his sheet and walked naked toward her. She didn’t flee in horror. Women didn’t, as a rule. In fact, her eyes widened, scanning him from head to toe. By the time she’d returned halfway up, her breath caught.

“Oh my,” she whispered.

The girl was willing and eager. Touching her hadn’t plagued him before with distracting visions, so there was absolutely no reason not to slake his lust in her charming body. It was his own fault that he thought unexpectedly about Cairistiona, the Lady de Lanson, whom he’d held in his arms for several hours. It was imagination, not involuntary vision, that placed her secretive, half-masked, half-beautiful face on the girl before him.

---