“Your father—”
“My father knew?” Shona cried, cut to the very quick of her being. “How? Why?”
She looked accusingly at Caelis. “You told him when you did not tell me?”
“No. I know not how your father came to know our secret, but ’twas not through me.”
She did not understand the look of concern on Caelis’s features. Though naught made much sense at the moment. The two people he had been certain would never knowingly deceive her had done nothing but for five years.
Revelation after revelation unfurled in her beleaguered brain. Her dearest and most trusted friends had proven beyond doubt that they did not trust her. Further, they were not so trustworthy. They had lied to her, hidden her son’s nature from her.
’Twas that fact that was most difficult to accept. Well, almost.
The fact that her father had known was as devastating but not so hard to fathom. He had proven his lack of regard for her happiness too consistently for her to continue to pretend even in her deepest heart that he had loved her, despite his harsh judgment of her actions.
He’d known of Caelis’s nature, though she did not know how. If she believed Caelis’s claim he did not tell her father of the wolf nature, then her da must have found out some other way.
As former seneschal to the clan, however, her da would have been privy to secrets others were not. The how was far less important than the result though.
Her own father had known her son’s lineage and what it meant, and he’d not thought her worthy of knowing as well.
Had thought she deserved the fate he arranged for her, marriage to a man of an age to be her own grandfather?
“He knew…” She could barely comprehend the level of betrayal pounding on her already beleaguered heart like the blacksmith’s anvil. “If he knew of the Chrechte, then he knew what my pregnancy signified. He knew I was your true mate and yet he forced me into marriage with the baron.”
Saying the words aloud made them no easier to believe or to bear.
“Your father forced you to marry?”
“You think I wanted another man’s touch? You think I wanted any man to have a hold over my life after you used and discarded me?” The grief pouring off her made her tone shrill, her Gaelic slurred.
Her son made a sound of distress and guilt poured through Shona. She’d never pretended to be perfect to her children, but she had always, always tried to protect them from her distress.
It was a mark of how great the toll the last few sennights had been on her that she’d allowed them to see her upset to this degree. Her children had no fault in the pain besetting her and she would not let them pay the price for her own folly in once again trusting unwisely.
Using every ounce of her courage and will, she pushed back her feelings of betrayal and turned with a semblance of a smile to her son. “All is well, Eadan.”
“Do you still love me, Mummy?”
“What? Of course I do.” And five years old or not, she tugged her son into a fierce hug. “I love you more than my own life and I always will, I promise you.”
“Someday, I am going to be a wolf,” he whispered against her collar bone, his little boy arms wrapped tightly around her neck. “My dreams showed me. Like my da.”
“I know.” And deep inside, where truth resided, she did. “You will be an amazing wolf.”
He pulled back, checking her face as if testing the veracity of her words.
“I’m telling the truth. Can’t you smell it?” she managed to tease.
He nodded, his expression going from uncertain to a full-blown smile. “You aren’t a wolf. Neither is Marjory, but that’s okay. We’ll protect you, Da, Thomas and me.”
She could not look at the adult men without screaming, so she kept her focus entirely on her son. “Thank you, but until you are bigger, I will continue to protect you. All right?”
“I’ll be bigger soon.”
“Yes, I’m sure you will.”
“Shona.” That was Audrey’s voice, pleading and worried.
Shona could not deal with the other woman’s treachery, or what it implied right now.
“Shall we go back to the keep and see what Lady Sinclair has provided to break our fast?” Shona asked her children with a smile as bright as she could make it.
“I’m hungry,” Marjory announced plaintively.
“Then we’ll see you fed.” Caelis leaned down to swoop the child into his arms. “Lady Sinclair’s cooks make delicious, heavy brown bread.”
“Do they have butter?” Marjory asked, patting Caelis’s cheek. “I likes butter.”
“Oh, aye.”
“The laird provides well for his people,” Thomas said, his voice falsely relaxed, tension ringing through his attempts to disguise it.
“He does. Surprisingly so. The Balmoral is the same.”
Testimony to the goodness of the Balmoral laird did not give Shona the comfort it would have yesterday.
“And your clan?” Thomas asked.
“The current laird is more interested in building an army than feeding his people,” Caelis said, disdain in his tone.
“Things have gotten worse then?” Shona asked, thinking it would do her no harm to dwell on something besides these new betrayals in her life.
Because make no mistake, if her father knew of the Chrechte, so had Shona’s mother.
“Aye. It is much worse than when your family made MacLeod land their home. Few humans remain in the clan. Those who do struggle to keep the farms going, but Uven expects much for nothing.”
“He always did.”
“I did not see it.”
“Just as you refused to see the way he treated his daughter. Does she still live?” There had been times Shona thought the other girl would not survive her father’s foul temper.
“She does. She escaped and came here seeking refuge.”
“Was she granted it?”
“Aye.”
“Of course. She is Chrechte, is she not?”
“Nay. Uven’s first wife, his true mate, was human.”
“So am I.”
“When a human and a Chrechte mate, the children of their union have as much chance of being born fully human as Chrechte.”
“Regardless, if you knew this about Uven’s first wife, how could you believe him that I was not your true mate?”
“I didn’t know until later.”
Did she believe him? Shona did not know. Too many lies had been spread over her like the honey of truth, leaving her exposed to the beasts drawn to their sweetness.
Shona took Eadan’s hand and began the walk back to the keep. “I am glad Mairi found refuge. Perhaps she will even find joy here.”
“She is mated, to a Chrechte healer. They are on Balmoral Island at present. She is training with an old seer of the clan.”
“She has the sight?” Shona had always believed such gifts myths.
Now she knew some myths had more truth than what she had always taking as verity.
“She does,” Caelis confirmed.
“As does Ciara,” Thomas added with atypical timidity. “The Sinclair laird’s daughter. You met her last night.”
“I remember.” Maintaining her civility with Thomas was no easy task.
“She believes Eadan has it as well.”
Shona gripped her son’s hand tightly, not willing to exhibit lack of belief in his dreams as she had in the past. “Then perhaps she will help him learn to use his gifts.”
Eadan smiled brilliantly up at Shona, making her attempt at understanding worth the effort. “She told me the dreams are strongest when they are about something important.”
“Like your true father.”
“My lord would not have accepted my wolf,” Eadan said with wisdom beyond his five years.
“I am sure you are right.”
“Hiding your true nature from your parent is a painful thing,” Thomas said in a subdued tone.