Read Online Highland Promise by Hannah Howell - Free Book Online Page B

something only the Beaton laird could have given me. ’Tis how my brother’s wife Maldie and I kenned we were brother and sister, equally cursed in our father. She was but one of many girl children he had sired, walking away from them when he saw that the woman he had seeded hadnae given him the son he sought.”
    “The son he had tossed away,” she whispered, unable to truly understand how anyone could do such a thing to a tiny baby. “How did ye survive?”
    “A Murray mon found me and took me back to Donncoill. It was accepted that I was the Murray laird’s bastard, for he and my mother had feared that the child she carried was his. I was thirteen, convinced I was a Murray, happy in that knowledge, when I had to face the truth. Maldie had come to kill her father. Her dying mother had made her swear to do it to avenge her and I think Maldie needed to avenge the fact that he had deserted her too, not just her mother. She had had a hard life with a bitter mother—a woman who became a whore and tried to get Maldie to be one too.”
    “She must have been so angry,” Bethia said quietly as she pulled her stool closer to the bed and rested her arms on the mattress. “Please dinnae tell me she did it, for no oneshould have such a black sin upon her soul. So sad that her own mother would ask something of her that would so taint her.”
    “Nay, she didnae.” Eric smiled faintly when she sighed with relief and he smoothed his hand over her thick braid. “My mother was dead, killed along with her midwife because my father couldnae bear that she had betrayed him. That is why I ne’er kenned my mother. I have learned what I can about her kinsmen o’er the years and sent them word, but they have continued to believe the Beatons. They think I am naught but a bastard.”
    “But e’en if ye were, ye are the bastard of their kinswoman. Ye would think they would at least wish to see you.”
    Knowing what he was about to say could push Bethia so far away he would never be able to pull her back, Eric softly cursed. “I seek what is mine by the rights of my birth.” He sighed when she tensed beneath his hand and pulled back. “I am the true heir to Dubhlinn, but another Beaton slipped into the place and now denies me. The king doesnae wish to be troubled with all of this, so we cannae get aid from him. Also, there is whatever my mother had. I ken why Beaton wishes to keep me marked a bastard, for I would take everything he clutches, but I am nay sure why it matters to the MacMillans. All I can think is that they dinnae wish to anger the Beatons. And, mayhap, they are shamed by what they see as their kinswoman’s misdeeds.”
    “And ye are willing to fight for this?”
    “’Tis mine. For thirteen years, I have tried to settle this with no more than words, petitions, months at court discussing it with the king, and many another calm, peaceful way. They willnae heed me. Now I mean to confront them.” Eric watched Bethia steadily as she slowly got to her feet. “I am no William trying to kill and steal my way to land and coin.”
    “Of course ye arenae,” she snapped, but was too distracted to pay much heed to her swift and sharp defense of Eric. “I must think about this.”
    “Aye, I understand.”
    At least he tried to, he mused as he watched her leave. It seemed all very clear to him. He was the rightful heir. For years he had struggled peacefully to gain what was his, and no one would relinquish it. It was the Beatons and the MacMillans who pushed for a confrontation.
    James’s soft gurgle brought Eric’s gaze to the child. The baby lay in his rough little bed sucking on his fingers and slowly going to sleep. His parents were dead and someone wanted him dead as well. Bethia was probably still too locked in her grief and fear to be completely reasonable. She was viewing the matter through pure emotion. He tried to take comfort in the swift, sharp way she had refuted his fear that she thought he was like