Too afraid to speak, Aishlinn could only nod her head yes. Everyone had told her that Angus was kind, strong, fierce and brave. Unfortunately, no one had mentioned to her that he was daft. Perhaps it was the result of too many battles and wounds to his head.
Angus jumped to his feet and began pacing back and forth. Occasionally he would stop, look at her and shake his head. Aishlinn stayed frozen in her chair completely baffled by his behavior.
After pacing back and forth for a long time, he went and stood before the window, and stared out at the lands before him. For a time he was quiet, as if he were entranced by something that lay beyond the room, beyond the windows. When he finally spoke again, his voice was low and he suddenly sounded quite tired.
“He came to me,” Angus began. “Twenty years ago he came to me, with her dress, drenched in blood. Said a band of thieves had killed her as she travelled to see her father.”
The pain was as fresh in his heart as the day he had learned she was dead. The same intense anger and guilt returned with those memories.
“She had gone there to see her father -- her father was an Englishman, ya ken.” He shook his head as he closed his eyes.
“She said she had to see her father one more time. I begged her not to go, to wait until I returned, but she was a strong-headed woman!” Laiden had been that and so much more. Sweet, bonny and kind, yes, but what a temper the lass had!
“She was beautiful, like ye are. And more strong-headed than any one I had ever ken. Or have kent since.” He let out a long heavy sigh.
“I believed him. He had her dress and it was covered in blood.” He took a deep breath and righted himself before turning to look at her. “I should no’ have believed the lying bastard!”
He was growing angry at the realization he had been lied to. “I should have insisted he take me to her, show me where she was buried. I was so devastated that I fell into the bottle for months before comin’ out again.”
Aishlinn listened silently. She had no idea whom he spoke of and was afraid to ask.
“When did yer mum die, lass?” He stood still at the windows his jaw clenched as his hands began to shake with a burning anger.
“Twas winter. I had just turned five years,” she answered him quietly.
“Who raised ye, after yer mum passed?”
“My step-father,” she answered, sensing the anger building in him.
“His name, lass!” Angus shouted. “What was his name?”
Aishlinn sank in her chair, growing more and more frightened. “Broc,” she managed to whisper. She wished Duncan were here to offer his support and strength, for it appeared the man before her was quickly losing his mind.
A blank stare came to his face. He tilted his head back and a deep, guttural howl of anger came from some unfathomable part of his soul. He sounded like a wounded animal in an unparalleled amount of pain and anguish. Aishlinn sank still deeper into her chair and prayed that Duncan or Isobel would hear him and come to see what was the matter.
When he was finished, out of breath and with so much anger upon his face that Aishlinn was certain he was going to lash out at her, tears burned her eyes. As he came around the desk, his face contorted into an expression she had never seen before on any human, she threw her arms over her head, afraid that he was coming to beat her. Though she had developed an inner strength and resolve over the past fortnights, the instinct to protect herself kicked in.
He knelt before her, taking her hands in his. “Aishlinn. Do no’ be frightened of me!” He pleaded. “Tis no’ ye I be mad at lass! I swear it!”
She was not certain if she should believe him. “Do ye no’ understand what I’ve just told ye lass?” He asked, lowering his voice.
“Nay, I do not,” she whispered. She could not stop the flow of tears that trailed down her cheeks.
“Twas Broc who lied to me, lass, lied to me about yer mum. He was the one who told me the thieves had killed her.” His eyes pleaded with her for understanding.
Why would Broc have lied to Angus? How had they known each other? “I don’t understand.” Her mind reeled, trying to make sense of it all.
He took a deep breath. “Aishlinn. I was in love with yer mum. I loved her more than anythin’ in this world. Broc loved her as well, but she loved him naught. He wanted to possess her, to break her spirit. ‘Twas me she was to marry, no’ that son of a whore!”
My mother was to marry Angus? Her head swirled and she was certain she would faint at any moment. Her mother was to marry Angus, but she married Broc instead. Why would she have done that? Why would Broc tell Angus that Laiden was dead? To keep her to himself? And where in this story did Aishlinn fit? Her mind was swimming with a hundred questions she had no answers to. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to breath.
“Yer mother and I were to marry. She went to talk to her father, to tell him the news, Aishlinn; that we were to be married. I was off fighting a clan to the south of us, gone nearly a fortnight I was. I begged her not to go, but she was gone when I returned. Broc came to me, not but two days after I returned, and he told me that she was dead. He had her dress, covered in blood and told me that thieves had killed her.”
Her mouth and eyes flew open as the most intense feeling of anger began to boil in her stomach. For a moment she thought she would retch and had to take deep breaths to settle her stomach. Broc had lied. He had lied to keep Laiden to himself. Hatred, even more than what she had felt toward the earl or toward her brothers, swelled. How many other lies had the bastard told?
Angus could see that it was all beginning to make sense to her. He could see the anger as it flashed in her eyes. “Broc had to have lied to Laiden as well, or she certainly would have returned to me.”
“I never knew!” Aishlinn said. “I did not learn of it, until the day we buried her, that he was not my real father.” The tears burned at her cheeks.
“Moirra was begging him to let me live with her and he refused! He would not allow it!” She wiped tears on the sleeve of her dress. “He said he owed it to Laiden to raise me. All the while I was growing up, he would say that, he owed it to Laiden to raise me.”
It made sense to her then, that it wasn’t out of loyalty to Laiden he had raised her, ‘twas out of guilt or a sick madness in the man’s mind and heart.
Angus stood again, anger and rage coursing through his veins. “He may have said that, but that wasn’t the real reason why he did it.”
Aishlinn lifted her head to look at him. “Why then?”
“Because he hated me more than he loved yer mother. He did it to keep ya from me.” With clenched jaws, he tried to maintain his composure. Had she not been there in the room he might very well have torn the entire castle apart with his bare hands, for the anger in him was so intense.
“Keep me from you?” She asked as she wiped more tears from her cheeks. For so many years, she had longed for answers, longed for her mother to be alive and tell her why she had married Broc. Now, as she learned more pieces of the story of her mother’s life, she was not certain if she could bear more of it.
“Why? What am I to you?” She was not sure she wanted to know the answer.
Angus’ heart melted when he looked into those dark green eyes. A tender smile came to his face as he tried to fight back his own tears, his own agony. He put his hands on her shoulders, his voice cracking from the pain in his heart. “Because yer me daughter.”
******
Aishlinn sat in stony silence for a long while as anger, fury and heartache built inside her. Angus was her father. How many years had she wondered? How many nights had she laid awake wondering and dreaming that she would someday learn the truth? Nothing she could have imagined could have prepared her heart for this moment.
Finally finding her voice, she began to mutter aloud as she paced. She clenched her hands into fists and wished for something to hit. Her voice rose as her anger simmered like grease in a fiery hot skillet.
“He lied. All those years he
lied to me. He lied to everyone.” What lie might he have told Laiden that would have convinced her to marry him?
“He had to have told her you were dead,” she said. “Tis the only explanation as to why she married him. Pregnant, young, alone and thinking she had no other choice.”
Angus sat upon the corner of his desk watching Aishlinn as she paced and swore and cursed Broc.
“That evil, lying, cheating whoreson!” she yelled. “Tis a good thing he is dead now, or I would travel back to Penrith and kill him with my bare hands!”
Angus had to squash a smile of admiration.
“I would crawl through the bowels and fires of hell on my belly at this moment for a chance to kill him!”
With that temper flaring and those deep green eyes of hers burning with anger, ‘twas no doubt of it, she was Laiden’s daughter.
How differently his life would have been had he not been lied to. So in love with Laiden he was. He would have gone to the ends of the earth and back for her had she asked him to.
His thoughts turned then to Isobel. How she must be hurting! He loved his wife immeasurably. She and Bree were everything in this world to him. She must have known the truth the moment she laid eyes upon Aishlinn. How her heart must have ached with the knowledge. He felt guilty now, for not being here for her when she first learned of Aishlinn’s existence.
He needed to go to Isobel, to hold her close and offer her comfort. Together they would help heal each other’s hearts, just as they had done some twenty years ago. They had found a comfort in each other then, as they had both grieved the loss of Laiden.
Angus had not ever expected to love again after losing Laiden, so convinced he was that his heart was broken beyond repair. But somehow, gradually over the following year, he had realized he had fallen in love with Isobel. He had felt a great deal of guilt over it. But he knew in his heart that Laiden would not have wanted him to suffer and grieve all his life for her. She would have wanted him to be happy and to move on without her. He married Isobel nearly two years after Laiden’s death. They were blessed with Bree less than a year after.
Aishlinn’s voice, still seething with anger, brought him back to the here and now.
“My whole life he told me I be plain, not beautiful, not smart, and not anything like my mother! He’d not let me play like lasses play, with dolls and such. He’d not let me have friends! He kept me busy in the fields and hunting and building things! Treating me as a boy, working me ’til my fingers bled and my body and mind so worn I could not think!”
Angus spoke softly to her then. “Lass, I swear I thought her dead. Had I known, had I known Laiden was still alive, I would have come for ya both.” He let out a heavy sigh.
“Had I known ye lived lass, I would have come for ya.” Angus needed her to understand that he had thought she had perished along with her mother.
“Tis not you I am mad at!” she shouted at him. “Tis Broc and his three sons!”
Isobel had quietly entered the room and gone to her husband. Her eyes filled with tears. Angus pulled her into his arms and held onto her tightly; more for his own comfort and need for strength at that moment, than anything else.
“Why, Isobel, did ya no’ send for me sooner?” He asked, kissing the top of her head and breathing in her scent.
“The talks were important, Angus,” she said, wiping away tears with the end of her shawl. “But had ye not returned when ya did, I would have sent for ya!”
Aishlinn eyed Isobel curiously. “You knew?”
Isobel nodded her head. “Aye. From the first moment I laid eyes upon ya, I ken it.”
“But how?” Aishlinn was not certain she wanted to know the answer and began to wonder how many others might have known and said nothing.
Isobel smiled as she went to Aishlinn and wrapped her arms around her. “Because, Laiden was my sister.”
Aishlinn pulled away from Isobel’s embrace, shocked and confused. “Why did you not tell me?” she asked.
Isobel took a deep breath. “I felt it best it come from yer father, Aishlinn.”
My father? To hear the words aloud, to hear Angus referred to in that manner brought more tears to her eyes. She choked them back, struggling to maintain what little composure she had left. She could not be mad at Isobel for keeping it secret and Aishlinn knew it must have been painful for her to not share it.
“Who else knows?” Aishlinn finally found the courage to ask.
Isobel shook her head. “No one.”
Aishlinn slumped back into the chair, her mind racing with even more unanswered questions. Angus was her father and he had apparently loved her mother enough to want to marry her. But why, why did she end up marrying Broc? How had she even known Broc?
Isobel came and sat across from her. “I ken ya have many questions Aishlinn. Some we’ll have answers to, others not. I’m afraid the answers ye seek the most are buried with yer mother and with Broc.”
She gently squeezed Aishlinn’s hands in her own. “Yer mum and I were half-blooded sisters. Her father was an Englishman, but mine a Highlander -- a true Scotsman. My father died when I was but a bairn. Our mum married the Englishman when I was three. He had promised we would stay in the highlands, but soon he changed his mind and forced us to move to the lowlands. We hated it there.”
Isobel turned and smiled at her husband. “Our grandmother was the cook here, long before Mary, and we would visit every summer. Our mother had decided to move us here for we all missed the highlands, especially yer mother. We met Angus the summer yer mother turned ten and five.” She turned back to Aishlinn who sat stoically before her.
Aishlinn could see the pain in Isobel’s face as she spoke. “I was in Inverness when I learned of Laiden’s death. I moved back here, to Dunshire immediately.” A tear escaped her eye. “I came back to help my mum and grandmother. Laiden’s death nearly killed us all, but none more so than Angus.”
Both women turned to look at Angus who had been standing very quietly near the fireplace. The pain of the memories could be seen etched across his face.
“Angus had fallen into the bottle for a very long time, so great was his anguish over losing ye both,” Isobel said turning her attention back to Aishlinn. “We all believed the lie Broc had told, Aishlinn. Had any of us even an inkling that what he said was not true, we would have come for ye both.”
Aishlinn did not doubt it for a moment. How differently all their lives would have been had they not believed the lies.
“I believe that you would have,” Aishlinn said softly as she gave Isobel’s hand a light squeeze. She could not blame anyone in this room for anything Broc had done.
“Twas a year after her death, or what we thought was her death, before Angus and I realized we were in love. We were married and less than a year later we were blessed with Bree,” Isobel said.
“My guilt, after seeing ya for the first time Aishlinn, was immeasurable!” she told Aishlinn. “I felt like I had betrayed yer mother, my sister.” More tears flowed and she was powerless to stop them.
“Isobel, none of this is your fault, or Angus’,” she told her. “This is all Broc’s doing. The blame is his, and his alone. You did not betray my mother. Broc did. He betrayed us all.”
Aishlinn’s heart ached for Isobel and Angus. She knew they must feel a tremendous amount of guilt for believing Broc. They had built a life together, Angus and Isobel. Now, all these many years later, here comes Aishlinn, a ghost from their past, to show them their life had been built on the lie told by a man with a sick heart and a sick mind.
It made sense to Aishlinn now, why Broc had not allowed her to leave his home after Laiden had succumbed to the fevers. Had he allowed Aishlinn to leave him, there was a chance his lie would have been discovered. She wondered if Moirra had known the truth or at least enough of it that she would have seen to it that Aishlinn was returned to Angus. Perhaps that was why Broc kept her: to save his own life.
Angus let out a long sigh. “Aishlinn, I am truly
sorry for all that was done to ye.” His shoulders sagged with guilt and sadness over the life his daughter had been forced to live.
Aishlinn stood, pushed her shoulders back and her lifted head high. “I’ll not have either of you feeling guilty over the lies told by a mad man,” she said firmly. “What’s done is done and we cannot change it. Broc had control over us for twenty years and I’ll not allow him to keep it!” She put her hands upon her hips. “He was a sick man and we all know it. There’ll be no more guilt, no more what if’s.”
Angus chuckled slightly and shook his head. “Ya do have yer mother’s temperament.”
A smile came to Aishlinn’s face. “I’ll take that as a compliment and thank you for it.” Too many years she had heard she was nothing like her mother, not in looks or spirit or heart. Her heart swelled with pride to learn those were simply more of Broc’s lies.
Isobel went to her husband and hugged him tightly. She whispered something into his ear. Whatever she had said caused him to raise his eyebrows and his lips to curve up rather devilishly. He chuckled at Isobel before turning his attention back to Aishlinn. “I believe we have another matter to discuss,” he said.
Aishlinn eyed him curiously and wondered if perhaps there were more secrets to unfold this day. “What matter?” She asked nervously, doubting she had the strength to take any more secrets.
“The matter of Duncan,” Angus said. His eyes twinkled when he saw her face burn with embarrassment. “It seems he’s fallen in love with me daughter!”
Slowly Aishlinn sat back in the chair. It felt utterly strange, for one, to have Angus so readily refer to her as his daughter. Even more embarrassing was the prospect of discussing her feelings for Duncan with him. She sighed heavily for she doubted Duncan still cared for her, not after what she had done to him earlier in the day.
“It matters not,” she said. “He was so angry with me earlier, that I do not think he still holds good feelings towards me.”
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