Highland Wolf (Highland Brides #10)(15)

When Conall merely scowled at the possibility, he said, “She’s two and twenty now, Bryson. Most lassies her age ha’e been married fer six or even eight years and ha’e half a dozen bairns hanging off their skirts.”

Conall’s mouth tightened. Not just at the mention of Claray’s age and the bairns she should have had by now, but at Roderick’s use of his true name. He never did that, and the fact that he had now made him glance around to see that Hamish had dropped back to talk to one of the soldiers. It didn’t ease his tension any. Because while Campbell Sinclair, their friend, Roderick’s cousin and a man who was like a brother to Conall himself, often forgot and used his birth name, Roderick never did. Which made Conall suspect he’d used it deliberately to emphasize his point. It didn’t please him any more than the rest of what he’d said did.

Conall was very aware that had his life gone as it had been meant to, Claray too would be married already and have that handful of bairns Roderick mentioned. His bairns. For a moment he allowed himself to picture that in his mind. A smiling Claray with a babe in her arms, a toddler at her knee and three or four more playing on the floor around her as he walked into MacDonald keep and strode forward to greet her with a kiss and . . . tripped over the floor stones buckled from the tree trunks growing under them, then grabbed at one of the vines covering the walls to keep from falling.

He ground his teeth together as the true image of MacDonald imposed itself over the cozy scene he’d originally imagined. His childhood home was a shambles, uninhabitable. It had been bad when he’d first seen it at sixteen after ten years away, and would only be more so now. It was why he hadn’t gone to claim Claray, his betrothed, and why he’d been working as a mercenary these last twelve years. To earn the coin needed to bring it back to its former glory.

“One more year and I’ll ha’e made enough coin to make MacDonald habitable again,” he said stiffly.

“Ye ha’e more than enough fer that now,” Roderick said solemnly. “We both ken that.”

“Aye,” Conall admitted through gritted teeth, and then added defensively, “But I also need enough to hire the people to work it, and to feed and clothe everyone fer a year or two until the crops can support us.”

“Lady Claray comes with a fine dower that should take care o’ that,” Roderick pointed out, not backing down.

“I’ll no’ use that,” Conall said stubbornly. “MacDonald was healthy and well when the contract was drawn up. She was no’ meant to have to use her dower to make a life.”

“She was no’ meant to still be unmarried this late in life either,” Roderick responded sharply.

When Conall merely scowled and raised his chin belligerently, Roderick sighed and shook his head. After a moment, he asked, “Will ye at least tell her who ye are, then? So she kens her betrothed yet lives and will someday claim her and give her the children all lassies yearn for?”

Conall glowered at the suggestion. Claray hadn’t said that she yearned for any of that. But she had sounded sad when she’d said she didn’t think her father would ever replace her betrothed. She thought it was because Gannon MacFarlane couldn’t admit his friends were dead, but the truth was that her father couldn’t make a new betrothal because they were all still bound by the first. The betrothal between him and her.

Claray’s father was one of a handful of people who knew who he really was and that he’d survived the murder attempt that had taken his parents’ lives and nearly taken his own. The other people who knew included his uncle, the king, Artair Sinclair and Artair’s son Campbell, as well as Roderick and Payton.

Conall suspected that many of his warriors had surmised who he was too, but not one of them had questioned him openly, and he’d never announced it to them. He wouldn’t dare do that until he claimed MacDonald and his title as clan chief. Conall had had it drummed into his head at a young age that it was dangerous to reveal his true name to anyone. The people who were aware of his real identity only knew because they had to.

Artair and his son Campbell Sinclair knew because Conall’s uncle, Ross MacKay, had sent him to live at Sinclair the night his parents died. It had been a desperate bid to keep his parents’ murderer from knowing they had failed to kill him. His uncle had feared that if they knew he yet lived, they might try to finish what they’d started. Because of that worry, he hadn’t dared to take Bryson into his home and raise him as he wanted. Instead, he had sent him to live and train at Sinclair under the name Conall. His uncle had hoped that changing his name would help hide his survival from the rest of the world. He’d told him that he’d chosen that name because it meant “strong as a wolf” and that he feared that was what he would have to be now to survive the loss of his parents and most of his clan as well as everything else life might throw at him in the future.

As for Payton, he knew not just because he was Ross MacKay’s son, and Conall’s cousin, or even because he was old enough to remember him where Payton’s younger sisters weren’t and thought they were without close family other than their female cousin, Joan. Payton knew because he had trained with Conall at Sinclair, along with Roderick. His uncle had thought it would be best for the other two boys to know so that they could watch Conall’s back, and help guard against any attack should the murderer discover his existence. It was a job they had been given as boys, but willingly continued with as men.