“Jason! Where have you been?” Kendra must have been watching by the window, because she flung herself at him before swiftly pulling back. “You’re soaking wet.”
He hadn’t noticed. “I have something to tell you and Ford. Please fetch him. Now.”
“Shouldn’t you dry off first?” Her gaze trailed from his face down to the marble floor, where a small puddle was collecting at his feet. “Cait’s upstairs—”
“Now.”
“All right. I’ll go get Ford.”
He strode to the drawing room, lit a fire, wrapped himself in the costly embroidered throw that was wadded in a corner of the brocade couch. And waited, pacing the dark red and blue carpet.
“Sit down,” he said when the twins came in.
Obediently Kendra perched on one of the chairs, but Ford walked to a small inlaid cabinet. “I could do with a brandy. And you?”
Jason nodded his assent and took the goblet when Ford had poured. He waved him into another chair. “How is Caithren?”
“She’s all right,” Kendra said carefully. “Disappointed and grieving, of course, but all right. Jason, she—”
“Good.” Concern etched his sister’s wholesome features, but he couldn’t muster the energy to comfort her or listen to this now. Cait was important—the most important thing of all. But his world had turned upside down today, and he had to work that out.
He sipped the brandy, feeling it burn a path to his empty stomach. “Geoffrey Gothard was our brother.”
“He was what?” the twins said in unison.
“Our brother.” He tugged the throw more tightly around his shoulders. “Our half brother, to be more precise. As well as Scarborough’s. Our father got their mother with child before he wed ours,” he said, almost mechanically. He was still having trouble wrapping his mind around that fact. “And he left her, pregnant, knowing she was pregnant. Our father.”
An uneasy silence reigned over the room. No one moved. Jason could hear the clock ticking on the mantel.
Ford blew out a slow breath. “You said he was our brother.”
“He’s dead.” When Kendra rose as though to come to him, Jason waved her back. “At Emerald MacCallum’s hands. But I do believe I was pushed to the point where I might have done it myself.”
Ford nodded his understanding. “He threatened the woman you love.”
“No. I mean, yes—that would have been enough. But it was more than that.” Rubbing his hands to warm them up, Jason moved closer to the fire. “All these years—”
He broke off.
The words simply wouldn’t come out, wouldn’t align themselves in his head.
“All these years,” Kendra repeated gently, “you’ve tried to live up to the legend of our father—the brave, honorable man who gave up his family to fight for his king. To fight in a losing war, to die in a losing war, the ultimate sacrifice.”
He drew a deep breath. “That vision of him was wrong.”
“Yes, it was. But you weren’t ready to see it.” Kendra reached for Ford’s brandy and took a fortifying sip. “You were left as the head of the family too young. Too tender an age for so much responsibility. But our father—and our mother—left together due to love for each other and the monarchy, not lack of love for us.”
“I’ve always known that,” Jason said, his voice rough to his own ears. He cleared his throat. “Unlike Colin, I never took it as a personal affront. But now we know he left another family, too. And…”
He paused to take a sip of his brandy—a gulp, truth be told—and stared into the goblet.
“It seems I’ve always had responsibilities. I resented the pointless deaths that left me with those responsibilities, and I balked at violence…any violence, pointless or otherwise…because it reminded me how they died.” He looked up. “And I hated myself for that.”
“Abhorring violence is no sin,” Ford protested.
Rising again, Kendra approached, and Jason didn’t stop her this time. Her light green eyes burned into his. “Our father hadn’t been so brave and honorable, had he? Or responsible. He’d been a man. Human.”
It was the same conclusion he’d come to while walking in the rain. And it meant it was time to give himself permission to be human as well. Free of Father’s shadow. Free to live his life with his own set of values. In his own way.
He felt at peace with himself for the first time in…he couldn’t say how long. It was a restful feeling.
But it meant little without Caithren.
If only she’d forgive him.
“Cait and we…” His voice cracked. “We all lost brothers today.”
“But ours was not worth claiming.” Ford stood up. “Go to her, Jason. She needs you. She’s hurting.”
Kendra’s mouth gaped open at her twin. “When did you get to be so compassionate?”
He shot her a scathing glare, then turned back to their brother. “She’s upstairs.” His lips turned up in a hint of a smile. “You’d better hope that tall cousin of hers doesn’t have it in his mind to protect her from you.”
Jason couldn’t smile, not now. And just let Cameron Leslie try to stand in his way.
His heart pounded as he climbed the stairs to the room he’d given her last night. He eased the door open and slipped inside, his knees going wobbly just at the sight of her lying on the bed. Her cousin sat in a chair alongside.
He swallowed hard. “Caithren.”
She rolled over to face him, her eyes brimming with tears.
Cameron rose and walked to the door. “Remember what I told you, Cait, I beg you. Your happiness comes before—”
“Leave us, Cam.” Her voice sounded breathless, uneven, doubtless from hours of crying. “Please.”
Wordlessly, Cameron slipped through the door, and it clicked shut behind him.
Jason stepped closer. His fingers loosened. The embroidered throw slid from his shoulders to the floor.
“You hate me, don’t you?” he whispered.
She sat up. “You’re all wet. You should dry off.”
He took
