Page 68 of My Brave Highlander

He knew she couldn't resist coming to see for herself if indeed Dirk MacKay had risen from the dead.

"Who is this imposter I hear has come to take over the clan and castle?" Maighread asked in a raised voice to the room at large.

Chapter Thirteen

Dirk's stepmother thought him an imposter?

He snorted and sent her a contemptuous smirk. Her words were so daft they didn't deserve a response. 'Twas obvious she'd recognized him the instant she'd entered the great hall. She was the same as she'd always been—a liar and manipulator.

"He is no imposter, m'lady," Uncle Conall said, sounding as annoyed as Dirk felt as his voice echoed off the high ceiling. "He is in truth Dirk MacKay, son of Laird Griff, as you can plainly see."

"Nay." Maighread's eyes narrowed on Dirk. She pointed an accusing finger and moved forward, but stopped three feet away. "That is not Dirk MacKay. He has been dead for many years."

Dirk couldn't stop his sinister smile as hatred and a vile need for revenge coursed through his veins. He'd never harmed a woman, but was sore tempted now. He clenched his fists in restraint.

"I'm certain you wished me dead, stepmother. But I'm not," Dirk said.

"I would never wish you or anyone dead. But you cannot prove you are the man you claim to be." Her condescending, harpy voice grated on his nerves.

"Ask me anything you like. Maybe you'd like me to recite my ancestry back to the tenth century."

"Hmph." Her haughty look told him she was less than impressed. "You could learn that from anyone in the clan."

"Ask me something about my childhood. Something only I would know." Brow lifted, he waited while her mouth opened and closed mutely. "Afraid you might be proven wrong?" he asked.

"We all remember Dirk, m'lady," his father's senachie, Phelan, said. "All the older members of the clan do. We were present at his birth and watched him grow from a wee bairn to a tall, strong lad."

"That lad looked nothing like this imposter," Maighread proclaimed, scanning the clan elders. "Have the lot of you gone senile?"

The elder men frowned and exchanged vexed glances, some giving her the evil eye. But she ignored them, instead glaring intently at Dirk.

"I'm a wee bit larger than the last time you saw me," Dirk said, crossing his arms over his chest. Standing straight and tall, he towered over her. The first time he'd seen her, when he was around four or five, she'd dwarfed him and stared down at him as if he were a loathsome, mud-covered mongrel pup.

The last time he'd seen her, when he was fifteen, they had been of about the same height. But now, he was at least a foot taller than she.

"He looks like his father and his grandfather," Ranald, his father's sword-bearer, said.

"He looks nothing like my dear, departed Griff, God rest his soul," she said with deceptive piety. "And I never saw his father so how would I know?"

"'Tis him, m'lady. He has the birthmark," Phelan said with calm confidence.

Dirk had always liked the man and his dramatic stories which glorified his father's battles and hunting expeditions.

"What birthmark?" Maighread demanded.

"On his back, Mother," Haldane said.

"Dirk never had a birthmark."

"You didn't give birth to Dirk nor were you a mother to him when he was a wee lad. How would you know whether he had a birthmark or not?" Uncle Conall asked.

"I… well." She sputtered for a moment.

"Open your eyes," Conall said. "You can clearly see 'tis Dirk."

"Were you not the one who said Dirk fell off a cliff and died?" Maighread demanded. "Did you lie?"

"Aye, someone tried to murder him," Conall said, his dark gaze boring into his sister-in-law. "I lied to protect him. He was several feet down the side of a cliff where someone had pushed him. Without doubt, a hired assassin. I threw a rope down to Dirk and pulled him back up. Then, I helped him slip away to another part of the Highlands so he would be safe until he was grown."