Page 33 of Highlander’s Dangerous Love

Colin’s jaw might have dropped then, but the barmaid returned with their ales. His father thanked the girl and placed a few extra coins in her hand.

“Cheers, lassie,” he said with a smile. Douglas Frazier had always been a charming man.

“Father, no. The decision’s been made. I willnae allow ye tae lay down yer life.”

“An’ I cannae let my son, wi’ all his potential, waste his life in his family’s smithery.”

“Then what would ye have us do?”

Colin was growing angrier by the minute. This was a fruitless conversation, and he could not see a point to it.

“Very well. I’m no lyin’ man, but…I’ve concealed some truths from ye, an’ I think now is the time tae reveal them.”

“What truths?” Colin asked, his voice low and steady.

“I dinnae ken how tae say it delicately, so I’ll simply say it; I am Bryce’s father.”

Silence befell the two of them as Colin mulled over the words in his mind. Yes, he’d suspected this for a while now. How could he not, when his whole life he’d been told that he and Bryce looked so alike?

“Yer…yer certain?” Colin asked hesitantly.

“Aye, laddie. The Laird…he couldnae give his wife a bairn. After ye were born, an’ yer mother died, God rest her soul, Laird MacNeill approached me with a proposition. He needed an heir.”

Colin had a feeling he knew where this was going, but his tongue felt as heavy as the anvil in the forge.

“He asked me tae lay with his wife, since ye’d been born and ‘twas obvious ye were my son. Even as an infant, ye had a shock of bright red hair.” Douglas chuckled softly at the memory. “So, I laid with his wife. It took a few times, but after a few months, she was with child.”

“Bryce really is my brother,” Colin said, to himself, but loud enough that his father could hear his musings.

“Aye.”

“But why…he said he’d caught ye recently with her. What happened?”

Douglas sighed and took a large gulp of his ale before he spoke again.

“We developed a romantic attachment. I missed yer mother, I really did, but Lady MacNeill made me feel…like a man again. We couldnae stay away from each other. So, aye, I was havin’ an affair with her, one that we did not tell the Laird about. That part is secret, or if the laird does ken, he’s not said a thing against it.”

Colin had never really stopped to consider his father’s love life or any sort of romantic entanglements. But what son would? He had always seen his father in the light of a warrior. Hearing him speak of love like this was…strange — not in a bad way, but it gave added depth to his father that he had not considered before.

“I dinnae ken,” was all he could say.

“An’ how could ye? We kept the truth from everyone for years. If Bryce hadnae been hurt on that hunting trip, we would still be at the castle now. But that is not the reason for me tellin’ ye this.”

“What?” Colin asked. He had not so much as touched his ale, too engrossed in his father’s confession.

“Do ye not see, Colin? Bryce is not the son of the laird.”

And then it dawned on him. Colin had been too set in his grief and anger to think clearly, but now, he saw the reason for this conversation.

“So…Bryce has no real authority,” he said.

“Aye,” his father agreed. “Ye an’ Gemma have done nothin’ wrong. Ye are innocent in all of this. Now, what say ye?”

Colin stared into his tankard of ale, thoughts as murky as the amber liquid in the pewter cup. What could he say?