Page 39 of The Scot’s Secret

He took a bite of the freshly caught fish. “You mean Sir Robert Kinney?”

Of course, he thought the men were one and the same and that Sir Robert was not real. “Nay, Sir Robert was a vassal to my father. But he did not raise me, as you know.”

“Nor were you orphaned as a young child.”

“Nay, but I was orphaned nonetheless.” And since he’d already worked out most of the facts, she explained, “My mother died before I knew her. My father, nearly six years ago. ’Twas why Gilbert and I were forced to flee.”

“I’m sorry, lass.”

He stood, and for a moment Clara thought he may try to comfort her. Would he kiss her again?

“Ale?”

He handed her a flagon and sat back down. Foolish girl. He was simply sharing his drink. Mayhap he’d thought better of the kissing. After all, they’d just last night agreed it was a bad idea.

“You’re lucky to have known your mother,” she said.

Alex made a sound suspiciously similar to an epithet not suitable for her ears.

“Tell me of her.”

“She was lovely,” he said.

That was not at all what she’d expected. Everything she’d heard about the woman who’d left her children was rather unpleasant.

“You’ve met my sister?”

“Aye, briefly. At Bristol.”

“My mother had the same shade of red hair. But the similarities between the two women stop there.”

He looked up into the sky as if he might be struck down at any moment for his words. “She was very. . . English. She complained of the cold. Mother grew up in a small village southwest of London, and apparently disliked Scotland from the moment she arrived.”

“How did she meet your father?”

Alex sighed. “A tale for another time. Suffice to say, when he was killed at Largs, she left almost immediately.”

Clara simply could not imagine a woman leaving her children, especially at such a difficult time for the entire family. “And said nothing in parting?”

He shook his head. “Nay. One day we had a mother, the next, we did not. She could have died for all we have heard of her since. . . until now. To my siblings, she is already dead.”

The pain in his voice was evident. Clearly his mother’s desertion affected him still.

“But not you,” she finished in a whisper.

He frowned. “I’d come to accept that I would never see her again. And I may not. But if I could just. . .”

He stopped.

“What is it?”

He looked as if he’d not continue. He stood and began to clear the area where they ate. Then he abruptly stopped and blurted out, “I would just ask her why.”

He picked up a nearby log, tossed it into the fire, and walked away.

How difficult it must have been for them to lose their mother that way. Clara prepared for bed, unable to stop asking Alex’s question. Why had she done it? If she’d hated Scotland so much that she felt compelled to leave, could she not have at least said goodbye? Or taken them with her to England? Something. Anything other than abandoning her children.

Clara didn’t know the woman, but she disliked her nonetheless.