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David’s intense brown eyes were on Raghnall. “Is she alive? Did you find the doctor?”
Raghnall clapped him on the shoulder. “Aye. Bryanna’s well. Thank ye for the words ye gave me, they might have saved her life.”
James narrowed his eyes. “Then why did you come back?”
Laomann stared at them with confusion, but at that moment, Ualan let out a loud fart and burbling noises came from him, and the unmistakable smell of a child’s poo. Laomann and Mairead hurried out of the great hall.
Raghnall looked around at his family and then his eyes landed on Seoc. “I came for ye.”
Seoc blinked, his expression softening for a moment but then returning to his usual distant apprehension that hurt Raghnall. What did he expect? A hug? Tears of joy? The lad didn’t owe Raghnall his love. Raghnall had been the source of Seoc’s misfortune in the first place.
Angus frowned. “Why didna ye tell us he wasna yer real son? Do ye think we’d have treated him any differently than if he’s yer adopted son?”
Raghnall sighed. They knew. “How do ye ken?”
“I told them,” said Seoc. “Pretending and lying didna sit well with me. And I like it with Catrìona and James.”
In the two sennights that Raghnall had been gone, the lad had grown some meat on his bones, looked healthy and well. And there was something else Raghnall had seen only when Mòrag had been alive.
A child’s carefree joy.
Catrìona’s cheeks reddened. “Not much time passed, brother, but James and I took a big liking to Seoc. He’s been inseparable from us. And, forgive me for assuming that ye wouldna return, but since we ken he isn’t yer real son, we were thinking to adopt him.”
Raghnall blinked, pain stabbing him in the guts. Adopt him? Seoc, for whom Raghnall had lived ever since Mòrag?
James laid his hand on Seoc’s shoulder protectively. “Everyone assumed you’d stay with Bryanna. Clearly, Sìneag intended for the two of you to be together, so…”
Raghnall let out a loud exhale. “I dinna intend to break my word. Angus, ye wanted me to be responsible, are ye happy now? I bloody crossed the river of time for my responsibility, leaving the woman I love, the woman who loves me, behind.”
Silence hung in the group, then Seoc’s quiet voice was like a hammer that broke Raghnall’s world. “Ye didna have to return for me, Raghnall. I want Catrìona and James to be my ma and da. They want me, and I never had both.”
Raghnall felt his jaw muscles work. “I promised—”
“Ye kept yer promise to my ma. Ye brought me here. Ye dinna have to stay and punish yerself and suffer for my sake. Ye promised her to take care of me and protect me. Ye did.”
Raghnall’s stomach dropped as emotions he didn’t know he had gushed within him from an open wound. The wound of being rejected and abandoned. The wound of having left the woman he loved, of having wasted the only chance he had at real happiness.
“Only if ’tis all right with ye, brother,” said Catrìona. “Truly, we didna mean to steal yer lad away. Ye ken that, aye?”
Raghnall nodded, though tears were burning his eyes. He dropped to his knees in front of Seoc and squeezed his wee shoulder. “I am proud of ye, lad. Ye fought like a wee wolf at the battle. Ye have more courage at ten years than many grown men. And ye deserve to have both a ma and a da, and I will never be able to give ye that because I will never marry again. The only wife I ever wanted since yer ma is somewhere I can never go. Tigh na Abhainn is yers. I dinna need it. Catrìona, James, ye both can have it and then pass it on to Seoc once he’s old enough. I never wanted an estate to manage for myself. Treat my tenants well, they’re good people. Eanar, the tacksman, will be yer right hand.”
James frowned. “Are you sure, mate? You don’t have to make this decision right now. You can still think about it.”
Raghnall sighed. “If ’tis all right with Angus and ye, Rogene, I’ll stay for a while here in Eilean Donan. Now that the whole purpose of everything I did for the last few years is accomplished”—he patted Seoc’s head—“I need a wee think about what to do. Where Bryanna lives…it changed quite a bit the way I see things now. And I dinna ken yet what that means for me.”
Angus clapped him on the shoulder. “Of course, brother, stay as long as ye wish. Yer whole life, if ye want. Now that the Ross clan is nae more a threat, we can finally rest and enjoy a wee bit of peace. Though Bruce told me there are still skirmishes and war in the south.”
“I’ve yet to see if he’s going to hang me for killing Euphemia.”
“He wilna, he told me.” Angus pulled Raghnall into a big hug. “And Bruce managed to find a way to work things out with the Earl of Ross. The king granted him an estate that had belonged to the Comyns. Apparently ’tis all it took for him to forgive us for the death of his sister. I’m nae so sure he’d been supportive of her war action towards us anyway.”
“I’m just glad the clan wilna need to carry the consequences of my actions.”
“I’m glad to see ye, brother. And I’m sorry ye canna be with yer wife.”
Raghnall hugged him back and then proceeded into the great hall. But instead of feeling like he’d arrived home, he felt like he was heading right towards the edge of an abyss.
Chapter 34
