Those greenish-brown eyes sparkled. “No doubt I will one day burn for it, but aye. Life is too short to spend it moping about. Look at Sin.”
She did. With his handsome brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed, Sin looked as if he were ready to kill the next person who annoyed him.
Braden continued talking. “Sin is one of the wealthiest men in all of England, with holdings stretching from Canterbury to Scotland to the Holy Land. He is one of the few men alive who can call Henry by name to the king’s face, and yet he is brooding at best, angry at worst. He spends his entire life completely alone and isolated from everyone.”
Braden shook his head. “I couldn’t stand to live that way. Any more than I could follow Ewan into the mountains and live like a hermit.”
Maggie understood why Ewan was withdrawn after what had happened with Isobail. But then, he had always been a shy man who preferred isolation to company.
Sin, she didn’t remember all that well. She had scarce been more than a babe when he had been taken by the English. The only real memory she had of him was when he had chased Davis off for calling her names.
“Tell me,” she said softly. “Given how Sin was taken away against his will, why is it he now prefers to dress and act English?”
Braden took a deep breath. He turned his head to look at her and she saw the trouble in his eyes. And the pain.
“When Sin turned four-and-ten, Henry was crowned King of England, and as part of the king’s coronation celebration, Henry allowed the Scottish hostages Stephen had taken to return to their families.”
Maggie frowned. She had never heard that. Nor did it make sense. If Sin could return, why hadn’t he? “Why would Sin choose not to come home?”
A tick started in Braden’s jaw. “He wanted to, but my father refused. He sent word to King Henry that he could keep Sin, as he had no use for a Sassenach son.”
Maggie’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t imagine such cruelty. Dear saints, the pain Sin must have felt when he had learned of his father’s response.
Suddenly, her own father’s criticism of her didn’t seem so terrible.
“Why would your father do such a thing? What did your mother have to say over it?”
Braden looked away and she saw the torment in his eyes. And a strange guilt she couldn’t fathom.
“My mother was the reason Sin didn’t return. My father refused to have him in the same house with her.”
“Why?” Maggie asked.
What could make Aisleen not want her son to return to her?
Braden sighed. “Sin’s mother was an English lady my father trysted with the one time he’d gone to London. Sin was conceived just a few short months before Lochlan.”
Maggie flinched at his words. So that was it.
Clenching her teeth, she shook her head in disbelief. Men and their unfaithfulness. How could Braden continue to carry on with women like he did after seeing the consequences of infidelity so close at hand?
Poor Sin to be cast out because Aisleen didn’t want to see the evidence of her husband’s actions.
Her heart heavy, she felt for both of them.
“What of Sin’s mother?”
Braden curled his lip in disgust. “She had no use for him. That was why she’d sent him to live with my father in the first place. She’d decided years ago that Sin was an embarrassment to her.”
“So, he was discarded by both his parents?”
“Aye. He is a bitter man, but ‘tis well understandable.”
Maggie agreed. Now she understood the hostile look Sin had directed at Aisleen when she had appeared in the kirkyard.
He must hate her passionately.
She couldn’t imagine the way he must have felt when both his parents turned him out. ‘Twas more than any soul should have to bear.
