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Chapter Five
Aindreas
Aindreas paced back and forth in his father’s study, running his hands through his hair to keep himself from grabbing the chair in front of the desk and throwing it across the room. How dare he? Aindreas thought while he inhaled deeply, trying to calm his heart pounding in his chest. How dare he bring that woman to this place?
He paused, recalling her emerald eyes and her plump red lips. She was absolutely beautiful, dressed as a commoner but with a beauty so pure and true. The most gorgeous woman he had ever laid his eyes on. And she was his father’s mistress. His hands clenched, and he slammed them against the desk, allowing the pain to ripple through him. He cursed himself for wanting her, for finding her so stunningly attractive when he should be scheming how to be rid of her.
She could be a spy for all his father knows, with the MacAlisters attempting to break through the MacBean walls, killing villagers, taking women while burning down houses. Livestock were stolen. Meals were poisoned. It was foolish to bring a stranger into the clan now when at any point an army of MacAlisters could turn up.
And Aindreas needed to keep his sights focused on how to woo Sorcha. Not on some peasant wench, who could only provide one night of pleasure when what he needed was the Cambel army. The girl had to go.
He ground his teeth, wondering if his father was going to give Blair his mother’s rooms. Would she be sleeping in his mother’s bed, wearing her clothes? Although, now the garments were most likely covered in dust after spending the last seven years closed off in his mother’s trunk. Still, he wouldn’t stand for it.
Aindreas turned around and leaned against the desk, tilting his head back and staring at the ceiling while thinking of his mother. He had always been closer to her, the late Lady Fiona MacBean. She had been kind to him, doting on him while his father drilled him for hours on end, either in battle or on battle strategy. His father had been hard on him, distant, whereas his mother had been kind and gentle. Yet, that never stopped Aindreas from admiring his father. He was strong and brave. Even though he was hard on Aindreas, he knew his father had his best interests at heart, wanting his son to succeed, to be the best laird the clan had ever seen.
That was until his mother died three months before his eighteenth summer. Taking with her everything he once believed to be true. He recalled it was a stormy night. No one knew where his father had been. Aindreas had demanded everyone in the castle search for him, yet he had gone off on one of his secret journeys. He clenched his jaw, thinking of that terrible night.
His mother had left him in one night of terror. She had begged for his father while she clung to Aindreas. Fear had made her desperate as the coughing took hold of her. He remembered the blood staining the front of his shirt as she rasped. Tavis had ordered him out of the room, but he couldn’t permit his mother to die on her own, without anyone to hold her, to ensure her she would be welcomed within Heaven’s gates.
Aindreas clenched his jaw at the memory, swallowing back the pain as he recalled stroking her hair. He had tried to console her through the pain as they both waited for his father’s arrival.
“He will come, Mother,” he remembered whispering in her ear. “Do not worry. I know he will come.”
Yet, Aindreas had been wrong.
His father had never arrived. He never had the chance to say goodbye to his wife, for he was too busy with another.
In the last throws of death, Aindreas recalled how her coughing had ceased. He had held her hand while wiping a wet cloth against her forehead, soaked with her sweat as the fever ravaged her body. She clung to Aindreas, whispering strange words over and over again, words that didn’t make any sense at first. He remembered her reaching for him, her feverish palm pressing into the back of his neck as she whispered the words into his ear with her last dying breath, words he wished he never heard.
“Yer not mine,” she had gasped.
He remembered shaking his head, wondering if the illness had taken hold of her mind, making her unable to see clearly. “Mother—“
“Nae, yer not mine,” his mother’s head had lulled back and forth as sweat dripped down her pallid face. “I took ye in. I took ye,” she gasped, “when yer true mama died. Yer not mine, Aindreas.” Tears had glistened in her eyes as she looked upon Aindreas.
Aindreas remembered the pain he felt stabbing through his heart as he stared upon her face. His hands had trembled as he took in her dark hair and eyes, so different from his own. They were things he had never questioned, and yet now, he couldn’t help but notice every single difference in their appearances.
“And my father?” he remembered asking, his voice cracking on the words while he struggled to keep his tears from bursting forth.
His mother’s bottom lip had quivered as she shook her head. Tears dripped down her cheeks as he watched her, feeling as if he was falling into a pit of darkness.
“I’m sorry, Aindreas,” she had rasped. “But yer not his either.”
Aindreas remembered feeling as if his whole world was crumbling before him. The man they had been waiting on, the man he had sent guards for, the man he had adored and looked up to all these years was not the man he had thought him to be.
Aindreas had never been the laird’s son.
He had never been anyone’s son; nothing but an orphan this kind woman had taken in. Aindreas had felt so confused. He had felt angry for never knowing the truth. Pain that the only woman he had ever called ‘mother’ was soon to be dead and the man he had called father nowhere to be found.
He hadn’t known what to think or what to do.
“I’m sorry, Aindreas.”
Aindreas remembered her wails, the way she clung to him as she sobbed.
“I’m so sorry.”
There were too many questions, yet mere moments after she told her secret, he watched her last gasps of breath leaving her. Her eyes had stared lifelessly at the ceiling, and all Aindreas could do was cry. He sobbed for her loss. He sobbed for his true mother’s loss, and he mourned the loss of his childhood, knowing everything he had ever worked for, fought for, was a lie.
