Thorn in My Heart (5 page)

“Mother, I'm—”

“Hours
, Jamie!” She pointed her spoon toward a pile of green shallots wrapped in a cloth, her hand trembling. “See those? Your brothers wretched wife picked them this morning, then strolled into my kitchen and announced, ‘Mr. McKie likes shallots with his venison.’ As if I dont know how my own husband likes his game!” Her voice, stretched tight as a hunter's bow, nearly broke. “That
donsie
woman is counting the minutes until her husband is the future laird of Glentrool and she its mistress.”

Rowena despised her daughter-in-law. “Inferior English stock,” she'd grumbled under her breath on Evan's wedding day. Judith was a Cumberland lass, a Sassenach from the south. That was enough for their mother. The girl was not to be admired or trusted for any reason. Jamie didn't much care for his sister-in-law's simpering, affected manner either but surprised himself by rising to her defense.

“Judith would never do such a thing.”

“Now who's telling tales?” His mother exhaled slowly, her shoulders sagging as if she bore a heavy burden. “Son, if you have any regard for me or for Glentrool…”

It was a constant refrain. He had no choice but to answer, “You know that I do.”

She circled the table, closing the gap between them. “Then you must go through with this, Jamie.” She touched his arm, and her features softened. “Would that I'd told your father that
you
were the firstborn from the very beginning and spared this day's deceptions.”

“Would that you had,” he agreed and meant it. “Too bad the midwife didn't tie a red string round my wrist like that babe in the
Buik.”

“Litde help a scarlet thread would've been.” She brushed a stubborn clump of hair back from his brow, then patted his cheek. “We'd have lost sight of it in your brother's red locks.”

Evan and James.
One red and woolly, one dark and smooth. Two brothers cut from altogether separate bolts of cloth. But only one could be hailed as McKie of Glentrool.

He turned to watch her wresde the meat off the spit and onto a serving
platter and knew the time had come to slip into his older brother's identity and spirit away his blessing. It was unthinkable. Unforgivable. Yet do it he would. For his mothers sake, aye, but for his own sake as well. Glentrool was more than land and livestock; it was his lifeblood.

Jamie asked her the one question that had haunted him for days. “How will I ever look Father in the eye again?”

She lifted her chin and offered a rueful smile. “Your father can't look any of us in the eye, blind as he is. That's why this scheme of mine will work.” Glancing briefly at the door to the dining room, she added, “The day is gray and
dreich
, the fire dying, the room smoky with peat. Stay at arm's length, and keep your voice low, like your brother's.” She finished arranging the vegetables around the goat meat, then rinsed her hands in a bowl of water and dried them on her apron before she pulled it off and discarded it in a basket of dirty linens. “Your father will smell Evan's hunting plaid on you, reeking of moss and heather, and be thoroughly convinced.” She paused to adjust the woolen fabric draped across his shoulder, wrinkling her nose as she did. “When he tastes your seasoned meat, prepared just the way he likes it, your father will know without any doubt whatsoever that you're his beloved heir.”

Jamie took a deep breath, wishing he could inhale her confidence, then glanced down at his hands. The hands of a gendeman, not a hunter. A terrible prospect gripped him. “What if Father touches me? My skin is smooth, and Evan's is—”

“Birsie. I remembered that in the dark of the night and nigh to fainted ‘til I thought of something. Here.” She thrust a small, furry bundle at him. “These should do.”

He unfolded a pair of crudely fashioned goatskin gloves and brushed his hands over them in disbelief. “What sort of
swickerie
is this?” The fur was a dingy white, not bright red like the hair that covered Evan's arms and hands, but the color was of no consequence.
Clever woman.
He didn't need to ZwHike his brother. He needed
to feel
like him. Though clearly made in haste, the snug gloves fit over his fingers like a second skin. He stuffed the ragged edges inside his cuffs, then stretched out his hands. “Mistress McKie, you amaze me.”

She seemed pleased with the results and touched his gloved hands
to be sure. “They'll do. You'll see. Once he has eaten your food and blessed your head…” A slight shrug of her shoulders finished her thoughts. “He'll not be sorry, Jamie.”

“When he discovers I'm not Evan, Father will be more than sorry. He'll be furious. And no wonder.” Disgusted with himself, he snatched off the gloves and flung them on the floor. It was wrong, every deceiving bit of it. No matter how much he wanted to claim his father's blessing, he could not steal it and take pleasure in it as well. “He will banish me from Glentrool and curse the day I was born.”

Rowena's eyes grew black as midnight. “Then let him curse the woman who bore you.”

“Mother! You don't know what you're saying.”

“Aye, I most certainly do!” A hint of color moved across her cheeks. “I also knew the will of God when I heard it.” She retrieved the gloves with a hasty swipe and pressed them firmly into his hands. “Remember what I've told you all these years?”

He mumbled a phrase she'd repeated more often than bore counting. Words that his mother insisted came from the Almighty himself and not from a mere midwife.
The older will serve the younger.
How many times had he soothed himself with that promise when Evan sent him to bed with bruises? Or thrown them in Evan's face when his older sibling had bested him at hawking? The time had come to test the prophecy made long ago in the glen of his birth. A glen that would become his inheritance within the hour, if his courage would hold.

“The howdie told me to be ready.” Rowena wrapped the warm bread in a cloth and tucked it beneath his arm. “And so I am. The table is
set
with pewter, glass, and claret. Your father is waiting for his dinner.” She lowered her voice to a faint whisper. “You want this, Jamie. I know you do. Now go.”

The bow is bent, the arrow flies,
The winged shaft of fate.

I
RA
A
LDRIDGE

J
amie gripped the platter of meat and strode toward the dining room j door with his brothers plaid tighdy pinned to his shoulder and his hands covered with the skin of an innocent goat. His mother knew him far too well. Right or wrong, he
did want
Glentrool. Would lie for it. Steal for it. Beg for it, if it came to that.

His mother opened the door enough for him to slide past, then latched it securely behind him without a word. No going back. Only forward, toward his father, seated in the place of honor at the head of the long table. Jamie paused for a moment, letting his eyes adjust after the bright firelight of the kitchen. The room was square, the beams darkened by peat smoke, the walls covered with dingy portraits of McKie ancestors from decades past. One shuttered window offered a meager light, guiding him forward, closer to the man whose name he bore.

The patriarchs gray head hung low, his chin resting on his once broad chest, now sunken with age. Slender fingers gripped the arms of his chair. His elbows jutted out, as though any minute he might rise to his feet. His clothes were clean though long out of fashion, the plaid wrapped around his bony shoulders faded and worn. The old man waited, unmoving, for his dinner.

Jamie swallowed whatever pride he had left.

“Father?”

Alec McKies head shot up, his unseeing eyes searching the room nonetheless. “Who is it?”

“Its…Evan. Your firstborn.” Jamie nearly choked on the bitter lie,
then forced himself to speak again, keeping his voice low and gruff like his brothers. “I've brought the venison you asked for. So…so that you 11 bless me, as you promised.”

Och!
What a fool he was, blurting it out like that. Goat meat or venison, it no longer mattered. He'd given himself away with his too-eager words. Standing at the far end of the table, he gripped the heavy platter and waited for the inevitable. The mantel clock ticked loudly in the silent room, matching each heartbeat thumping in his chest.

His father cleared his throat with a gurgling cough. “You mean to tell me you've managed to hunt this deer, clean it, skin it, gut it, and hang it to a high flavor, all in so few days? How is that possible, my son?”

Jamie closed his
eyes.
It was useless to pray. He would seek mercy later. “The Almighty guided my bow.”

“Is that so?” His father lifted his head, squinting at him in the dim light, his rheumy eyes unfocused.

Between the gray mist curling through the cracks around the window and the thickening peat smoke, even Jamie couldn't see clearly. He studied his father's features as best he could. Was the old man suspicious or merely curious? Before Jamie could decide, his father urged him forward with a feeble wave.

“Come closer, Son. Let me touch the hands of a hunter.”

Heat rushed to Jamie's face.
Evans hands, he means.
He put the platter aside and moved toward his father, balling his gloved fists in agony. Why on earth had he listened to his mother? He should have let
her
make a fool of herself, let
her
risk everything. Such regrets were useless now. He was standing before his father, and he was still Evan, if only for a moment longer. He bent over and rested his fingers on his father's sleeve, holding his breath as the man lighdy patted the top of his hairy glove.

“I must confess, lad, your voice sounds more like young Jamie. But these are Evan's hands, no doubt of that.”

Jamie nearly groaned with relief.
No doubt.
He rose, quickly withdrawing his touch.

“A pity to be so blind that I cannot see my own blessed son.” His
father's tone was gruffly teasing when he added, “You
are
Evan, aren't you?

Jamie closed his
eyes
in shame. “I am.”

The man nodded, as though satisfied. “Enough of this chatter. Bring me your venison. I've been tormented by the fine smell long enough.”

Jamie turned to reclaim the platter from the sideboard, then placed the steaming meat on the table. He watched, teeth gritted, as his father leaned forward and hung his prominent nose over the offering. Surely the smell would be his undoing. His father would realize it was goat meat and guess the rest. But the old man said nothing as he stabbed at the food with his fork and poked it into his mouth with eager anticipation.

His father chewed several bites in a row, then shook his head. “Something is missing,” he muttered, piercing yet another hunk of meat.

“M-missing?”

His father clinked at his empty glass with the blade of his horn-handled knife. “Something for an old man to drink. Or were you hoping I might choke to death on this roebuck of yours?”

“Sorry, Father.” With a less than steady hand, Jamie poured a glass of the claret that his mother had opened earlier. His own dry throat longed for a taste of the dark red liquid. Instead he dutifully sat in a straight-backed chair by the door and let his father eat in peace, as was the man's custom, the silence punctuated by an occasional grunted request for more of this or that.

When Alec McKie unwrapped the kitchen cloth to discover fresh bread waiting for him, he grinned like a child just served syllabub. “Bread to celebrate, is it?” he crowed, tearing the loaf in two with glee. The McKie household was unaccustomed to bread, wheat being scarce in Scotland. Oatcakes or barley bannocks were the usual fare. His father's gnarled hands worked the soft bread through the meat juices, then tucked the sopping mess into his mouth with obvious delight.

Jamie fingered Evans plaid through his gloves, grateful to draw a
deep breath for the first time in nearly a week. It grieved him to admit it, but his mothers plan was working. She'd insisted her husbands appetite would overrule his common sense and all his other senses as well. And she'd been right.

Jamie reminded himself that it was not the first time he'd served a meal with less than honorable intent. As a lad of fourteen, he'd been about to eat a hearty bowl of barley broth when his brother staggered into the house, famished from a long afternoon of stretching arrows across his bow. Evan demanded his bowl of broth, and Jamie struck a bargain with his hungry brother: “Swear that I'm the older, and you can have my broth.”

“Who cares who's older?” Evan fumed. “Just give me your broth before I starve to death.”

Jamie circled the bowl with his arms, as though guarding it. “Swear first.”

Evan spat out an oath, then threw himself into a chair and pulled up to the table, thrusting out his hands with an ugly sneer. “Give it to me, and be quick about it.”

Jamie remembered serving the broth with fresh bannocks and a victor's smile. Nothing tasted better than beating his brother, whatever the game. In those days Evan didn't care who inherited Glentrool. Perhaps his brother's foolish bargain of a decade past would prove useful on this grim day. Jamie would take any favor providence might care to bestow. The ruse was not quite finished. He had yet to get what he came for.

His father leaned back in his chair with a satisfied belch. “A gustie fine meal, that.” He threw out his arms in a welcoming embrace. “Come now, Son. You've done your part. Time I did mine.”

Jamie scrambled to his feet, uncertain of what was expected of him. “Sir?”

“Kiss my cheek, then let me give you my blissin.”

Ignoring the uneasy knot in his stomach, Jamie knelt beside his father's chair and leaned into his embrace, pressing his lips against the man's dry, leathery cheek. Suddenly the mantel clock began to chime the hour.
One. Two. Three.
Starded, Jamie yanked his head back as a
shiver of fear skipped along his spine. His brothers voice and hands were deception enough. A false kiss went beyond the pale.

His father, oblivious to all but what he chose to believe, squeezed the aromatic plaid around Jamie's shoulders. “Aye, this is my beloved heir. Smelling like the moors and mountains of Glentrool, which Almighty God made long before the first McKie fought to claim it. God himself knew that one day it would all be yours, my son.” His fathers eyes filled with tears as he laid his wizened hand on Jamie's head.