face to face with an old portrait of himself as a child that hung in the gallery above the great hall.
He was amazed at first, considering his history and subsequent banishment, that the portrait had remained all these years alongside the other honorable MacElgins. Warriors and chieftains who had not shamed their ancestors with tales of adolescent evils.
Only on closer inspection did he see the Devil’s horns and pitchfork penned over the original portrait, the cloven hoofs protruding from his best knee breeches. Even now he could feel the anger and resentment that blazed from the eyes of the wild boy he had been, the bewilderment of being dragged from the scene of a double murder and discovering his true identity in an unforgettable night with the Beltane bonfires blazing in the background.
He remembered the morning that the portrait had been painted. Only three days had passed since he’d learned that the abusive drunk named Fergus who had raised him was not his natural father, that the clan’s laird and chieftain, the Marquess of Portmuir, Kenneth MacElgin, had waited until the man’s death to claim Duncan as his heir and only child. On the day of the portrait-painting, Kenneth had stood guard at the door with a broadsword to make sure Duncan did not escape. If Kenneth was determined that the world would pay homage to his precious son, Duncan was just as determined to prove he was not worthy of such homage if it killed them both.
Duncan smiled grimly. No, Fortune had not been at all kind to the old MacElgin. For thirteen years Kenneth had kept his long-ago association with Duncan’s mother, Janet, a secret. He had pretended ignorance of the son that had come as a result of their brief illicit union, a trophy of Kenneth’s manhood that he had not dared acknowledge for Janet’s sake, out of respect for her deep religious conviction and the shame of an adulterous affair that had borne fruit.
But when Janet and her cruel common-law husband had been found mysteriously murdered in their cot one Beltane night, Kenneth MacElgin and his tacksman had swooped down like avenging angels to save Janet’s two orphans— Duncan and his older half-sister, Judith. For if Kenneth had appeared to turn a blind eye to Duncan’s existence, he had coveted him in his heart and had waited for the day he could claim him.
At last Kenneth could announce to the clan that he had produced an heir, a feat of virility he had not accomplished with the two legitimate wives he had outlived. Duncan, sullen and belligerent, immediately tried to escape the parade of tutors and tailors, of fencing lessons and servants that now shadowed his every move. He rebelled against the love his natural father tried to shower on him, not trusting it. He rebelled against his heritage, seething inwardly that his father had not intervened before, when Janet was alive.
Fergus may not have sired Duncan from his own seed, but he had left his mark all the same. The constant beatings, the verbal belittlement, had shaped Duncan’s character in devious channels as powerful as the laws of heredity.
And when the inevitable whisperings began that Duncan had murdered his own parents, he had not bothered to deny them. He had behaved like an impostor in his father’s castle, fueling the suspicions. His clansmen gossiped behind his back, recalling the small cruelties he’d inflicted on them in his youth.
“God.” He drew a breath, staring at the portrait. “God. Somebody take that thing off the wall and have it burned.”
“It doesn’t look a thing like you,” Marsali said quietly behind him.
He turned on her, startled from his thoughts and enraged at having been caught in a moment of unguarded vulnerability, the pain of the boy in that painting as raw as if it had been only yesterday. For an instant he was tempted to shove her aside and run, as he would have done years ago, shame threatening to overshadow the man he’d become.
“Look harder, then.” He
He was amazed at first, considering his history and subsequent banishment, that the portrait had remained all these years alongside the other honorable MacElgins. Warriors and chieftains who had not shamed their ancestors with tales of adolescent evils.
Only on closer inspection did he see the Devil’s horns and pitchfork penned over the original portrait, the cloven hoofs protruding from his best knee breeches. Even now he could feel the anger and resentment that blazed from the eyes of the wild boy he had been, the bewilderment of being dragged from the scene of a double murder and discovering his true identity in an unforgettable night with the Beltane bonfires blazing in the background.
He remembered the morning that the portrait had been painted. Only three days had passed since he’d learned that the abusive drunk named Fergus who had raised him was not his natural father, that the clan’s laird and chieftain, the Marquess of Portmuir, Kenneth MacElgin, had waited until the man’s death to claim Duncan as his heir and only child. On the day of the portrait-painting, Kenneth had stood guard at the door with a broadsword to make sure Duncan did not escape. If Kenneth was determined that the world would pay homage to his precious son, Duncan was just as determined to prove he was not worthy of such homage if it killed them both.
Duncan smiled grimly. No, Fortune had not been at all kind to the old MacElgin. For thirteen years Kenneth had kept his long-ago association with Duncan’s mother, Janet, a secret. He had pretended ignorance of the son that had come as a result of their brief illicit union, a trophy of Kenneth’s manhood that he had not dared acknowledge for Janet’s sake, out of respect for her deep religious conviction and the shame of an adulterous affair that had borne fruit.
But when Janet and her cruel common-law husband had been found mysteriously murdered in their cot one Beltane night, Kenneth MacElgin and his tacksman had swooped down like avenging angels to save Janet’s two orphans— Duncan and his older half-sister, Judith. For if Kenneth had appeared to turn a blind eye to Duncan’s existence, he had coveted him in his heart and had waited for the day he could claim him.
At last Kenneth could announce to the clan that he had produced an heir, a feat of virility he had not accomplished with the two legitimate wives he had outlived. Duncan, sullen and belligerent, immediately tried to escape the parade of tutors and tailors, of fencing lessons and servants that now shadowed his every move. He rebelled against the love his natural father tried to shower on him, not trusting it. He rebelled against his heritage, seething inwardly that his father had not intervened before, when Janet was alive.
Fergus may not have sired Duncan from his own seed, but he had left his mark all the same. The constant beatings, the verbal belittlement, had shaped Duncan’s character in devious channels as powerful as the laws of heredity.
And when the inevitable whisperings began that Duncan had murdered his own parents, he had not bothered to deny them. He had behaved like an impostor in his father’s castle, fueling the suspicions. His clansmen gossiped behind his back, recalling the small cruelties he’d inflicted on them in his youth.
“God.” He drew a breath, staring at the portrait. “God. Somebody take that thing off the wall and have it burned.”
“It doesn’t look a thing like you,” Marsali said quietly behind him.
He turned on her, startled from his thoughts and enraged at having been caught in a moment of unguarded vulnerability, the pain of the boy in that painting as raw as if it had been only yesterday. For an instant he was tempted to shove her aside and run, as he would have done years ago, shame threatening to overshadow the man he’d become.
“Look harder, then.” He
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