The Scotsman (The Brotherhood of the Sword #4)

Prologue

Today was the anniversary of the day. The day that had changed Ewan MacAllister’s life forever.

In one moment, he’d been the spoiled son of a respected and feared laird.

The next, he’d been the murderer of his own brother.

His stomach knotted by grief and guilt, Ewan stared out across the loch where its dark, choppy waves shimmered like glass, and remembered his brother Kieran’s face. Remembered the day he had taken the one thing Kieran had loved more than life itself.

“Damn you, Isobail,” he snarled before he downed the last of the ale in his flagon.

If not for Isobail, the world in which he lived would have been an entirely different place. Ewan would have married Catie ingen Anghus. And no doubt Kieran would have married Fia of the MacDouglas clan after Isobail ran off, and they would have lived out their lives as close friends.

Now his brother was lost to the blackened depths of this loch and Ewan was sworn to live out his life alone, paying penance for the fact that he had cost his brother his immortal soul.

Ewan had brought untold pain and suffering to all the people he loved.

It never ceased to amaze him just how easily so many lives could be destroyed by one foolish decision. One selfish moment.

One decision he would give up his own soul to change.

Agony washed through him anew. Somewhere out there in the peaceful depths of this loch rested the body of the brother he’d been closest to. The brother who had been his best friend, his confident.

Though Ewan loved his other brothers, it had been Kieran who had walked beside him through thick and thin. Kieran he had trusted with the deepest secrets of his heart.

Until the day Isobail had come between them.

He drew a ragged sigh, his eyes stinging from his unshed tears as he recalled the moment that had shattered their youth...

“I love you, Ewan.” Isobail’s dark blue eyes had brimmed with tears as her long blond hair moved in the breeze.

She’d grabbed him while he was on his way to the stables and pulled him behind the keep, into his mother’s garden.

Once there, she had thrown herself into his arms and kissed him with a passion the likes of which he’d never tasted before or since.

Barely more than a lad, he’d been unable to fully understand her words. How could a woman so fair, so fine, even have a passing care for a lanky lad who could scarce walk about without banging his head into something?

He’d tried to pull away, but she’d refused. “You are promised to Kieran,” he’d said.

Her viperous eyes had filled with more tears.

“That is of Kieran’s doing, not mine. I tried to tell him that I do not love him, but he won’t listen.

Please, Ewan, you must help me. I dinna want to be bound to a man I dinna love.

One who listens, but never hears a word I say.

It is you I need. Take me to England and I will be yours forevermore. ”

Young and foolish, he’d believed her silken lies while never knowing she’d said the very same words to Kieran to get him to take her away from Robby MacDouglas.

Robby had been her father’s choice of husband, but Isobail had refused to see the union met.

She’d told Kieran that she loved him and that if he would help her, she would gladly be his wife.

However, the only person Isobail loved was herself.

Worthless harlot.

In the quietness of the garden on that spring day, Ewan had lost his innocence in more ways than one.

Three days later, the two of them were sneaking out of the bailey and headed to England supposedly to meet up with Isobail’s aunt who would take them in.

In truth, they had been riding to meet Isobail’s English lover.

Ewan would never in his life forget the sight of the man who had been waiting for them. The sight of Isobail and her lover embracing.

It was her lover’s hall they had journeyed to, not her aunt’s.

Her eyes had been shining with satisfaction as she’d boldly told her lover about how she’d fooled them into bringing her safely to his arms.

First, she’d tried to get Kieran to take her to England, but when Kieran had decided to keep her in Scotland and marry her, she’d turned her sights on Ewan, knowing he would be unable to stay there if he was to have her.

“I knew he’d have no choice save to bring me. How could he stay at home while Kieran was there to hate him?” The glee in her voice sickened him to this day.

Enraged over their deception, Ewan had challenged and fought the English knight. But too young to have gleaned much skill and too uncoordinated to match the smaller man’s agility, Ewan had lost the battle.

Defeated mentally and physically, he had been forced from the hall and sent on his way.

Even now, years later, the betrayal hung in Ewan’s heart with the weight of a millstone.

The entire way back to Scotland, he’d vowed to make it up to Kieran. To tell his brother they were both better off without the faithlessness of Isobail.

But he’d come home to his brother’s wake. Back to a home filled with grief over the fact that Kieran, unable to live without Isobail, had killed himself.

On this very day not long after Ewan and gone off with Isobail, his brother had come to this shore, doffed his clothes and sword, and walked out into the murky depths of the loch where he had found an end to the pain of his broken heart.

“I’m so sorry, Kieran,” Ewan whispered to the waves that lapped at his booted feet. “If I could, brother, I’d gladly give you my life so that you could have yours back.”

Like so many times before, the thought of joining Kieran crossed his mind. It would be so easy to just walk out into the waves as Kieran had done and let their soothing peace end his pain too.

To sink himself to the bottom of the loch where he could finally make amends to Kieran...

But he would never again be selfish.