“I will not,” she said.

He smiled, his grin toothy. “Ye will, to save your brother, of course. A brother that no one even knew about. Not even your father.”

“How did you discover him?” Ella asked. She had kept him a secret for twelve years.

The natural tilt of Randolph’s dark brows made him look evil. “A bit of investigative work spurred by an ill woman in the Sutherland village who said that her bairn had died twelve years back. She said that she had been called to Dunrobin to nurse a boy bairn without its mother. She went on and on in her delirium, wishing to be buried by the remains of Alec Sutherland’s dead son as it was actually her own.”

Randolph chuckled. “The information made it to Viola, who passed it to me. I sent a maid to work at Dunrobin, and she followed the tales to a boy born to Florie Sutherland. With a jug of whisky poured down your nursemaid’s throat, she told all to keep her life.” He tsked.

Was sweet, loyal Florie dead? Ella swallowed down the question, keeping her brother at her back. He was growing so fast, but she was still taller than him. “You will accomplish nothing by wedding me,” she said. “King James supports Jamie, his namesake. He prefers bloodlines over battles to secure leadership and has sworn to back Jamie’s claim to my father’s earldom and to lead the Sutherland clan.”

Randolph stepped up closer to her. “The boy is young and untried. I will but do what Cain Sinclair would have done had he known about him. I will become regent.”

“You are not even a Sutherland,” Ella said.

“Ah, but I am half Sutherland.” Randolph’s smile faded. “My mother was from your clan and found herself with child by a Mackay warrior. My father wed her, but he was a cruel man.” Randolph rubbed hard against the back of his hand as if scrubbing away at a pain. “When my mother tried to take me and my sister back to her home in the Sutherland village outside Dunrobin, your father refused to let us stay. He said we were exiled, since we were the spawn of a Mackay enemy.” Randolph’s face pinched with obvious hatred.

Damn Alec Sutherland. How many lives had he torn apart with his cruelty?

Randolph pushed a smile onto his thin lips. “So ye see, I am a Sutherland, and once I wed ye, your clan will accept me to act as regent until the boy comes of age.” The slight narrowing of his eyes, along with a hitch in his smile, made chill bumps rise along her arms.