Domnall's POV
The report arrives three days after the fabric incident, delivered by my investigator personally rather than through servants. He hands me the sealed envelope in my study, then leaves without speaking. The weight of it feels heavier than paper should.
I lock the door before breaking the seal.
The first page is a summary—clinical, factual, devastating in its brevity:
Birth records located in Carvenmoor parish registry: three children born to Mairead Dunmore, unmarried, on the fourteenth day of November, six years past.
Names recorded: Tavish, Lachlan, Fenella. Father: unknown. No subsequent marriage record found for Mairead Dunmore in any parish within fifty miles.
I count backward. November fourteenth, nine months and four days after the night I spent with her in that tavern room.
My hands are shaking. I set the paper down and force myself to breathe before continuing.
The medical records are next—a midwife's testimony, carefully transcribed:
"I attended Miss Dunmore through her confinement. She was alone, no family present, no husband to speak of. The labor was difficult—triplets often are. She nearly died bringing the third child.
When I asked about the father, about anyone I should send for, she said there was no one, just her. I remember thinking it was the saddest thing I'd ever heard, a woman birthing three babies with nobody to hold her hand through it."
The words blur. I have to stop reading, press my palms against my eyes until the pressure becomes pain.
She was alone, dying in childbirth alone while I was…Where was I six years ago?
Performing my duties. Playing the grieving widower. Letting my mother parade marriage candidates through the estate while the woman who actually mattered was bleeding out in a midwife's room with no one to hold her hand.
I force myself to keep reading.
Witness statements from Carvenmoor tavern workers, shopkeepers, a landlady who rented her a room:
"She was pregnant, getting bigger every week. Kept working until she couldn't stand through full shifts anymore. Never mentioned a husband. We all assumed... well, you know what we assumed. Poor girl."
"She left town about a year after the babies were born. Took all three and just vanished one day. Probably couldn't stand the whispers anymore."
"I felt sorry for her. She was a hard worker, never complained, always polite. But a bastard raising bastards—that's how people talked about her. Cruel, but that's how it is."
My chest is folding in on itself. Every word is a knife.
Then the physician's testimony. This one makes me stop breathing entirely:
"I examined the boy—Lachlan—for a fever last autumn when the family was staying with the Duchess Farren. During the examination, I noted a distinctive birthmark on his left shoulder blade. Diamond-shaped, approximately two centimeters across.
I wouldn't mention it except that I attended Lord Morvaine himself for a riding injury three years past, and he bears an identical mark in the same location. The similarity is striking enough to warrant documentation."
I stand, move to the mirror on the wall, and twist to see my left shoulder blade.
The birthmark has been there my entire life—diamond-shaped, dark against pale skin. My father had one. His father before him. Family trait, passed down through generations.
Lachlan has it.
The final pages are financial records. My investigator was thorough—checked every ledger, every wage book, every estate record for the Duchess Farren's properties going back twenty years.
Thomas Farren: no employment records found. No birth record, no death record, no marriage record. No evidence of existence in any documentation.
Conclusion: fabricated identity created to legitimize children's status and secure employment for their mother.
I sink into my chair and read the entire report again.
Then a third time, memorizing every detail, every piece of evidence, every witness statement that proves what I already knew in my bones the moment I saw three dark-haired, blue-eyed children in that market square.
They're mine. Tavish, Lachlan, Fenella—mine.
The realization crashes over me in waves. First: rage. Pure, incandescent fury at being denied seven years. Seven years of Tavish's questions and Lachlan's mischief and Fenella's solemn observations.
Seven years of first words and first steps and everything that matters. Gone. Stolen by my mother's men dragging me away from that tavern, by circumstances I couldn't control, by Mairead's fear keeping her silent.
Then: wonder. I have children. Three of them. They exist because of one night when I felt alive for the first time since Sorcha died. They're real, walking around in the world, carrying pieces of me in their faces and their birthmarks and probably their stubbornness.
Then: desperate need. I want to claim them. Want to walk up to Mairead right now and say "I know, I know they're mine, let me be their father."
I want to tell Tavish that yes, his father is a brave man and he's here and he's never leaving again. I want to gather all three of them close and never let them go.
Then: fear. Cold, paralyzing fear of what my mother will do when she discovers the truth. Because she will discover it—her investigators are hunting the same trail mine just completed.
And when she finds out I fathered three bastards with a servant seven years ago, that I've been lying about it, that the tutor in her own house has been raising my illegitimate children under a false name…
She'll destroy them. She'll use it as proof of deception, of unworthiness, of everything she needs to remove Mairead from the estate and from my life.
She'll twist the truth into a weapon and I'll be powerless to stop her because the evidence of my bastards exists in parish records and witness statements and a birthmark on Lachlan's shoulder that matches mine exactly.
I read the report a fourth time, forcing myself to think strategically instead of emotionally.
Mairead has been protecting them alone for six years. No support, no acknowledgment, carrying the shame of unwed motherhood while I was performing my duties as the grieving widower and dutiful son.
She worked herself to exhaustion, raised three children alone, let people call her and them bastards while I was safe in my estate knowing nothing.
She lied to me at the market not because she didn't care, not because Carvenmoor meant nothing, but because telling the truth would expose them to my mother's wrath.
Every lie she's told has been armor, every deflection a shield. She's been fighting a war alone while I was the threat she was fighting against.
The understanding settles into my bones with uncomfortable clarity: I can't tell her I know.
If she realizes I've discovered the truth, she might panic and run—take the children and disappear the way she did seven years ago. Or my mother might notice the change in my behavior, investigate deeper, find what I just found.
Better to work from shadows. Protect them without their knowledge until I can build a foundation strong enough that when the truth emerges, they'll be safe.
I pull out fresh paper and begin making lists.
Financial support first—anonymous, untraceable. The envelope of coins that appeared under Mairead's door last month—my steward's work, carefully disguised. I'll increase it.
Legal obstacles for my mother's investigation. I know the investigator she hired. I'll feed him false leads, create bureaucratic tangles, pay clerks to lose paperwork. Buy time.
Educational opportunities for the children. Scholarship invitations from foundations I quietly fund. Nothing that traces back to me.
Trusted servants positioned to watch over them. Not spies—protectors. People who'll report if anyone threatens them.
I write for an hour, planning every detail, anticipating every threat.
I fold the report carefully and lock it in the hidden drawer of my desk where my mother's servants won't find it during their regular searches of my study. Then I burn my notes in the fireplace, watching the plans turn to ash.
No evidence. No trail.