Amanda Scott (37 page)

“Aye, sure, she will, and ’tis a wonder you were able to persuade her to delay it until then. Are you sure you succeeded?”

“She gave me her word,” Hugo said. “Sorcha did, too. Both promised not to leave the castle without first consulting me.”

Michael nodded. “Mother won’t break her word.”

“I hope Sorcha won’t, either,” Hugo said. The instinct that rarely failed him when it came to reading people had so far remained utterly mute on that point.

The following morning emerged from darkness in new curtains of mist above a milky fog that hovered close to the river, muffling its sound. Drifting wisps of gray and white settled like veils over treetops or nested amid the shrubbery.

Wanting exercise after a day spent almost entirely withindoors, Sorcha dressed herself before Kenna came to her chamber. Then she threw on her cloak, hurried downstairs, and came face-to-face with Hugo as she entered the hall.

He greeted her with a look that was half smile, half frown.

Thinking he would demand to know where she was
going, she forestalled him by saying, “I want to walk outside. I’ve been lying awake this past hour, and I want fresh air and exercise. I am not accustomed to being caged.”

“I’ll go with you,” he said promptly. “We must not stay out long, though. The countess rises early, and as soon as we all break our fast, Michael and Isobel want to hold the bairn’s naming ceremony.”

She nearly told him she would prefer to walk by herself but resisted, knowing perfectly well that she wanted nothing of the sort. If all went as she hoped, he was unlikely to invite her to walk with him again, because Adela would be free as soon as the countess dealt with the horrid Waldron.

Outside, the mist spilled around corners and over the walls of the courtyard. It was the clinging sort, made up of droplets so tiny they lacked weight enough to fall, so they stuck to one’s eyelashes and kissed one’s cheeks.

In the northeast corner, the tall lantern tower seemed to disappear in a dense cloud of the stuff, and the flagstones beneath Sorcha’s feet felt slick with it as she walked. But she did not mind the damp. Nor was she chilled, because as usual when Hugo was beside her, she could feel warmth radiating from his body.

It occurred to her that such a mist could hide many things, even men. “Does this mist not make it difficult to guard the castle?” she asked.

“The safest way onto the promontory is over that treacherously narrow land bridge to the gate,” he said. “Few men are brave enough to risk it without being able to see exactly where they are. Even if they make it to the gates, only a few can stand there. They could not position
a ramming party, for example, nor could anyone easily breach our walls. Not only is Henry extending them considerably, as you know, but the new curtain wall stands outside the old one.”

“But the new wall is not finished. What about an approach from the north?”

“The castle sits on the highest part of the promontory, and the hills to the north are rugged and heavily forested, as is the glen. So even in a much thicker mist, we’re safe enough here. Today, I have lads in the forest and along the rim of the glen, watching and listening for trouble. The mist conceals them, too.”

“You’re leaving today,” she said and was surprised to hear in her voice the sadness she had felt since waking.

He reached for her hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm, drawing her closer as he said, “Michael and I, and my father, will ride to Edinburgh this afternoon to meet Ranald and the cavalcade. Henry has a house there, as I may have told you, so we’ll spend the night with him. I’ll return tomorrow evening.”

“Just you? Will not Michael and Sir Edward return as well?” She looked up as she asked and saw a muscle twitch in his jaw before his gaze met hers.

The searching look in his eyes told her that he still suspected she had been at the laird’s peek, and she felt a tremor of guilt. Hoping the damp chill would keep her too-easy blushes in check, she continued to gaze innocently at him until she realized that his own cheeks had reddened.

“You are thinking what to say to me,” she said indignantly, no longer caring what he had seen in her face. “You said you would always answer me honestly.”

“Aye, and I will,” he replied, his gaze meeting hers easily. “But you will recall that I also said I would tell you when I cannot give you all the answers you seek, because they are someone else’s to give or because I do not know. I was but trying to decide which category this new question of yours fits. Michael and my father may return to the castle tomorrow, but I do not know exactly when, so I would ask you not to raise Isobel’s hopes about Michael, as he is likely to sleep elsewhere rather than risk disturbing her.”

She held his gaze a moment longer, but then his searching look returned, and not wanting to invite questions, she looked away first. That he had every right to demand equal honesty from her was one thing, but being obliged to answer honestly and then face his anger afterward was quite another.

“Your father may come with them, you know,” he said in a gentler tone than she had expected to hear just then.

“I expect he will stay in town with his grace,” she said. “He will not want to have to deal with me or with Adela’s situation yet. Moreover,” she added, forcing a more cheerful note, “Adela may be free by then, so if he does come, he will see that she is safe and will know that we did the right thing by coming after her. And then, if you still mean to do the honorable—”

“There is something else you should know,” Hugo interjected.

Surprised but hoping his interruption meant only that he did not want to talk about his honor, that instead he might actually satisfy her curiosity about whatever was going to happen the next night, she waited hopefully.

He said bluntly, “Lord Ardelve rides with his grace’s cavalcade.”

“What?” She was surprised, but then she realized he was making too much of a small thing. “There can be nothing in that,” she said. “The only reason he did not join them in the first place was that he’d expected to be a new bridegroom and did not want to leave Adela alone so soon after their wedding. But as they did not marry, he will have decided to support his grace. That’s all it means.”

“If that were the case, do you not think he would have attended his grace’s installation, then come south to Lochbuie with us, rather than making what must have amounted to quite a scramble to join the flotilla before it departed?”

She shrugged. “The man has his pompous pride. It must have suffered a heavy blow when he saw his bride carried off, and worse if he believed as everyone else did that she was leaving with the man she loved. Doubtless, he wanted time to lick his wounds and did not want to face everyone so soon at the installation.”

She felt him tense midway through her comments, and when she finished, he stopped her in her steps and turned her to face him. As her arm unlinked from his, she felt the misty chill again.

“Where do you come by such notions?” he demanded.

“No man likes his pride wounded,” she said, surprised and defensive. “Nor does any man like to air his injuries in public.”

“I don’t mean that,” he retorted gruffly. “I want to know where the devil you came by this fool’s notion of yours that Adela ever loved me.”

“I just know she does.” She stared up at him. The mist had thickened silently around them as if Roslin Castle had vanished and left them in a world of their own.

He was glowering at her, not touching her, daring her to answer him. He looked about as angry as a man could look, yet she felt no fear. Instead, she felt warmed, as if a cozy fire burned within her.

She nearly smiled but fought against it, fearing he would think she laughed at him. That would not do at all, even if she could explain her feelings to him, and she doubted that she could because she did not understand them herself.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he commanded, his voice still gruff with that odd angry note as he caught her by the shoulders and held her firmly where she stood. “When you twitch that damned dimple at me, I want to kiss you, and since you have forbidden that, it is not fair to tempt me.”

“It is hardly fair to blame me for looking at you,” she said. “Nor can anyone control what a ridiculous dimple does.”

“Aye, well, I think we should go back inside,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “You have not had much exercise, I know, but this mist is soaking us through, and before long we’ll both be chilled to the bone.”

He walked her across the courtyard as if he could actually see where he was going, and as she hurried to keep up with him, she could only hope the mist was thinner a foot higher than it was at her eye level.

Inside, they found the countess already at the high table, and Michael arrived minutes later, making Sorcha
glad that Hugo had decided to return. He took her cloak from her and handed it to a gillie to dry by the fire. It had kept her dry enough, but she was sure that Hugo, lacking one, must be feeling damp.

If he was, he gave no sign of it, and when they adjourned to Isobel’s bedchamber with Isabella’s chaplain, Hugo played his part in the naming ceremony to perfection. To be sure, all he had to do was to hold young William Robert Sinclair, for that was the name Michael had given the chaplain to speak for the first time as he baptized him. Hugo then blessed the infant and vowed to remain bound to him as godfather for life. The ritual not only bound the infant to Hugo but tightened the bonds between the Robison and Sinclair families.

As she watched him tenderly smile at his godson, she felt the same deep warmth inside her that she had felt after the child’s birth and so recently in the courtyard. Since the circumstances were so different, she thought it odd, but then the still-smiling Hugo looked at her, young William Robert made chuckling sounds behind the tiny clenched fist in his mouth, and she no longer thought it odd at all.

After the brief ceremony, the men adjourned to their chambers to tend to last-minute duties before their departure for Edinburgh. For a time, everyone worried that the mist would linger all day, but by midday, sunbeams had broken through here and there and the milk fog over the river had dispersed. A breeze stirred, and an hour later, when the men departed after their midday meal, all that remained to remind anyone of the mist was a sky full of billowing pale-gray clouds.

The rest of the day crept by at a snail’s pace. No
message arrived from Edgelaw, a fact that by suppertime had put the countess in a black mood. And Sorcha’s mood was no lighter.

She had wanted to look inside the chamber on the landing to see if Hugo had overlooked the helpful little stool or had removed it. She also wanted to see if she could adjust the cloth he had stuffed in the hole so she could peek past it without detection. She had not dared to try that the previous night, lest it prove impossible.

To her annoyance, she found a shiny new hasp and lock on the door.

Isobel kept to her chamber for the rest of the day and announced her intent to retire early. Not only had she enjoyed little sleep the previous night waiting for Michael, but she had talked long with him when he had finally come to her.

Consequently, Sorcha and Sidony spent a long, uneventful evening with the countess and found her singularly uncommunicative on any topic of interest.

At last, unable to stand her own boredom any longer, Sorcha said abruptly, “What will you do if he does not come, madam?”

“I will make him answer for his crimes,” Isabella said grimly. “Abducting a noblewoman, particularly for nefarious purpose, is a hanging offense.”

“And if he does come?”

“Although his ingratitude infuriates me, I will hear his side of it.”

Sorcha had a strong notion that had the countess continued, she would have added, “… and then I will hang him.”

Their conversation became desultory again, and it was
not long before Sidony was yawning. Sorcha excused them both for bed and found that she welcomed an early night, if only because the next day would come sooner.

The morning’s gloom provided nothing to improve her mood. Rather than mist, however, she looked out on a heavy sky that threatened rain. The weather even clouded her thoughts, because all she could think was that it might prevent Hugo’s return that night. And if it did, it might also prevent whatever mischief he and Michael had planned.

Not, she told herself, that they truly meant mischief, just to keep their secrets. And although she had not yet learned anything noteworthy about them, she certainly meant to find out exactly what those secrets were, one way or another.