He looked puzzled. “Ye mean the keep?”
She laughed at his bafflement. “No, I don’t mean the keep.” She picked up a handful of pebbles and began tossing them into the courtyard. They made a plinking noise as they landed.
“I...I didn’t have what you would call a conventional childhood,” she began. “I have no brothers or sisters and to be honest, my parents only had me because I was an accident. If they’d had a choice, I don’t think they’d have had children at all. It was never in their life plan. A child only got in the way of their grand plans and dreams.”
She was surprised at the bitterness in her voice. “They are both artists—well-respected ones actually—but respect doesn’t earn very well and so we spent almost all of my childhood traveling around Europe. We’d stop in one place only until their funding ran out or their residency ended. I think the longest we stayed anywhere was two years and that was a tiny little island off the Greek coast.”
She smiled wryly at the memory of the tiny white-washed cottage they had lived in. “I was happy there, as I recall. But it didn’t last, just like everything else. After my dad’s residency ended, we were off again. Amsterdam. Hamburg. Vienna. Toulouse. I lost count.” She fell silent, her thoughts lost in memory. Now that she said it, she realized that to some it would sound wonderful, a whirlwind of a life, full of travel and adventure. Did she sound like some ungrateful brat?
“It sounds lonely,” Emeric said.
She turned her head and found him staring at her, his sea-green eyes in shadow now that the sun had moved around to the west. Nevertheless, she could see the understanding shining in them.
“It was,” she admitted in a voice barely above a whisper. “I never had the chance to make friends or put down roots. Everyone I met was a temporary acquaintance, everywhere we went was transitory. My parents palmed me off to a stream of ‘aunties’ and ‘uncles’ who were really just my parents’ artist friends who had nothing better to do than babysit me while my parents were off doing their important work. And then I come here,” she said, gesturing at the keep. “Where everything is so vastly different. Where everyone seems to know everyone else and you’re all bound together with a web of loyalty and family that I can’t even begin to get my head around. I thought this kind of life would stifle me. I thought these kinds of ties, all this...this...family...would send me crazy. But it doesn’t.”
She met his gaze. “You have a family that cares about you, Emeric. People who would do anything for you. You have a place to belong. I never thought I would be jealous of that, but I am. So that’s why I had a go at you earlier. I shouldn’t have done that. I have no right to judge you or how you get on with your family. So I’m sorry, too. I guess I’m just finding all this a little...overwhelming.”
Emeric said nothing. Silence stretched between them, but neither looked away. Anna suspected she couldn’t even if she’d wanted to. His eyes seemed to trap her like a fly in amber, and she wished she could read what was going on behind them.
Finally, he blew out a long breath. It was his turn to pick up some pebbles and start tossing them into the courtyard. “Ye dinna owe me any apologies, lass,” he said. “Everything ye said was true. Iama spoiled brat. I do throw my family’s regard back in their faces.” He looked at her again. “And I’m sorry that ye had an unhappy childhood. I canna imagine what it must have been like to be so lonely. Here... here’s it’s the opposite. So many relationships and family ties and clan loyalties that it’s stifling. It was too much for me, so I ran. I ran from my family and into the arms of the Order of the Osprey.” His lips twisted in a wry smile. “But not for the reasons everyone supposes.”
She cocked her head at him. “Then why?”
She saw pain in his eyes, that dullness that seemed to take all the life out of him. What was it that he carried so heavily on his shoulders?
“I canna tell ye,” he said. “I’m not sure I have the words.” His expression sharpened and he straightened, as though coming to a decision. “But I canshowye.”
“Show me?”
Emeric nodded, a resolute expression crossing his features. He climbed to his feet and held out a hand to her. She clasped it and allowed him to pull her up. “Are ye up to a ride, lass?”
“A ride? Shouldn’t you be attending the victory celebrations?”
He snorted. “I’m sure they’ll do just fine without me. Besides, this is more important.”
“I...um...yes...all right then. Aride where?”
“To see the truth. The truth of the lie that lies at the heart of this clan.”
Giving him a sharp nod, Anna followed as he turned and led her to the stable. Plover was drowsing in his stall, but he came awake as he caught Emeric’s scent, snorting a greeting and pricking his ears. Emeric rubbed him behind his ears, saddled him, and led him out of the stable.
Once in the courtyard, he helped Anna into the saddle, hung his bow from the saddle horn, and then swung up behind her. Plover shifted as she settled her weight but steadied at a word and a touch from Emeric. He reached around her to take the reins, his tanned, muscled arms enveloping her. She swallowed thickly, all too aware of his broad chest at her back, his breath tickling her neck.
“And where exactly do ye think ye are going?” Aislinn was standing on the steps of the keep with her hands on her hips.
Emeric winced. “For a ride. To get some air.”
Aislinn’s gaze flicked from her brother to Anna and back again. A mischievous smile curled her lips. “Oh, someair. I see. That’s what ye are calling it now?”
“Oh, for the love of...” Emeric said, rolling his eyes. “It isnae like that. Just cover for me with mother and uncle, will ye?”
Aislinn waved a hand. “Of course, of course. Far be it from me to come between a man and his...ride.”
Anna blushed scarlet at Aislinn’s words, but before his sister could embarrass them further, Emeric clucked to Plover and guided him through the gates. Anna wondered what the guards thought of the two of them riding offtogether. Would tongues be wagging back at the castle? If Aislinn had anything to do with it, they no doubt would.
Let them wag, she thought.
Emeric set his heels to the horse’s flanks and they were off into a canter, the wind whipping Anna’s hair out behind her.
