I sighed. Sighing seemed to be a feature of most conversations with Mal. ‘Okay, then. Let’s do this.’
We waited until it was completely dark, Lachlan’s thinking being that if I was semi-visible to the earl this might be less noticeable by candlelight. I wore a shift under a skirt, with the top of the shift forming a ruffled blouse-effect, and an apron, with a length of woven cloth covering my head and shoulders. The shift was too big and smelled of someone else’s sweat and the cloth that disguised my short hair was coarse and a bit itchy.
‘You have to look convincing,’ Kaylinn said. ‘If he can see you or half see you, you need to look like any of the other women here.’
‘And the hair is a giveaway,’ Mal put in. ‘No luscious locks for you.’
‘But does it have to be so… so…authentic?’ I asked, scratching at the back of my neck. ‘There are things in here with me.’
‘Well, if he can see you, you gotta look real.’ Kaylinn pulled at the skirt, tweaking the hem, which pulled the ruffles down to a less suffocating position.
‘Real I can cope with. Fleas I draw the line at.’ I scratched again.
‘We’ll have to go up the outside stairs,’ David said. ‘They’re bringing stuff up and down the ones from the hall and we don’t want to get knocked down like Weebles if anyone drops a barrel.’
‘Come on.’ Lachlan opened the cellar door. ‘We might as well find out now.’ Then, as I went to go past him, ‘You look great, Pax.’
‘Thank—’
‘A proper peasant.’
‘Oh.’
His smile was very broad in the moonlight that filtered down into the cellar from above. ‘In a good way,’ he added, encouragingly.
‘Isthere a good way?’
I got an assessing look, another smile and a nod. ‘My ancestry says yes.’
I glared as I started up the stairs and heard him laugh softly. If Lachlan was going to start noticing my appearance then I’d rather he did it when I looked like myself rather than a remnant from the Highland Clearances.
Barefoot and slightly sullen, I squidged through the mud and other substances I didn’t want to think about, around the outside of the castle to the main door, which stood ajar to let the dogs in and out. Firelight streamed through the opening andflickered across the coats of the animals and the faces of the men coming and going and inside the hall was full of noise and laughter.
I hesitated for a moment until David poked me in the back. ‘Go on,’ he whispered unnecessarily. Unseen and unheard, we walked through the crowded hall and it felt as though we were moving through a stage set with the way everyone carried on oblivious to our existence. Two dogs fought a desultory war over a discarded bone until we approached, whereupon they joined forces in snarling at us.
‘Och, the wee ghosties are about!’ said one man, laughing at the dogs’ reaction, and we all stopped and turned towards him. But the men had all turned away, still laughing at the dogs, and, still invisible and trailed by my tail of attendants, I started off up the stairs to the private chambers above. My feet were already numb with cold, my legs were splattered with mud and I’d been bitten all over by whatever infested the wool, so I was not in a particularly flirtatious mood when we reached the anteroom. If the earlcouldsee me, I thought, giving the others a mutinous glare when they ushered me to the doorway, he had better not try anything because I might punch him.
The earl was still there, sitting alone. A plate of half-eaten food was on the desk while he had his feet up in front of the fire, his jacket undone to reveal an open-fronted shirt and his trousers unbuttoned. He looked a little better illuminated only by the firelight, a little less rat-like with the shadows thrown across his face. In fact he looked a bit lonely sitting up here in isolation while his men cheered and jeered and gossiped downstairs. His face was tired and drawn and he needed a shave.
We all peered from behind the tapestry as before. ‘Go on, then,’ whispered Lachlan. ‘Get it over with.’
‘You will come in, won’t you?’ I said nervously. ‘You won’t leave me here?’
‘We promise to ride to your rescue,’ Mal said. ‘But only if you want us to, of course. You might enjoy it.’
‘It’sincest!’ I hissed.
‘It is not.’ Lachlan lifted the corner of the tapestry. ‘And we won’t let it get that far, trust me.’
Oddly enough, I did.
I slithered into the room and waited to be noticed. The earl was staring into the fire, rubbing the back of his neck and clearly absorbed in his thoughts. I looked back over my shoulder to see everyone making shooing motions, increasingly theatrically, so I shuffled a bit further into the room.
‘Er, hello?’ I started and then added ‘my lord’, although I wasn’t altogether sure that was how you addressed an earl. He didn’t move. But then I’d seen his arrogance in action before and I was a mere woman, so he was probably going to make me kneel before him – and Isodid not want to think about kneeling before him. I went a bit further in and rounded the chair so I stood between him and the fire.
The earl shook his head. ‘I should not be contemplating such,’ he said in an undertone but still made me jump.
‘I wondered if you needed anything. My lord,’ I added hastily, bending into an obsequious crouch.
