‘Not exactly,’ I said, trying not to smile back. ‘But you have to admit that this is such an unusual circumstance in which to meet that we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.’
‘Pax.’ Lachlan lifted my hand and, to my enormous surprise, dropped a light kiss on my knuckle. ‘Nobodyknows what’s going to happen in the future. In fact, we’ve got a better chance than most, since we’ve actuallybeenthere.’
IlikedLachlan. The way adrenaline was hot-wiring all my nerves told me so. But this was hardly your traditional bluebirds singing, red roses and chocolates type of environment for romance, so maybe my liking him wasn’t enough. Or maybe I was just afraid of real emotion.Real.
I half laughed.
‘Come on.’ He tugged my hand again.
‘What? Where?’ My mind was still full of his – had itbeena declaration of some kind of affection? It had been rather hard to tell – but whatever it had been, my body was clearly keen to throw in its lot with Lachlan and it was dragging my mind along for the ride.
‘We want to find out who’s coming, don’t we?’
We ploughed through the purposeful crowds now looking less like random people enjoying themselves and more like bees preparing a hive for invasion.
Over in the stable, Fergus was wiping down the outrider’s horse with straw. The poor beast was shaking, and Fergus was muttering under his breath about people who rode too hard, although I suspected that it might be Lachlan and I passing by that was causing much of the trembling. Cellar Dog broke away from the group of ubiquitous white dogs hanging around the stable and attached himself to us as we went, snuffling eagerly at a region somewhere around our ankles and following us across the yard.
‘Is that the dog we found in the cellar?’ Lachlan asked idly, looking down at the lolling tongue and flopping ears as we followed three soldiers down towards the postern gate.
‘I think so. It seems to like us.’
The dog gave a dog-grin in our general direction and I spared a quick thought for the lives of the dogs here – no petting or soft beds for them, just scraps and kicks and sleeping out in the rain.
‘Hardly surprising.’ Lachlan grinned at me. ‘We’re adorable.’
We reached the entry from the postern gate where there was already a gathering of people circling impatiently. The earl had stirred himself to come out and he, impeccably dressed, was leaning on a sword as though it were a rolled umbrella.
‘Are wesureit’s not the king they’re expecting?’ I asked.
‘Pretty sure. But it must be someone important. Look at them.’
In contrast to when the earl had ridden in, to a tense and wary reception, now everyone seemed to be in a state of alert readiness. There was a lot of straightening of clothing, display of weapons and two of the soldiers were in their full gear and had got their horses saddled and ready. The fact that the horses knew we were there and were sidling, tails swishing and nervously laying their ears back, was causing them some discomfort.
Into all this, one man rode. He came up the track on his sweating horse, looking weary and saddle sore but sitting bolt upright. His appearance made the entire waiting crowd straighten up and a watchful silence fell. His horse, a steel-grey, had fine bones and looked well bred, though it stumbled with tiredness and its head hung low at the end of loose reins. Patches of white foam flecked its neck and stained its bridle and the line of its girth.
‘Who the hell is this?’ Lachlan said.
But I knew. Somewhere in the heart of me I knew. It wasn’t just the dark eyes and the upright stance; it felt more as though something inside me was jumping up and down and waving.
‘I think it’s the real earl,’ I said.
Lachlan looked at me, looked at our current earl, who had taken the horse’s bridle and was leading it further into the castle, then looked at the mounted man. ‘It can’t be,’ he said. ‘We’ve already got one. They don’t come in pairs – it’s not like trousers.’
There was a murmur among the watchers as the rider dismounted, took the horse away and began leading it down to the stables, where he was intercepted by Fergus. There was a moment of discussion between the two, which we were too far away to hear, then now-dismounted man clapped Fergus on the shoulder and, patting the rump of his horse, came back to be greeted again by the man we’d been calling the earl, who led him up the stairs and inside the keep.
‘That is the earl,’ I said firmly.
‘Who is the other bugger, then?’ Lachlan sounded as though this arrival had been designed to upset him personally.
‘Someone sent ahead to open up the castle and make sure everything was running smoothly for the earl’s arrival?’ The smugness I felt at my certainty of identification had taken away the swirling, surging emotions. I was absolutely and totally convinced that the dark man on the dark horse was Earl McKell. ‘I think we may have jumped to conclusions about him.’
‘So what was all that about losing the castle? If this is the earl turning up now, then our man never had it to lose.’ Lachlan sounded baffled.
‘We may have misunderstood. Maybe he wasn’t talking aboutthiscastle. Maybe we misheard and it wasn’t a castle at all. It doesn’t matter anyway. He isn’t the earl.’
Mal and Kaylinn hurried up. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
Lachlan explained. ‘Pax is certain that’s the real earl.’
