His reducing my story to a childhood misdemeanour made me feel better. Or less guilty, anyway, and I forgot my self-pity. ‘You did what?’
‘I wassix. Complex issues of bedroom equality weren’t exactly topics of family discussion so I used passive demonstration.’ He grinned. ‘She forgave me. Eventually. Round about her eighteenth birthday.’
I couldn’t help myself and smiled back at him. ‘It’s not quite the same though, is it? I shouldn’t think you still feel guilty about it.’
‘Of course not. I made it up to her, I gave her my Action Man. And, honestly, Pax, I appreciate you telling me. I think youneededto tell me. But I think we might need to leave the intra-familial guilt aside for now because I think you being linked to this time through family might be key to getting us home.’
I looked up now. My blood was stinging my cheeks. ‘You think…?’
‘If this is the real earl, then yes. We got it wrong before, but I’m pretty sure that this is our key to getting home.’
Home.‘If whatever brought us here needed someone to know what happened when, then it should have brought Lennox through instead of me.’
Lachlan looked thoughtful. ‘Good point,’ he said. ‘You’re here, so it must besomething, something particular to you and not your brother.’
I shook my head. ‘Lenny lives and breathes all this history stuff. The only things I know that he doesn’t are to do with chemistry and horses.’
‘Nothing that your dad used to tell you that you were particularly fascinated by?’
‘No!’ I gazed down into the swirling water again. ‘Except, I remember being really angry that we came to lose it all.’
‘I’m listening.’
I looked across at him. His hair was beginning to matt into little dreadlocks that caught in the incipient beard when he turned his head. With the linen shirt he had begun to look as though he belonged here in this castle, but with an added touch of vulnerability. Those two covered faces on his chest that came from another time almost made me want to weep. ‘I’m wearing linen and ruffles,’ his clothes said, ‘but I’m thinking about The Proclaimers.’
‘I don’t know when it was, but I think Earl McKell went into battle – I’m not entirely sure what happened. Dad kept saying that it was a no-score draw, which Lenny thought was hysterical, but somehow it meant that we lost the land?’ I rubbed my hands through my hair, which felt very much like Lachlan’s looked, trying to force memory out of myself. ‘I can’t even remember much abouthowwe lost it, only that we did. Which was why I got angry about it all. I always thought “what if?” What if wehadn’tlost everything and we’d stayed as landed Scottish gentry, how different would our lives have been? But I guess that’s the story of a lot of families, isn’t it?’ I sighed. ‘It was pretty much the only time I listened to Dad,’ I went on. ‘And I think that was only because I liked having an excuse to be angry again. God, I was a sullen little thing.’
I looked at Lachlan again. He was standing very still, those steady eyes trained on the breakers cascading down the cliff edges. For a moment he was no longer the confused historian snatched from time but a feature of the landscape, as natural as the weathered stone and hanging gulls.
Then he turned suddenly and slid down the wall to sit on the muddy slip of grass with his back against the rock. He banged his forehead lightly on his knees. ‘Damn! I had a thought there but it’s gone. I wish this were my period of history, but I completely lose interest somewhere around the Union of the Crowns – 1603,’ he added. ‘So you might feel guilty for not listening toyour dad, but I feel stupid for being in the wrong period of history.’ He still had his head down so his voice was muffled.
I sat down beside him. The grass was damp and the ground cold but I thought that the risk of piles was probably secondary to us working out what the hell was going on here. ‘You’re not stupid,’ I said.
Lachlan grunted. ‘I’m not exactly showing my PhD to its advantage though, am I? Go back another couple of hundred years and I’ll be amazing.’
‘You’re feeling out of control again, aren’t you?’ I tried to keep my voice brisk. I got another grunt in response. ‘I thought we’d agreed that you might have to let go a bit here?’
He raised his head from his knees to look at me out of one eye. ‘Are you trying psychology on me here, Pax?’
My lips twitched. ‘Someone has to. And always being the most intelligent person in any gathering might have given you an inflated idea of your own importance here. We’reallstruggling, you aren’t unique.’
‘Yeah, okay, I think you can ease up on the psychology angle now, before my self-esteem ends up in the dirt.’ There was a hint of a smile in his tone. ‘And maybe we’re wrong and the earl turning up is nothing to do with anything. Maybe we’re not meant to go back.’
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘Going backhasto be the end game. Otherwise, really, what’s the point? Bring us here to change things and then just let us fester with the knowledge of what happened before? Running two separate timelines in our heads? That’s got to contravenesomekind of cosmic law, surely.’
‘I think we’ve already concluded that whatever brought us back here is perhaps not the sharpest tool in the box, haven’t we?’ His hand came out and touched my arm.
‘No,’ I said again. ‘No. I’m not having that. I think Time has to play fair.’
His forehead came up until he was looking at me from under a messy tangle of hair. ‘You do?’
At our backs and down in the depths, the sea thrashed in agreement. The air tasted of salt and the gulls were circling, wailing overhead.
‘Yes.’ The more I thought about it, the more it seemed only reasonable. ‘There has to be something, a reward or payback or something. You can’t get dragged out of your own time and dumped, because that’s not fair. Wehaveto find out what we need to do and then we’ll get sent back, because otherwise…’ I bit my lip as I thought. ‘Because Time doesn’twantus here. We’re like…’ I warmed to my theme. ‘We’re like the grit in the oyster.’
Now Lachlan’s head had come completely off his knees and he was watching me with an intent expression, which gave me the feeling that I was on the right track. ‘Go on. There’s aDoctor Whoplotline coming and I’m fascinated.’
‘Look, people disappear all the time, don’t they? You even said so.’
