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He inclined his head to her. “That’s why my room is directly across the hallway.”
He closed the door.
This, she could do.
A smile she couldn’t quite control spread across her face. Another week of that man was just the salve her soul needed at the moment. Taking away her worry. Transporting her to a place far away from the drudgery of London and the Den, and that bastard, LordVontmour.
As long as she kept Evan strictly in the slot she’d slid him into—a temporary diversion—she might actually enjoy herself here at Whetland Castle.
She just had to keep a tight rein on her emotions.
And that, she was an expert at.
{ Chapter 12 }
Evan let the bowstring free, his arrow whizzing across the air. With a hardthunkit embedded into the outer black ring on the coiled straw mat.
Not horrible, considering he hadn’t picked up a bow in six months.
“What do you think you’re doing bringing a woman like that here?” Gilroy’s voice hissed into the great hall.
Evan took a step back from the line carved into the stone on the floor—carved in, because Gilroy would always move the ribbon they used to mark the shooting line and their grandfather had one day finally had enough of the arguing about the blasted ribbon. He’d handed Evan and Gilroy each a chisel and hammer, and stood over them, not letting them up until the line had been etched into the stone.
Annoyance on Gilroy’s face, his brother brushed past him and set his toe to the edge of the line, setting his arrow in place across his bow.
Ignoring Gilroy’s comment, Evan went over to the ancient, heavy oak table that sat crosswise behind the practice area of the great hall. Their grandfather had turned the great hall into an archery range for his grandsons to practice within after Gilroy had accidently stuck the tip of an arrow into a stableboy that had been passing too close to the practice area by the south woods. The happenstance that Gilroy had actually been arguing with the boy earlier in the day and the boy was a good distance away from the targets had been suspect. But Gilroy claimed a bee had darted in front of his nose and he’d reacted, letting his arrow fly, as he tried to avoid getting stung.
Evan had believed him. Their grandfather had not, and had thusly brought them into the great hall for archery practice—stone walls surrounding them to catch errant arrows.
Not that using the great hall as a practice area was a loss to them. In all his years, Evan had never actually eaten in the great hall—though he’d been told tales of grand banquets that had once graced these halls. Their dining room was in the cozy solarium built at his grandmother’s request just past the library. Even though it was chilly in the winter with all the glass above and on three sides, it also had the best chance of catching rays of sun to brighten the table. A cheerful juxtaposition to the rest of the castle.
The table in the solarium easily held twenty people, though Evan had never known more than twelve people to be seated at it at one time. After his wife died, Grandfather hadn’t entertained company aside from those here at Whetland for business dealings.
Evan sat on the edge of the ancient table in the great hall and picked up his glass of brandy, taking a healthy swallow as he stared at the back of Gilroy’s blond head. At least his brother was half sober now. Enough to keep his toe steady at the line. His right fingers shook as he drew back the bowstring, but Evan knew that was from the anger coursing through his brother, not the remnants of the night swimming in whisky.
Evan waited until Gilroy let the arrow loose. Straight into the center gold paint. Gilroy always was a better shot than him.
“You know what I’m doing,” Evan said. “This is for grandfather, what he wants—don’t you dare think to steal this away from him.”
It took Gilroy a long moment to turn around to him. “That better be all it is—I don’t know where you found the girl, or what ye promised her to get her to come and contribute to this farce, but I did see how you looked at her.”
Evan stifled a sigh and set his tumbler down, then stretched his fingers over to the pile of arrows scattered on the table. One with a rusted tip—those were always his lucky ones. “And just how did I look at her?”
“Like ye wanted to devour her.”
Evan shook his head and stood up from the edge of the table.
“You’ve lain with her, haven’t ye? I can see it in your eyes.”
“Miss Thomson is a lady, through and through.” Evan stepped past his brother to set himself in place behind the line. “A fact I think you would do well to remember.”
Gilroy’s lips pulled back into a terse line. “How long before you send her on her way back to London?”
“I told her a week was all that was needed to convince grandfather.” He turned away from his brother and lifted his bow.
Gilroy grunted behind him and there was the distinct clink of the decanter against the rim of a tumbler.
How many more days would Gilroy be out of control, swimming in the whisky, before Evan would have to intervene? Gilroy usually pulled himself out of raging misery like this within days, but according to grandfather, he’d been soused for four days now.
