The Winter Sea (Slains, #1)(53)

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I didn’t tell my dad, because I didn’t want to share you. Not just yet.’

I was convinced, at first, I hadn’t heard him properly. And even if I had, I couldn’t think of what to say. If I’d been writing this, I thought, I would have had no problem. It was easy writing dialogue for characters in books, but in real life, the words just never came to me the way I wanted them.

He took my pause for something else. ‘I’m sure that sounds insane to you, but—’

‘I don’t want to share you either.’ Which, considering the way that tumbled out, was not exactly the sophisticated answer I’d been aiming for, but seconds later I had ceased to care.

The kiss was brief, but left no room for me to misread his intentions. For that swirling moment, all I felt was him—his warmth, his touch, his strength, and when he raised his head I rocked a little on my feet, off balance.

He stood looking down at me as though he’d felt the power of that contact, too. And then his teeth flashed white against the darkness of his beard. The grey eyes crinkled. ‘Put that in your book,’ he dared me.

Then he turned and, shoving both hands deep into his pockets, walked off whistling down the wet path while I stood behind and watched him, standing speechless in the rain.





VI

YE’VE LOST YOUR MIND,’ said Kirsty. ‘He’s a handsome man. If I were of the proper birth, I’d smile for him myself.’

Sophia’s own mouth curved. ‘I doubt that would please Rory. And besides, you said you want a man who’ll settle down, and give you bairns. I do not think that Mr Moray leads a settled life.’

‘I’d take his bairns,’ said Kirsty. ‘Or the making of them, anyway.’ She tossed her hair and smiled widely. ‘But now I’ll be shocking ye, to talk so like a wanton. And ’tis true, your Mr Moray is nae farmer.’

They were outside in the little kitchen garden, where Sophia had found Kirsty searching for mint leaves to season the dish Mrs Grant was preparing. The morning was fine, with a warm sun above and a gentle breeze blowing instead of the fierce wind that had for the past three days rattled the windows and rolled the sea into great waves that had looked, to Sophia, as high as a man. Wicked weather for May, she had thought it. She greatly preferred days like this one, that let her come out of the house and away from the whirling confusion of feelings that pressed her when she was confined to close company with Mr Moray.

Kirsty asked her, ‘Did ye ken he was a colonel in his own right? A lieutenant-colonel, in the French king’s service. Rory telt me.’

‘No, I did not know that.’ But she did know his first name, because the Earl of Erroll called him by it: John. She thought it suited him. A simple name, but strong: John Moray.

Now she added ‘Colonel’ to it, tried it in her mind, while Kirsty shot her one more disbelieving look and asked, ‘Why did ye say ye would not ride with him?’

‘I did not say I would not. I but told him I was occupied with other things this morning.’

Kirsty’s eyes danced. ‘Aye, ’tis fair important watching me pick mint.’

‘I have my needlework.’

‘And heaven kens the tides might stop their flow were ye to leave that for an hour.’ She paused, and waited for the next excuse, and when none came she said, ‘Now tell me why ye telt him that ye would not ride with him. The truth.’

Sophia thought of saying that she hadn’t thought the countess would approve, but that was not the reason either, and she doubted Kirsty would be fooled. ‘I do not know,’ she said. ‘He sometimes frightens me.’

That came as a surprise to Kirsty. ‘Has he been unkind?’

‘No, never. He has always been a gentleman towards me.’

‘Why then do ye fear him?’

Sophia could not answer that, could not explain that it was not the man himself she feared but the effect he had upon her; that when he was in the room she felt like everything inside of her was moving faster somehow, and she trembled as with fever. She said only, once again, ‘I do not know.’

‘Ye’ll never best your fears until ye face them,’ Kirsty told her. ‘So my mother always says.’ She’d found her mint and taken what she needed. Now she stood. ‘The next time Mr Moray asks,’ she said, and smiled more broadly, ‘ye might think to tell him yes.’

A week ago, Sophia would have followed her inside and spent a warm hour sitting chatting with the servants in the kitchen, but the protocol within the house had changed now that the Earl of Erroll had returned. Although the earl himself had never made a comment, it was plain that while he was in residence, the servants had resolved to run a tighter ship.

And so, when Kirsty left, Sophia stayed outside and wandered in the garden. Here at least there was fresh air and peace. The songbirds flitted round in busy motion, building nests within the shadowed crannies of the wall, and flowers danced among the grasses that blew softly by the pathways. The scents of sunwarmed earth and growing things were welcome to her senses, and she closed her eyes a moment, reaching back within her memory to the spring days of her childhood, and the fields that tumbled greenly down towards the River Dee…

A hand closed hard around her arm.

Her eyes flew open, startled, and she found the sharp face of the gardener close beside her own. She felt the sudden and instinctive crawl of fear that every animal must feel when in the presence of a predator. And then, because she would not show her fear to Billy Wick, she damped it down, but he had seen it and she knew it gave him pleasure.