The Winter Sea (Slains, #1)(66)

She would not show him fear again, she thought. Not looking round, she kept her shoulders square and walked more briskly, heading for the voices with such single-minded focus that she burst upon the speakers like a pheasant flushed by dogs out of the underbrush.

The French ship’s captain stopped mid-sentence, startled. Moray turned to look first at Sophia, then beyond her to the gardener, who had changed his course unhurriedly away from them, towards the malthouse.

Quickly, to distract his narrowed gaze, Sophia said, ‘The countess sent me here to find you.’

Moray’s grey eyes settled once more on Sophia’s face. ‘Did she, now?’

‘She would inform Monsieur de Ligondez that she is ready, with the Earl of Erroll, to receive him.’

Moray translated her message for the Frenchman, who bowed low and left them.

Moray made no move to follow. Squinting upwards at the sky, he said, ‘The day is wondrous fair.’

She could do nothing but agree with him. ‘It is.’

‘Have ye yet breakfasted?’

‘I have, sir, yes.’

‘Then come,’ he said, ‘and walk with me.’

It was no invitation, she decided, but a challenge. He did not make a formal offer of his arm, but shifted, with his hand firm on his sword hilt, so his elbow lifted slightly from his body.

She considered. She had well observed that there were roads in life one started down by choice, that led to ends quite different from what might have been if one had chanced to take another turning. This, she thought, was such a crossroads. If she were to tell him no, and stay behind, the comfort of her world would yet continue, and she’d surely be the safer for it. If she told him yes, she had a fair idea where that road would lead, and yet she felt the stirring of her father’s reckless blood within her and she yearned, as he had done, to set her course through waters yet uncharted.

Reaching out, she set her hand upon the crook of Moray’s elbow, and the look he angled down at her was briefly warm.

She asked, ‘Where would you walk?’

‘Away from here.’

Indeed, the ordered garden seemed too small for him. Within it, he was as the bear she’d once seen caged for baiting, pacing ceaselessly around its strong-barred prison. But the garden walls proved easier to breach than iron bars, and in a moment they had passed beyond its boundaries to the wider sweep of greening cliff that dipped towards the village and the pink sand beach beyond.

It was yet early, and Sophia saw no faces in the windows of the village peering out to mark their passage. Likely everyone was still abed, she thought, and just as well, at that. Her cautious glances did not go unnoticed.

Smiling, Moray asked her, ‘D’ye fear that being seen with me will harm your reputation?’

‘No.’ She looked at him, surprised. ‘It is not that. It—’ But she could not bring herself to tell him of her true fear, that behind one of these curtained windows, someone even now was taking note of him and planning to expose him. She had heard the tales of other captured Jacobites, and how they had been cruelly tortured by the agents of the Crown who had put one man to the boot and shattered both his ankles when he would not talk. And she could not imagine Moray talking, either.

Looking down, she said, ‘I do not fear your company.’

‘I’m glad to hear it, lass.’ He brought his arm against his side and kept her hand close to him as he steered their steps between the sleeping cottages and down again onto the beach.

The sea was wide. Sophia could no longer see the bare masts of the French ship brought to shelter on the far side of the castle rocks. She only saw the bright sky and the water, with its endless waves that rolled to shore in white-curled ranks that fell in foam against the sand and then retreated to the broad horizon.

As she watched, she felt again the pulsing of her father’s blood within her veins, and asked impulsively, ‘What is it like to sail upon a ship?’

He shrugged. ‘That does depend on whether ye do have the constitution for it. Colonel Hooke would no doubt say it is a wretched way to travel, and I would not call him wrong. To be so close confined with many men and little air does not improve my temper. But to be on deck,’ he said, ‘is something altogether different. When the ship is running fast, sails filled with wind…’ He searched for words. ‘It feels, then, like to flying.’

She did not suppose that she would ever know that feeling, and she told him so.

He said, ‘Ye cannot ever say which way this world will take ye. Had ye told me when I was a lad that I would leave the fields of home to fight the battles of a foreign king, I would have called ye mad.’ He slanted a kind look at her. ‘Mayhap ye’ll walk a ship’s deck, after all.’ And then he looked ahead, and added in an offhand tone, ‘I’ve no doubt Captain Gordon could arrange it, if you asked.’

Sophia shot a quick look upwards, searching for some clue in his expression as to why he felt so cold towards the captain. There was more between the men, she knew, than could be laid to her account. She said, ‘You do not like him.’

‘On the contrary, I do admire him greatly.’

‘But you do not like him.’

He took several strides in silence. Then he said, ‘Three years ago I came here by the order of King Jamie, in the company of Simon Fraser. D’ye ken the name?’