The Winter Sea (Slains, #1)(84)

‘Come,’ said Moray, standing, holding out his hand. ‘We’d best get back.’

His voice was clipped, as though he wished to waste no time, and dreading as she did the time that he must leave, she could not help but find his cold reaction to their sighting of the ship a disappointment.

‘I had hoped that you might not be so pleased,’ she told him, stung, ‘to see Monsieur de Ligondez return. Are you so eager, then, to be away?’

His gaze had narrowed on the distant ship, and now it swung to hers with patient tenderness. ‘Ye know that I am not. But that,’ he said, and nodded seaward to the swift-approaching sails, ‘is not Monsieur de Ligondez.’

The ship was yet too far away for her to see its ensign, but she trusted Moray’s eyes enough to scramble to her feet and take the hand that he was offering, and feeling as a fox might when it runs before the hounds, she followed him, with Hugo, back along the path that climbed the hill above the shore.



‘I wonder why your Captain Gordon does not come ashore to us,’ the Earl of Erroll asked his mother, who, like him, was standing at the window of the drawing room, her hands behind her back, brow furrowed slightly as she gazed in consternation at the ship that lay now anchored off the coast.

‘I do not know,’ the countess said. Her voice was quiet. ‘How long has it been, now, since he did appear?’

‘An hour, I think.’

‘It is most strange.’

Sophia did not like the tension that had fallen on the room. It was not helped by Moray’s choice to stand so close behind her chair that she could all but feel the restless energy within him, held contained by force of will.

Colonel Hooke had given up on standing and was sitting now beside Sophia in a rush-backed chair, his face still bearing witness to the illness that had plagued him through this journey, and which would, no doubt, be worsened by his passage on the sea. His mood had altered since his talk with Mr Hall. He seemed less patient, and had gained the air of one who had been sorely disappointed.

This new turning of the tide, with Captain Gordon’s ship, bearing all its great guns and its forty-odd soldiers, appearing from nowhere to stand between Slains and the open North Sea, all but drove Hooke’s raw temper to breaking point.

‘For God’s sake,’ he said, ‘can we not send a boat out ourselves to ask what he intends?’

The countess turned, and in the face of Hooke’s impatience seemed herself more calm. ‘We could, but I have never yet had cause to doubt the captain’s loyalties. If he does keep himself aloof, I’m sure he has good reason, and if we were to blunder in, we may yet do ourselves the greater harm.’

Her son agreed. ‘We would be wisest,’ said the earl, ‘to wait.’

‘Wait!’ echoed Hooke, in some disgust. ‘For what? For soldiers to approach by land, and trap us here like pigeons in a dovecote, with no window left to fly through?’

Moray’s voice, behind Sophia, held a quiet edge. ‘If we are trapped, ’tis no fault of our hosts,’ he said, as though he would remind Hooke of his manners. ‘They had no part in keeping us at Slains these few days past our time. That was, as I recall, your choice, and ye’d do well to pick that up and carry it yourself, not seek to lay the burden and the blame on those who’ve shown us naught but kindness.’

It was, Sophia thought, one of the longest speeches he had made before the others, and they seemed surprised by it. But it had hit the mark, and, chastened, Hooke said, ‘You are right.’ The fire fading from his eyes, Hooke told the earl, ‘I do apologize.’

Accepting, the earl sent a glance of gratitude to Moray before turning once again to the long window, and its view upon the sea. He watched a moment, then Sophia saw him frown. ‘What is he doing now?’

His mother, watching too, said, ‘He is leaving.’

Hooke sat upright. ‘What?’ He rose and went to look himself. ‘He is, by God. He’s getting under sail.’

They all looked then, and saw the white sails rise and fill with wind, and watched the great ship roll away from shore, while on her tilting deck the moving figures of the men worked hard to set her course. Sophia could not see the blue of Captain Gordon’s coat among them.

It was Moray who first saw the second ship, just rounding into view around the southern headland. It was another frigate, and the countess said, ‘I’ll wager that is Captain Hamilton, the colleague of whom Captain Gordon told us when he was last here.’

Sophia remembered how Gordon had said that his younger associate, sailing so often behind him, would soon grow suspicious if French ships were spotted too often off Slains, and might prove himself to be a problem.

‘Captain Hamilton,’ the countess said, ‘is no friend of the Jacobites.’ She had relaxed. ‘This does explain why Captain Gordon did not come ashore.’

The second frigate passed the castle by. It flew the ensign of the new united British navy, bright against the sky, and followed swiftly on in Gordon’s wake—a smaller ship, but seeming to Sophia more the predator, and she was glad when it had gone.

The Earl of Erroll was the first to turn away. ‘At least,’ he said, ‘we know, now, where the frigates are, and likely we will have some days before they do return. Monsieur de Ligondez should find his way the clearer, now.’