Chapter 18

Phillip couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed so much comfort and ease. The afternoon had been pleasant, the weather unusually fine, and the victuals provided by his aunt’s cook some of the best he’d ingested in quite some time. He’d happily watched the antics of his younger cousins, engaged in interesting conversation with cousins closer to his age, and had the privilege of looking at a very lovely woman. If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn someone was trying to make a match between him and a woman he’d just met.

He wasn’t certain his sire would have approved, but then again, he wouldn’t have been the first one in his family to give his heart where no title lay.

A terribly premature thought, no doubt, so he contented himself with watching Imogen playing at alquerques with his cousins and allowing himself the luxury of wondering about her. The list was unfortunately not terribly different than it had been the first time he’d made it.

How had she come to be at Haemesburgh without a guard, proper gear, or any idea—or so it had seemed at first—of how to make herself understood? How had she managed to get herself inside gates that had been so readily barred to him whilst not having any idea at all who the garrison captain was? Why had she been trying to poach swords from anyone willing to relinquish theirs so she could shove them into the hole in the floor behind the lord’s chair?

Why did she have to be so terribly lovely in a way he couldn’t quite lay his finger on?

The final thought that baffled him was why she had bolted for Ravensthorpe’s tower chamber the very moment they had walked into the hall. He’d assumed she had left something behind earlier, but she had dodged his question about it and simply fled. He’d nodded to Theo and Sam to follow her lest she find herself lost, but he’d wondered what she had been so desperate to find and why she had looked so unnerved when she’d returned empty-handed.

She was a mystery, and, as he’d made clear to anyone who would listen, he didn’t care for mysteries. He liked his problems to come at him with swords. That was the sort of thing he understood. But women with odd clothing who were loitering in keeps where they shouldn’t have been? Nay, those were things he knew spelled trouble for his peace of mind should he pursue them any further.

Yet her laugh was like a bubbling brook.

Actually, it was closer to hiccoughs, but it was charming nonetheless. She still looked slightly ill at ease, but less than before. It was hard to resist the mischief of his cousins. If he hadn’t been such a hard-hearted bastard, he might have smiled as well.

He was beginning to wonder what it was he’d ever seen in Heather of Haemesburgh—not that he’d ever had a good look at her. Even her castle wasn’t as attractive a place as he’d remembered it being.

By the saints, was he losing his wits?

He continued to watch Imogen whilst at the same time trying to ignore the things he found strange about her. Her clothing, her manner of speech, the expression of utter confusion and terror she’d allowed to surface when she’d thought no one was watching her.

But the question he simply couldn’t move past was how she had come to be at Haemesburgh by herself. He would have preferred to have ignored it altogether, but he couldn’t. There were things a woman simply didn’t do, and travel without some sort of escort was one of them. His father never would have sent his mother off without an enormous guard. Even Rose, as fiercely and perhaps dangerously independent as she was, didn’t leave the keep without her collection of lads that made even him nervous.

How had Imogen managed to travel so far without someone to at least guard her back?

He wondered if he was the only one who found any of it odd. If his cousins found anything strange about her, they hadn’t said as much. Then again, Theo and Sam were too busy competing for her attention to even pay any heed to their suppers after they had inhaled most of what had been set before them. Rose seemed content to have someone of her age to pass time with. The rest of her siblings were used to visitors and paid no especial heed to Imogen short of testing the waters to see if she would pay them any heed. Connor was obviously affected by the fairness of her face, which he understood. He wondered if his cousin understood that she was not for him.

He realized abruptly that Jackson was watching not Imogen but him. He mouthed an obscenity at his cousin, but Jackson only lifted an eyebrow. A tame reaction for that sort of vulgarity, but the sad truth was, he had passed so much of his life with Jackson, Rose, and Kendrick, they had all likely become immune to one another’s slurs.

Phillip turned his attentions to less vexing souls and examined the diners still left at table. His uncle Jake was still there, of course, presiding over the hall with a comforting, steady presence that Phillip knew could disappear in a moment if a threat were sensed. He studied his uncle to see if there might be unease simmering below the surface of his smile and was faintly surprised to find that Jake seemed to be less at ease than he might normally have been. He looked like a man who knew his doom was approaching and knew with equal certainty that there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.

Interesting.

Amanda was watching her husband watch the souls gathered in front of the fire, playing at their game. Phillip blinked in surprise as Amanda slipped her husband something that Phillip recognized. Indeed, he wasn’t sure how, having seen that little box, anyone could forget it. It was the most assaulting shade of pale red—nay, it couldn’t even be called that. He didn’t have a name for that color, but it wasn’t something he’d ever seen before. He had, however, certainly felt it clout him on the jaw.

Why did Amanda have it and why had she given it to her husband?

Jake froze, then looked at his wife with wide eyes. Phillip immediately looked at the cup of wine he was holding in his hand so he wasn’t caught looking at his aunt and uncle. He saw out of the corner of his eye that Amanda had leaned closer and was whispering quite intently with her husband. He didn’t care to eavesdrop, but there was something about their aspects that bothered him. He smiled and nodded as they excused themselves from the hall and headed toward the kitchens. He counted to a score before he rose as well, simply to keep from arousing suspicion.

He almost clapped his hand to his forehead. If he didn’t watch himself, he would soon be acting like the little twins, forever looking over his shoulders for anyone who might be following him. At least those two had good reason to fear a scowling adult. He had nothing to fear but his own stupidity.

Which he was apparently going to be courting like a lover that evening. He surrendered to his curiousity and had a final sip of his wine, as if he had planned it that way. He yawned as if he might be thinking of seeking his rest, then made a point of tromping out of the great hall and down the passageway toward the kitchens. Fortunately for his untried-at-spying-on-others self, there was a turn in the passageway and he didn’t run bodily into his aunt and uncle before he realized how close he was to them. He flattened himself against the wall, refrained from rolling his eyes in disgust at himself, then leaned forward and eavesdropped shamelessly.

“She must be terrified.”

“Absolutely.”

“You weren’t, though. Not when it happened to you.”

“I had you to protect me.”

Amanda laughed uneasily. “I suppose so.”

“I thought you were a princess.”

“Well, you paid enough for a princess,” Amanda said, “so your purse at least agrees with you.” She paused. “You need to help her.”

He sighed. “I guess I don’t have a choice, do I? It’s not like I can let her wander around aimlessly. We could pawn her off on Nick and Jenner—”

“Jake!”

“All right, but we’ll have to do it privately. In my solar, where she can freak out behind a locked door.”

Freak out. Phillip felt as though his ears belonged to someone else. He knew Imogen had said those same words, in just that way, in just that accent, followed generally by damn method actors.

Why would Jake know those words?

Things began to occur to him that hadn’t before, things he absolutely didn’t want to look at but realized now he had no choice but to face.

He started with the most obvious oddity: his uncle, Jackson Alexander Kilchurn IV.

Jake claimed to be from London, but it occurred to Phillip that in all the times he himself had been to London, he had never once encountered any of Jake’s relatives by chance nor been invited to dine with them. Indeed, it was as if Jake didn’t have any relations. He said that his father and siblings were lost to him, but what of his cousins? His uncle Montgomery had once hinted that Jake had simply sprung up from the grass, but Phillip had discounted that as the ramblings of a man who was too fond of the tales his jongleurs told.

But now that he thought about it, that was another thing he had no explanation for, namely his uncle Montgomery and his wife, Persephone. They lived in the south, in a keep that was part of his grandfather Rhys’s holdings, a keep that Phillip had spent a pair of years in whilst squiring for his uncle. To say he had seen odd things was to understate it badly. Montgomery was a reliable, jaded sort, but his wife, Pippa... well, she was wont to mutter the occasional epitaph under her breath that he’d grown accustomed to but never understood the origins of.

Things that sounded far too much like Imogen’s mutterings, truth be told.

Then there were the trunks that simply appeared for Pippa now and again, trunks that she had shared with no one but Montgomery. He supposed Kendrick would have had them open an hour after they’d arrived, but he himself had been a more circumspect lad and he’d allowed his aunt her privacy.

But what was he to think about that unusual spot at the end of their drawbridge, a spot that carried dire warnings and a flat stone placed atop it? It was almost as if there were some sort of untoward something attached to that particular spot.

It made him wonder just what that something might be.

He was beginning to suspect he’d had an enormous mystery sitting there right under his nose and he’d neglected to pay it any heed.

He was still trying to reconcile himself to what he hadn’t been willing to look at when he realized what he was looking at was his aunt and uncle, who had come around the corner and were looking terribly guilty about something.

“Oh,” Amanda said.

Phillip looked at her sternly. “Aye, oh.”

Jake sighed deeply. “He should come along as well. Damn it anyway.”

Phillip folded his arms over his chest, realizing as he did so that he was using his father’s exact pose of intimidation. He thought he might just understand why his father did it. A pity it didn’t aid him past hopefully concealing that his hands were trembling just the slightest bit.

“Come along for what?” he asked sternly. “Have you things to confess?”

Jake pursed his lips. “I can still kick your arse in the lists, my little friend. Don’t forget that.”

“Shall we test it?”

Amanda only smiled faintly. “Why don’t you two leave that as something to be tested on the morrow? I believe we have more important business tonight.”

“What sort of business?” Phillip asked. He asked it politely, because he was speaking to his aunt. He turned a much more forbidding look on his uncle. “Do you care to tell me here what you’re about or shall we seek out the privacy of your solar and I cut it from you?”

“My solar,” Jake said, “after you’ve left your weapons outside my door.”

Amanda smiled and slipped her hand under her husband’s elbow. “I’ll keep you safe. Come along, Phillip love, and let’s have speech together.”

“I like to know beforehand what a parley will include,” he said, not moving. “Lest I feel the need to keep my sword with me.”

Jake rolled his eyes. “This is me you’re speaking to, nephew, and I’m the one you drooled on more times than you’ll remember, when you were barely two. You’ll be perfectly safe with me.” He paused, and his eyes were serious. “There are things you need to know, Phillip,” he said very quietly. “They require privacy.”

Phillip didn’t put his shoulders back, but he was tempted. “As you will.”

“You’ll want to fetch your lady.”

“She’s not my lady,” Phillip said without hesitation. “She’s just a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Just in time for you to rescue her?” Jake asked with a grave smile. “Of course. If you wouldn’t mind bringing her just the same, this will interest her.”

Phillip nodded as if he prepared to learn nothing more interesting than what Amanda planned for the next day’s meals. He turned and walked back toward the great hall, unable to decide if he was looking forward to the next hour or dreading it.

The one thing he thought he could say was that he suspected a few of the bigger mysteries of his life were about to be cleared up.