Timeless Desire (13 page)

Clare’s jaw muscles flexed. “Aphrodite is very capable. She knows the towns and forests between here and there as well as I do. She’ll be prepared for anything. Three hours is a lot of time to ponder why the attack is being canceled.”

Clare stared abstractedly into the night, his forehead furrowed. Panna wondered what atrocities he was imagining.

“You’ll have saved him, you know,” he said.

“Pardon?”

“You’ll have saved Bridgewater’s life. Suspicions about him have been increasing. There are men in the army who think he’s a traitor, though they lack proof. But if they have somehow connected him to the planned attack in Carlisle . . .”

Panna thought of the note scratched into the soup bowl. The hairs on her neck rose. “What if they
have
connected Bridgewater to Carlisle? They know the rebels are planning to attack. How much harder would it be to figure out Bridgewater is at the bottom of it?”

“If they have, the attack will serve as proof of his treachery, and he’ll be hanged at dawn.”

Had her delay in the twenty-first century damned him to the gallows? Or would Aphrodite arrive in time? What if Panna hadn’t come at all?

She felt a little dizzy and sat down again. “Why can’t I go back to the castle?”

“The clans along the border have had enough of the English army setting up camp on their doorstep. The cannon displays are stirring the blood of the most violent factions in Scotland, which I presume was the army’s intent. Scottish raids are increasing. Three nights ago two men were found hanging upside down from a tree two miles from here. Their throats had been cut.”

Panna gripped the seat. “But Aphrodite—”

“Aphrodite has a pistol and our best horse, and she won’t hesitate to use either of them. I can take you to Lord Bridgewater in the morning, if that’s still your desire. Do not venture out there tonight. Not on foot. Not alone. You can stay in Aphrodite’s bed.”

She needed no further convincing.

He extinguished the candle hanging next to the door and paused to gaze out the window. “I’ve lived side by side with the Scots all my life, and we have certainly had our disagreements. They are canny thieves and liars, though a man in my position almost admires that. But the army’s appearance here has set the world on edge. The borderlands are a powder keg. A single spark will destroy us all.”

T
HE MORNING LIGHT DID NOT LESSEN THE TENSION ON
C
LARE
’
S FACE
, though he hid his worry in stories about Bowness, the town at the base of Bridgewater’s castle, and Annan, the Scottish town across from Bowness on the Solway Firth, the body of water along which Clare and Panna walked on their return to the castle.

Panna, whose sleep had been marred with dreams of explosions and mutilated corpses, found herself uncertain on which side of Hadrian’s Wall she stood, philosophically speaking. The rebels seemed to have carved out an unenviable third position, like an unsteady barge in the middle of the firth, waiting to be shelled by one side or the other.

Anxiety about the fates of Aphrodite and Bridgewater weighed heavily on her. Clare assured her that by asking a few discreet questions when they arrived in town, he would learn what happened in Carlisle.

As they rounded a curve, both castles popped into view— Bridgewater’s on their side of the firth and the one in the Scottish hills on the other.

“Don’t you think it’s odd that two castles ended up so close together?” she asked.

Clare laughed. “You wouldn’t if you knew the same man owned them.”

“Bridgewater owns the other as well?” she said, shocked.

“No. His grandfather owns the one over the water. But he also owned Bridgewater’s castle once. Back when this land belonged to Scotland.”

“What?”

“Oh, aye, the land has passed into the hands of Scotland a number of times over the years. Sometimes the possession is so fleeting, the mapmakers don’t even have time to record it.”

She stared at the far castle, shocked. A Scottish clan chief in sight of his English nobleman grandson? This was the stuff of novels, she thought, entranced. “His grandfather, eh?”

“Oh, aye. Though Bridgewater and he are estranged.”

“I’m not surprised. It must be terribly hard to be on different sides of a conflict.”

He gave her an odd look. “I dinna think the conflict is all that separates them.”

“Oh?”

“His grandfather disowned his mother when she fell in with his father.”

Wow. Very
Romeo and Juliet.

“Then his grandfather owns this castle as well?” she asked, trying to untangle the family connections and property lines.

“No, Bridgewater owns this one. His grandfather lost it to the Crown thirty years ago. Forfeited it upon losing a battle. Oh, and an ugly battle it was. They set fire to the place. Bridgewater’s grandfather barely got out alive. Many others didn’t.”

No wonder Bridgewater chafed at England’s unflinching position on the borderlands. “But how does a stone castle burn?”

“Tis not the stone that burns, of course. Tis the wooden floors and rafters. And without the floors, which provide support, the walls collapse.”

“Which explains the ruins around the tower and courtyard.”

“Aye. Bridgewater was raised an Englishman. He purchased the ruins and restored them.”

She was just about to ask about the crypt in the chapel when the sound of hoofbeats roared up behind them. Aphrodite waved furiously, and Panna felt so overwhelmed with relief, she almost had to sit down.

“Canceled,” the redhead said breathlessly when she’d pulled her horse to a stop. “Just in time. The men had already donned their masks. It was a close thing.”

“And no one was spotted by the army?” Panna asked.

“No. But I could smell them over the ridge, waiting to blindside us.” She spat.

“Have you heard from Bridgewater?”

She gave Panna a regretful look. “Not a word.”

“Go home, lass,” Clare said. “You’re not dressed appropriately, and we wouldn’t want anyone thinking you a whore.”

Panna laughed. “Thank you,” she said to Aphrodite. “Truly.”

The woman beamed.

“Get some sleep,” Clare called as the horse broke into a trot. “You did a bonny job.” Then he saw the look on Panna’s face. “Dinna worry about Bridgewater, lass. He knows how to take care of himself.”

She thought of him facing down the earl. “He seems to have a rough time of it with his father.”

Clare gave her a weak smile. “Family has been a source of great pain for Bridgewater. He of course doesn’t share this with me, but I have observed a deep sort of melancholy in him at times. After his mother died, I think he felt very alone.”

Which helped explain his reluctance to trust others.

Two English soldiers joined Panna and Clare on the path, which meant the discussion for the rest of their walk up the rise to the castle gate was limited to the history of Hadrian’s Wall and the weather.

The gate was a looming affair, with a spiked portcullis and tiny guardhouses built into the stone on either side. Dozens of red-coated soldiers were spread in and around the entrance, some engaged in marching drills, some peeling onions, and some loading a small cannon onto the back of a wagon. Most important to Panna, however, was the fact that no one was building a gallows.

“This is as far as I am going to go, lass,” Clare said, pulling her behind a cart. “I am not a popular figure with the army. Tis best I keep my distance. Are you certain you want to see his lordship?”

In truth, she was divided on the matter. She knew she wouldn’t rest until she was certain that Bridgewater was safe. However, discovering that the kiss she’d so enjoyed had merely been a means to an end had been a serious blow to her ego.

“I am,” she said, but she could tell Clare saw the uncertainty on her face.

“I won’t ask why, but I will advise you to take care. His lordship is not quite as smart as he thinks, but he is still a very smart and sometimes brutal man. If he smells deception on you, he will find a way to make you pay.”

Brutal? She sighed, confused. Had ten years of a happy marriage destroyed her ability to judge a man? There had been no brutality in that kiss, only gentleness and longing. But then again, she hadn’t sensed the deception in it, either.

“Thank you, Clare. Where will I find him? In the library?”

“Hardly. He’s right there.” He pointed past a knot of officers standing under the portcullis.

“Where?” She didn’t see his familiar dark blond head, though some of the men were wearing tricornes.

“He’s in that group. He is found on most mornings in the castle courtyard, presiding over the soldiers’ punishments.”

“Thank you, Clare. I appreciate everything you and you sisters have done for me.”

He bowed. “I thank you for delivering the note, even if you didn’t quite realize how you were doing it. It took a braw lass to attempt it.”

With a brief wave he was off, and she made her way uncertainly toward the gate. Bridgewater was not among the officers at the gate, and she was a trifle nervous about navigating her way through half the English army in a low-cut dress. She gripped the box cutter in her pocket.

A few of the soldiers stopped their work to eyeball her. None, it seemed, was stupid enough to make a comment or catcall with his officers standing by, for which she was most grateful.

Panna strode across the bridge that led to the castle’s portcullis, remembering the advice of a friend who scouted locations in the film industry: “You can get in almost anywhere if you walk in like you own the place.”

“You there.”

Her heart thudded and she turned. The handsomest man stepped away from the group.

“Where are you going?” he asked warily.

“I am looking for Viscount Adderly.”

His face broke into a pleasant smile. “You have found him.”

“I
BEG YOUR PARDON
?” P
ANNA SAID
,
MIND REELING
.

The other officers laughed then one of them said, “Perhaps if you’d bothered to shave, Colonel.”

Colonel? Was this the colonel who had beaten Bridgewater? “I—I—”

The man before her was blue-eyed, with thick, straight golden hair pulled into a queue. Was he Bridgewater’s brother? The mouths were the same, she realized, and the noses. But the colonel was several inches shorter and more classically handsome than the rugged Bridgewater—a mourning dove to Bridgewater’s hawk. They were enough alike, however, that the sculpture in her library could have been of either of them.

“I do hope you will forgive my whiskers,” he said, bowing. “The regiments were out most of the night. I haven’t had a chance to go to my quarters.”

“I—That’s fine.” She hardly knew what to say? “And you are Lord Adderly, son of the Earl of Bridgewater?”

“I am.”

“I think I may be looking for your brother.”

“That will be a trick,” he said, still smiling gently, “as I do not have one.”

Had Bridgewater misled her on this, too? Or had she misunderstood? Hadn’t he said he was Lord Adderly? She considered their conversation. He had not. But his name was Bridgewater! She had called him that, and he had responded! What was more, he lived in a castle.

“No brother?” She scrambled to collect herself. “I am sorry. I had been led to believe you were someone else. Er, rather, that someone else was Lord Adderly.”

His eyes, a rich turquoise blue, twinkled.

“This is your castle, then?” she said, uncertain.

The officers laughed again.

“Ignore them, milady. They do not have the manners they were born with. No, this is the home of Captain James Bridgewater.”

“He is your cousin?”

“No. No relation, though we have been colleagues in the army these past ten years. Is it perhaps him you seek?”

“No.” She was being served a seven-layer salad of lies and subterfuge, and until she figured it out, she would not commit to knowing anyone or anything.