Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
L issa wished she had some sense of how far they’d actually traveled. Whether it was the jetlag or the general upheaval of getting lost in the forest, she was having serious trouble keeping track of how much time was passing — the strange swiftness with which night had fallen was evidence of that. Even if she had been able to figure out how long they’d been on horseback, she had no idea what a horse’s average speed was. Even though the fog was thinning, it still made it difficult to get a sense of their pace. So when Niall pointed out that there were lights coming into view up ahead, she had no idea how far away they were from where she’d last seen Davey — and her suitcase. The poor man must have been confused when he finally made it to the hotel and found that she wasn’t there — especially given that he certainly hadn’t seen her on the road. Would he have waited for her? she wondered. Or would he just have left her bags with the hotel staff and headed home?
But as the lights grew closer, the thought of the old man was quickly banished from her mind. So, too, was any hope that Niall might be bringing her to the hotel after all. The building that loomed out of the fog before them was the furthest thing from a hotel she could imagine. It was, just as the map had said, a castle… and the sight of it was enough to take her breath away, even partly shrouded as it was by the mist. It looked, she couldn’t help thinking, like something out of a fairytale. Her whole long life, Lissa had never been one to take an interest in fairytales. But the last twenty-four hours had brought her to some brand new places.
“Not a ruin, you’ll notice,” came Niall’s voice from behind her, a mixture of affection and amusement taking the sting out of the comment.
Lissa couldn’t even bring herself to comment — she was staring, open-mouthed, up at the castle gates that the horse was ambling up to, for all the world as though this were an everyday occurrence. Behind her, she felt Niall lift an arm high in greeting — the one holding the lantern. And from atop the wall came a shout of greeting. There were men up there — men holding flaming torches like the ones she’d seen at the other set of gates, the ones she’d retreated from in confusion. These men weren’t dressed like those had been, though she could see even from here that they were similarly armed. These men were wearing tartan — the same tartan, she realized with a jolt, that Niall’s kilt was made from.
“Niall MacClaran, and a guest,” he called, his voice loud enough to echo from the wall. She didn’t miss the slight hesitation before he decided how to refer to her — she supposed ‘guest’ was a lot more polite than ‘stray I picked up on the road’. Because it was becoming abundantly clear, as the men atop the wall sent someone away to carry a message into the Keep, that she’d been wrong about Niall’s strange attire. The person who didn’t fit in around here was Lissa.
And she had a strange, dreamlike suspicion beginning to take root in the bottom of her subconscious regarding why that might be… but before she could dedicate any attention to digging it out, she heard Niall utter a shout of delight and felt him leap down from the horse. A little alarmed, she scooped up the reins that he’d abandoned, hoping like hell the horse wouldn’t test whether she knew what to do with them — thankfully, though, the creature seemed more interested in the tufts of sweet grass growing from the side of the path than it was in throwing her off its back.
The source of Niall’s distraction was clear. A man had emerged from a small door set in the wall beside the larger gate — he was about Niall’s height, though bigger and bulkier across the shoulders. The men embraced each other tightly, and when they finally pulled out of each other’s arms, one look at the second man’s face was enough to confirm her suspicions. The same bright blue eyes, the same broad smile — though the other man’s features were sharper and his hair closer to auburn than Niall’s strawberry blond, the resemblance was too striking to be a coincidence.
“My brother, Hamish MacClaran,” Niall said, that broad, beaming smile still on his face as he turned to introduce her. “And his lady wife, Amelia.”
The second figure had been waiting for the men to disentangle themselves with an amused smile on her face. She was the first woman Lissa had seen since leaving Davey behind on the road — and one look at her outfit was enough to confirm that it wasn’t just the men of this strange place who dressed differently. She was wearing some kind of gown — thick, many-layered skirts that fell to the ground from where they were gathered around her waist, a woolen shawl around her shoulders covering the dress’s top section, which Lissa could only think of as a corset. She had a sharp, pretty young face, sleek black hair setting off her dark brown eyes. She smiled politely as her husband murmured an introduction to Niall, but her gaze kept returning to Lissa on the horse, and there was an intent, almost hungry curiosity in her face that made Lissa even more curious about what exactly she could be thinking.
“This is Miss Lissa Crossworth, whom I had the great fortune of meeting on the road,” Niall said now, gesturing toward her with a formal little flourish that would have felt like he was mocking her if it hadn’t been performed with such sincerity. “Without her wayfinding abilities I would likely still be wandering lost in the woods. Please, let me help you down from the horse.”
“Oh, let’s not ruin the good impression I’ve made so fast,” Lissa said, wincing at the thought of navigating her way down from the horse’s back. Still, she liked the idea of getting her feet back on solid ground — and in the end, with Niall’s adroit assistance, the journey down was a lot smoother than the journey up. She was a little preoccupied by something strange — the minute she’d spoken, Amelia’s eyes had shot back to her face, and a look of something almost like triumph had passed across her face — before being quickly hidden behind a polite little smile. What on earth did that mean?
But Amelia wasn’t the only one with a confusing expression on her face. As she straightened up and took a few steps away from the horse and into the light of the lantern, Hamish’s eyes were glued to her face. There was something like wonder in his eyes — he shot a quick look at Amelia, gave her a curious little nod.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Crossworth.”
“And yours,” Lissa said, resisting the urge to glance back and forth between the three of them. Thankfully, she wasn’t left waiting long. Hamish broke into laughter, murmuring an apology as he covered his mouth with one hand. One look at Niall’s face was enough to turn Lissa’s confusion into laughter, too — she’d never seen a more picture-perfect illustration of a frustrated younger brother.
“You’ll have to forgive my fool of a brother, Lissa,” Niall said darkly — his tone served only to intensify his brother’s laughter. “It seems his diplomatic skills have languished since the knighthood.”
“Oh, stop it,” Hamish said impatiently, the barb about the knighthood enough to help him conquer his laughter, at least for a moment. “Little brother, I do hate to say I told you so?—”
“But you say it with such relish,” Amelia interrupted. Now it was Lissa’s turn to stare in surprise. It took her a second or two to place why the woman’s voice had surprised her — it was the lack of an accent. Or rather, it was the American accent, which — like hers — stuck out like a sore thumb.