Chapter Twenty-Six #2
Conrad is checking the horse over obsessively, making sure all the straps and buckles are in the right places and tight enough.
For a moment, I must catch my breath, struck by the smile on his face as he laughs, pushing Bell’s head away when the horse tries to nibble his windswept hair.
It is one of his rare smiles, reserved only for animals or Sylvie, with no hint of reserve or sardonicism.
It brings out not just his left dimple, but the more elusive one on the right.
He’s changed too, wearing only a loose linen shirt, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, the hem tucked into the high-waisted riding trousers that hug the hard muscle of his thighs and backside.
And . . . Fates, here I am, ogling a man’s arse, no better than a wanton maid in a public house.
“Connie!” Sylvie calls out, and he turns, his smile dimming slightly. The spell is broken, and I manage to finally breathe again.
When I come down the steps with Sylvie, Conrad takes in my attire.
At first, I think he disapproves. His face pales a shade, and he drags a hand over his mouth and chin, where a shadow of stubble gives him a somewhat disheveled look.
I suppose between serving wicked faerie queens and interrogating innocent maidens in the forest, he didn’t find time to shave.
“You, ah, found the clothes, then.” He clears his throat. “Well. Shall we?”
Conrad locks his hands together to help me into the saddle, but he must see the apprehension in my face.
“Roman’s a good horse,” he says. “I made sure of that. Even-tempered and obedient, and easier to handle than Ariadne. He’ll stick with Bell.”
I put my boot in his hand, and he lifts me into the saddle, only for my other boot to be left planted on the ground.
“Ah.” He bends down and picks it up.
“They’re a bit large,” I admit, flushing a little.
“May I?”
I swallow, then extend my stockinged foot. He takes my ankle gently and slides the boot on, then ties it more securely. I wait in silence, watching the top of his bowed head, as my heart flutters up my throat.
“Better?” he asks, stepping back.
Not trusting my voice, I nod in thanks.
Conrad gives Sylvie a hug and a kiss on the top of her head, tells her to mind Mrs. MacDougal, and then he swings easily into his own saddle and clicks his tongue.
At this, both horses start forward, and Captain takes the lead, barking happily.
I pointedly avoid Sylvie’s gaze; she watches us from the steps, her hands on her hips.
It takes a few minutes to get accustomed to the rolling pitch of Roman’s gait, but before long, I find myself exhilarated.
The horses trot side by side over narrow paths cut into the heather, leading us south.
The land turns stony, boulders jutting up from the ground.
Moss and roots hang scraggly about them, and in their cool, damp shadows bright ferns have begun to unfurl their leaves.
We ride along the scorched perimeter of the moorland that Tarkin’s enchanted fire had ravaged, and Conrad grimly surveys the damage without a word.
After an hour, we come to a silver cascade.
The water tumbles away, bright and quick.
Musical birds dart through the sky like arrows.
Both land and sky seem on the verge of bursting into life, spring building up like water behind a dam.
Captain sniffs out rabbits and then gleefully pursues them over the heather.
To the east, fields of dark soil blanket the hills, and I spot a few small figures driving mule-drawn plows, gouging furrows into the earth, preparing them for spring planting.
Conrad rides nearer, stopping to chat with a few of the farmers.
They seem surprised to see me, but Conrad doesn’t mention me at all, focusing instead on the plans he has for the fields, whether they will plant rye, barley, or potatoes.
I sit by and try to unknit the coil of impatience in my belly, my fingers idly Weaving warming knots into Roman’s mane.
When Conrad glances at me, I still my fingers and pretend I was simply combing the horse’s coarse hairs.
Finally, Conrad leads me to a high hill overlooking the field, where he takes out a small notebook and begins jotting down numbers and lists, taking stock of the crofters’ progress.
“I do love these hills,” I sigh, the words slipping free before I can catch them. “They unfurl like a tapestry, as if you could gather them up in your hand and wrap them about you.”
Conrad gives me a wry glance. “I suppose I have spent more time looking at the horizon. Dreaming of what lay beyond it.”
Oh. Of course. I think of the torn maps, bits of continents and shredded dreams scattered across the floor.
Casting him a sidelong look, I wonder how I might get him to stop taking notes and open up about Elfhame.
I am not here to learn more about the North estate’s agricultural practices, after all.
“You must have been a child when you learned your fate,” I say. “A boy destined to serve a queen . . . it’s like something out of a story.”
“Aye.”
His pencil scratches away at his notebook, except for when he pauses to think, and he taps it against his lower lip. The simple gesture reminds me of how that lip had tasted against mine down in Elfhame . . .
Oh, no. I will not go back to that moment.
For one thing, thinking about it will make my face turn red as an apple.
For another . . . ever since Lachlan revealed his twisted plan to me, that kiss has stuck in my memory like a stone in a shoe, painful and wrong.
That kiss was not ours. It was a sham, performed for Morgaine’s benefit and Lachlan’s scheming.
Granted, it had been a very convincing sham.
One that had nearly persuaded me that there might be more between us, some hidden, tenuous thread woven not by faerie fingers, but by my own heart’s dangerous curiosity.
Was any of it real? What if we had met by chance, and not by Lachlan’s machinations? Would Conrad have noticed me if we’d passed as strangers on a London street? Would the accidental brush of his hand against mine have made me catch my breath?
What would it be like to kiss him with no eyes upon us?
The question startles me so that I cough. I tear my treacherous eyes from the laird’s lip and try to recall what it was I wanted to ask him.
“You can’t leave, can you?” Yes, that was the question. “Is that why you tore up those maps? You learned your duty to the queen would confine you to the estate.”
His eyes flicker to mine, wary. He places the pencil in the spine of his notebook and shuts it. “Very well, then. If I satisfy your curiosity, will you go home to London?”
“I might.”
He sighs and rakes his hand through his hair. “What do you want to know?”
“How did your parents meet?” I ask. “Considering her background, and his being confined to this place and the fae queen’s service, I find it odd their paths ever crossed.”
His gaze drifts to the moors. “My mother’s folk often camped on the estate. In most places, Travellers are not often welcomed. But my father always gave them safe passage on his lands.”
“Do they still visit?”
He shakes his head. “Not after she died. There was mistrust between us, thanks to some wholly false rumors that my father had . . . been involved. Nonsense, of course. Her horse threw her. ’Twas an accident.”
“That must have been hard for you. Her people were your people, after all.”
His eyes lift to the distant hills, the worry seam between his eyebrows deepening as he frowns.
“Aye . . . foolish lad that I was, I dreamed of joining my mother’s people and traveling the world with them.
I would sit on the roof of Ravensgate and watch their caravan pass over the moors, chafing at my father’s refusal to let me even visit their fires.
” He gives a short laugh, heavy with bitterness.
At last, he shuts the notebook and tucks the pencil behind his ear.
“When my father finally told me such dreams were never to be, I did not take it well. It was the first time I realized my fate was never my own to decide.”
“You thought you were free, only to find a leash fixed round your . . . throat,” I murmur. Fates, I’d been about to say heart.
“Aye . . . exactly.” He gives me a sidelong look. “’Tis strange, confiding in someone about Morgaine. The MacDougals prefer not to discuss it, and of course I cannot confide in Sylvie yet. Since my father died, there was no one else who knew.”
I give him a tight smile, feeling ten ways a traitor, wishing he’d used any word but confide. It is too close to trust, and if only he knew how unworthy of that trust I am. “Earlier, in the cottage, you asked me about a certain person. A . . . Briar King?”
He goes very still, a dangerous glint in his eye. “Aye.”
I have to force the words through my dry throat. “Who is he?”
“He is Morgaine’s enemy,” Conrad replies tensely.
“There is a great ward around Ravensgate, Blackswire, and the surrounding land. It keeps the Briar King out, but every few decades he tests us. When I was a boy, he sent a Weaver to try and force my da to open the gate to Elfhame. Fiona. She put a knife to my throat, but my father would not give her what she asked for.” His eyes pinch, as if the memory leaves a sour taste on his tongue.
“My da killed her instead, to save my life. And that was the day I learned faerie tales were real, and that they were nightmarish.”
The contempt in Conrad’s tone when he said Fiona’s name turns my stomach.
I am his Fiona. I am the knife sent to be put to his throat, and when he discovers that . . .
I suppress a shudder.
Conrad continues, “My father took me down to Elfhame for the first time and told me the story of my ancestor, a man who attempted to kill Morgaine after the fae murdered his wife and a bunch of other women.”
After Lachlan murdered them, I now know, and left his sister to take the blame for it.