“No, it wouldn’t be.”
“I didn’t think so.”
The heavy clouds continued to settle lower as fog rose to meet them, reducing visibility with every passing minute. If the weather continued to worsen, the two of them would have to camp overnight or risk wandering directly into a deep bog. Gabriel cursed the black-eyed woman again. He’d expected trouble at Lattimer, but for the devil’s sake, he hadn’t even set eyes on the place yet.
Finally they spied the churned-up mudhole by nearly walking straight into it. With no sun, determining north from east had become a task all in itself. Gabriel paused, re-creating the scene, the position in which the woman had stood, and then kicked Union Jack into a trot again. He might be mistaken, but he’d learned long ago to trust his instincts. The error earlier—when he’d believed her in the first place—well, he wouldn’t be repeating that.
“This fog’s beginning to make me nervous,” Kelgrove noted, after a half mile of silence. “I keep thinking we’re being watched.”
“Wearebeing watched, I reckon,” Gabriel returned. “Lobsterbacks in the middle of the Highlands? They’d be fools if they weren’t keeping an eye on us.” He felt it, too, the unseen, hostile eyes through the drifts of fog and mist. The rifle in his saddle, the pistol on his belt, and the saber at his hip—they would suffice, though certainly not against a coward’s shot from hiding. But then death loomed everywhere he went. The prospect didn’t trouble him. The idea of failing before he’d even begun, did.
Adam Kelgrove cursed under his breath, but Gabriel ignored it. The soldier knew what they were likely to be in for, and he’d been given the choice to remain in London to argue with the paper men. The Highlanders in the British army had a reputation for being fierce, fearless, proud, and supremely suspicious of their English comrades. At the moment, he happened to be banking on that pride to keep a ball from between his shoulder blades. A true Highlander, according to Highlanders, preferred a straight-up fight to a knife in the shadows.
Still, keeping a close watch had never done a man harm. Halfway up the grassy, shallow slope, though, something else caught his attention. “There,” he said, pointing at a deep gray spire that seemed to appear and disappear in the fog like a faerie’s castle.
“I don’t see… Ah. Thank God. And your sharp eyes.”
Gabriel leaned a little sideways to loosen the rifle in its scabbard. Then he deliberately straightened again, his hands empty. “My sharp eyes also see two men on the hill to the left,” he said quietly. “Just behind that cluster of trees. We won’t begin any trouble here, but we will be ready to meet it.”
“Us, not beginning trouble? You’ve gone soft, Major.”
With a grim smile Gabriel slowed Jack to a walk. “This is my first time being in hostile territory that I actually own. But don’t fret; my saber’s ready to rattle.”
“I wouldn’t call that comforting.”
Keeping his back straight, Gabriel led the way to the medieval monstrosity that slowly emerged from the gloom. In the damp air the slick stone walls looked almost black, with ivy crawling up the old stone all the way to the roof in places. No windows decorated the bottommost floor, which likely meant the castle had once served as a fortress, a bastion against the English and other clans, in the past.
Higher up the gleaming walls, though, tall, narrow rectangles covered by thick glass appeared at regular intervals. If the fog ever lifted, the view through them would likely be spectacular. Today, though, the dark stone with its twisting ivy tentacles seemed like a living, malevolent beast. Gabriel narrowed his eyes. He’d been called something similar, himself.
“I’m getting the shivers,” Kelgrove commented, on the tail of those thoughts. “As the new owner, you might consider tearing the place down and starting over with something a bit… friendlier.”
Though he’d spoken about Lattimer several times over the past few days, for the first time it felt like more than words on paper. He did own the castle. He likely owned the cow’s mud puddle and the bog, as well, and quite possibly the cow, too. The paper men had said Lattimer and its surrounding ten thousand acres were his, but until now it had just been another number being spat at him. “Keep your voice down,” he ordered. “I imagine Sassenach who suggest razing ancient castles don’t live long.”
“But you—”
“Halt and declare yerselves, Sassenach!” a voice bellowed from somewhere in front of them.
Gabriel squared his shoulders but continued his approach. “I’ll declare myself and my business to Kieran Blackstock, and no one else,” he called back. No sense leaving room for cleverly worded misunderstandings.
“Shit,” Kelgrove muttered beside him, but continued forward, as well.
“Well?” he pushed, into the silence. “You’d best decide whether to murder me or not, because I’ll be at the front door in two minutes.”
“You didn’t need to suggest murder,” the sergeant whispered.
“Yes I did. Murder implies a cowardly act. I’m certain they’d much rather kill me in a fair fight.”
“I do not feel reassured.”
In the fog-dampened silence he could practically hear the Highlanders thinking, wondering what to do with an English officer who didn’t threaten or attack, but persisted in his advance. Mentally he counted down, from twenty to three, two, o—
“Approach, then,” rang out as the count reached zero. “But keep yer hands well away from yer weapons or ye’ll find a hole in yer chest.”
“I don’t mean to begin trouble,” Gabriel returned. “But I will answer it in kind.”
The castle’s massive double doors, twice the height of a man, came into view. Seeing them, he was half surprised there was no iron portcullis to slam closed from above for additional security against invaders. This afternoon, though, the security consisted of a half-dozen men, four of them with bristling beards, all of them in kilts of green and red and black plaid, and most significantly, all of them armed.
The weapons varied, and he made note of that as he swung down from the saddle. A nasty-looking blunderbuss, two muskets, a rifle, a two-handed greatsword, and a pitchfork. From the bits of straw clinging to the last fellow’s coat, Gabriel presumed he either worked in the stables or was a farmer—which didn’t make him any less a warrior. Not up here.
