“What about you?” he asked, turning to Ophelia. “Where did you grow up?”
“Everywhere and nowhere. As you know, I was a diplomatic brat, and we moved every two or three years—Cairo, Vienna, Singapore, Washington. I learned to pack a suitcase before I knew how to ride a bicycle.”
“Sounds lonely,” I commented.
“It was, but it also taught me to read people quickly and figure out who was safe, who was genuine, and who was putting on a show.” Her eyes landed on Kiernan for no longer than a second before she turned away. “Some people are harder to read than others, though.”
“So I’ve been told,” he responded with a wink.
The conversation wandered to the challenges of maintaining ancient properties, the sheep that grazed the eastern pastures, and the gamekeeper who had served three generations of Lockharts. Kiernan spoke moreexpansively than he had on previously, offering glimpses of a life I’d not considered.
He loved this place. That much was obvious in every word, every gesture, every lingering glance out the darkened windows toward the moors beyond.
When the evening stretched long, Millie brought out a cheese course, then whiskey—which I was forbidden from consuming. The aroma alone was torture.
I allowed myself to relax into the conversation, continuing to trade stories and observations, almost forgetting the weirdness of our situation. We were three strangers who’d worked together at a distance, now thrown into an intimacy none of us had anticipated.
When Millie clearedthe last of the dishes, I expected Kiernan to make his usual excuses and disappear into the depths of the castle. Instead, he pushed his chair from the table and gestured toward the doorway. “Join me for a walk?”
Ophelia caught my eye, and her raised brow mirrored my own surprise.
He led us to the great hall, a place that held more warmth than I remembered from our first day here. Kiernan crossed to a sideboard where crystal decanterscaught the firelight. He poured whiskey for himself and Ophelia, then glanced at me.
“Not allowed,” I grumbled.
“Water, then. Millie would have my head if I sabotaged your recovery.”
“She wouldn’t be alone in that,” Phee teased.
We sat in chairs arranged near the fire.
“Is that your ancestors’ military collection?” Ophelia asked, motioning to a display case.
“It represents every Lockhart who ever served,” he responded. “Six centuries of questionable decisions and occasional heroism.”
He rose, and we followed him to the case. Inside lay the accumulated artifacts of a family at war, arranged with the care of a devoted curator. A sword from Culloden bore a notch in its blade. Campaign medals from the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimea, and both World Wars gleamed on the dark velvet under them. A set of letters tied with a faded ribbon showed handwriting that was cramped and urgent.
“My great-great-grandfather wrote those from Sebastopol.” Kiernan nodded toward the envelopes. “His wife kept every one, though half of them are complaintsabout the food and the other half are too inappropriate to display.”
The image of this stern, controlled man descending from someone who wrote filthy letters from the front lines struck me as humanizing.
Ophelia had drifted to a smaller case where a single medal lay on velvet. A Victoria Cross.
“My grandfather was in Burma in 1944. He carried three wounded men to safety under enemy fire, then returned for a fourth. They found him unconscious with a bullet in his shoulder. The man he’d dragged half a mile through the jungle lay beside him.”
“He survived?” Ophelia asked.
“Lived another forty years. He never spoke about it except once, when I was sixteen and stupid enough to ask.” He shook his head and grinned. “He told me that courage wasn’t the absence of fear. It was deciding that something else mattered more.”
In the flickering light, Kiernan looked different than he had an hour ago—or maybe I was finally letting myself see what had been there all along. He was more than a Unit 23 operative, more than the enigmatic lord of this castle—he was a man shaped by generations ofduty and sacrifice, carrying a weight I was only beginning to understand.
“What about the dishonorable ones?” I asked. “You said some served more honorably than others.”
He laughed. “Ah. The fourth viscount was a spectacular coward, who bought his way out of every battle he was meant to fight. And my great-uncle fled to Argentina in 1922 under circumstances the family has always refused to discuss.” He took a sip of whiskey. “We don’t display their contributions.”
“Every family has its scoundrels,” Ophelia said.
“The Lockharts have more than our share,” he mused. “We’re not good at moderation. When we commit, we do it completely. For better or worse.”
