Page 16 of The Earl

There was more. Much more. But Cait could never tell him that part. She cared too much for his opinion of her.

“But you’re here now. Why?”

This, at least, was easy.

“Mother insisted on knowing why I would not marry Colin MacGregor.”

“I would have that answer too,” a deep voice boomed from just around the bend of the alcove. Cait closed her eyes.

“And a few others, as well,” Conrad said, coming into view just as her eyes popped open.

Her chest constricted as the two longtime friends stared at each other, her revelations having opened a rift between them. She knew that and hated herself a little for it. If Cait could go back to the beginning, that first moment with Bailey, she would tell him everything. Maybe even why she did not deserve Conrad’s affection.

But she could not go back.

Neither could she hide now from either man, for it had been her idea to come here. She’d insisted on it. Channeling Roysa, Cait straightened her back, lifted her chin, and refused to apologize for that which she could not alter.

“’Tis good fortune you’re here,” she said to Conrad, noting that his dress was more formal than it had been the day before. He looked every bit the English earl, his surcoat emblazoned with the Licheford coat of arms, a black eagle on a field of gold. As tall as her brother, if not more so, his wide shoulders seemed to fill the alcove as his eyes bored into her. “I would have a word?”

She looked at Terric then, wishing she knew more of what he thought of her tale. But she and Conrad desperately needed to finish what they had started the evening before.

“Brother?”

She could have smiled. Tried to cajole him in that way. But Cait did not have a smile left in her. The knowledge that she had to bare herself to Conrad, explain that which she did not entirely understand, or this trip would be for naught . . . Cait simply could not do anything other than plead with her eyes for her brother to understand.

And he did.

Terric turned to Conrad. “I know you to be an honorable man, more than any other.”

Conrad didn’t respond.

“She is my sister.”

Each of the four words was said with significance and emphasis, as if it held secret meaning.

“I know it well,” Conrad answered with nearly as much brevity as Terric.

And then her brother slipped behind the wall, leaving them alone.

And while before the alcove seemed isolated, private, now Cait felt as exposed as if they were standing in the middle of the great hall.

When Conrad spoke, she nearly jumped backward at his abrupt tone. “Come with me.”