As he dismounted she withdrew a step, her hand on Hugo’s collar. It surprised her that the dog had not yet growled, nor even laid his ears back. She herself was measuring the distance to the door and wondering what her chances were of getting past the newcomer without his taking notice. He was standing with his back to her, and viewing him against the horse she saw that he was not as big a man as he had first appeared. In fact, he likely was not too much taller than herself—it was the cloak, with its great hood drawn up to shield his face, that had deceived her.
Merely wary now, she watched him while he tended to his horse, first lifting down the heavy saddle, then with clean straw rubbing dry the creature’s heaving sides. No devil, thought Sophia, would have taken such great care. She looked again at Hugo standing calmly at her side and felt her fears recede, and then they vanished altogether when the man turned finally, pushing back the black hood of his cloak to show a lean and weathered face with pleasant features neatly bordered by a trim brown beard that here and there displayed the greying evidence of middle age. He wore no wig—his hair was greying, too, and worn drawn back and tied without a care for fashion.
“I’m sorry, did I frighten ye?” His voice was pleasant, and it held the cadence of a Highlander. “Forgive me, lass. I took ye for a stableboy at first, there in the shadows. Is there one about?”
“A stableboy?” She did not know where Rory was, just then. She glanced around.
“Eh, well, I only need a blanket and a stall, and I can see to those myself.” Not far from where he stood he found an empty stall to suit his purpose, and when Rory did arrive a short time afterwards the horse was settled comfortably, the stranger having found a blanket on a nearby rail.
Rory’s eyes held recognition. “Colonel Graeme!”
“Aye,” the man acknowledged with surprise. “I did not think to be remembered—it must be two years since my last visit here.”
The fact that Rory had remembered, and was moving round the man with obvious respect now, told Sophia that this Colonel Graeme was no common guest.
He was still thinking of his horse. “He’ll need a warm feed,” he told Rory, “if ye have the means to manage it. We’ve ridden hard the day, and we were all the time in rain.”
Rory nodded, but his brief and silent glance seemed more concerned about the colonel, who was soaking wet himself and sure to suffer for it if he didn’t soon get dry. “I’ll see him taken care of,” Rory said, about the horse. “And Mistress Paterson can show ye to the house.”
“Mistress Paterson?” He looked at her with open interest, and Sophia could not help but smile. It was no fault of his that he’d assumed she was a servant, with her being here so freely in the stables, wearing one of her old gowns and with the mud upon her shoes. She let her hand fall from the mastiff’s collar as she curtsied. “Colonel. I’d be pleased to take you to the countess and the Earl of Erroll.”
He had laughing eyes that crinkled at the corners, and his smile showed beneath the greying beard. “And it would please me, lass, to follow ye.”
She took him in the back way, through the stables and the storerooms to the corridor that ran along the courtyard. She’d been right about his height—his shoulders were not far above the level of her own, and he was built compactly, yet he had a presence and a strength about him and he had a soldier’s walk, not swaggering but self-assured. It made her think of Moray. And like Moray, Colonel Graeme wore, beneath his cloak, a basic leather buffcoat over breeks and boots, his sword belt slung across his shoulder with the ease of one who had long worn it.
“My memory is not what is was,” he told her, with a sideways glance, “but am I right in thinking ye were not at Slains two years ago? Or were ye hiding with the horses then, as well?”
She liked his eyes, his face, his friendly manner. “No, I was not here. I only came last spring.”
“Oh, aye?” He showed a keener interest. “Was that afore or after Colonel Hooke was here, with his companion?”
They’d come around the courtyard now, and reached the steps that led upstairs, and she was grateful that she was ahead of him so that her face was hidden while her voice pretended ignorance. For though she liked this man, she could not easily forget the need for caution. Repeating “Colonel Hooke…，” she shook her head and told him, “I regret I have no memory of the name.”
“’Tis of no matter.”