Page 9 of The Earl

Chapter 5

Terric would be furious if he found him standing outside Cait’s bedchamber. Throughout the evening meal, he’d caught his friend watching him, and even though her name had only been spoken once—when Roysa had conveyed that she would not be joining them—Conrad had no doubt she would be the first topic of the order’s conversation in the morning.

And he was still unsure of what to say.

And so, he’d made a hasty, and possibly dangerous decision, and had come to her in the night.

He knocked again, his need to talk to her stronger than his aversion to possibly waking her from sleep. Conrad simply could not wait any longer.

Cait Kennaugh was here, behind this very door.

It opened.

As she came into view, Conrad tried to remember to breathe normally. If he’d thought Cait uncommonly lovely as a young woman, and he had, she was even more so now, though markedly different. Her face was thinner, though still strong. Or was it the look in her deep brown eyes, which rounded at the sight of him?

Her hair, though pulled back, was much shorter as well.

But her set jaw was as strong now as it had been then, and there was no mistaking the determination in the shape of her brows . . . Aye, Cait Kennaugh was every bit the woman he remembered.

“Conrad.”

Her voice hadn’t changed either. Light and slightly breathy as if every word was pulled from her depths—a land he knew he’d never return from if he dared to visit.

Conrad had known it then, and he knew it now.

“You did not come to the hall.”

An inconsequential thing, really, given all of the unsaid things that swam between them. But although Conrad was an earl, trained for years to become one, this woman made him feel like an untrained squire. A boy surprised to find the blood of one of the king’s most treasured advisors on the tip of his sword. A boy who cared more for the safety of a young woman he’d just met than for himself, or the fact that he was in very real danger of discovery, and reprisal, for what he had done.

“I . . .”

A sound in the passageway distracted her, but Conrad did not flinch. The source of it mattered not. He would not leave his position without answers.

When she leaned forward to peer past him, Conrad caught the faint scent of roses. It struck him that this was, in fact, the closest he had ever been to her.

“I would invite you inside—”

He did not hesitate. Moving past her, careful not to touch her, Conrad entered the chamber, only to freeze as he took in their surroundings. He’d almost forgotten.

He turned as the door scraped closed.

“Is it me who startles you so?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“Nay, ’tis this chamber.” He did not elaborate.

“The Conrad I remember was not unsettled by anyone. Or anything.”

How wrong she was.

Cait lifted her chin. “This was hers, wasn’t it?” she asked.

In one of the many missives they’d exchanged since the tournament, Conrad had admitted he’d avoided the chambers used by his parents after their death. The lord and lady’s chambers, the lord’s solar, the gardens.

“How did you know?”

She didn’t answer at first.

“’Tis close to the great hall, and more ornate than one might expect for a guest.”