Page 53 of The Iron Earl

She took a bite of an asparagus tip. “What did he want you to be?”

“Me, I was to be the soldier of the family. The one to bring honor to the name.”

“And your brother was brought up to be the next marquess?”

“Yes.”

“What of your sister?”

“Her, he wanted to make key alliances with, so she was to be docile and bonny and do as bade.”

Evalyn chuckled. “I met your sister at Wolfbridge. He failed entirely on that score—except for her beauty.”

Lachlan grinned. “That he did. As much as we fought it, Jacob and I fell into line with what he’d deemed for us. Sloane never did. And we helped her—Machiavellian so.”

“But it sounds as though you had each other to depend upon?”

“We did.” His smile spread. “Sloane used to love to climb the vines on the southern side of the castle. It used to drive our grandfather to madness, but we would always help her to do so.”

“She would climb vines?”

“We all did. The vines of iron, as they are known. And they are actually iron.”

A bemused smile set onto her full lips. “What?”

“There is lore about the time that the castle fell into Viking hands. To reclaim it, my ancestors scaled the vines that grew along the southern side of the castle in the dead of the night.” Lachlan took a sip of his brandy. “The vines were so sturdy, enough men made it up onto the different levels to invade and win the castle back from the Vikings. Two hundred years later, when the southern wall was rebuilt, one of my ancestors decided to commemorate the victory by having vines of iron built into the stone, which are now hidden under the live vines that still grow there.”

The smile widened on her face. “That is fantastical.”

He nodded, jabbing a chunk of potato and popping it into his mouth. “It is, and especially irresistible to mischievous bairns. Our governesses couldn’t keep us off that wall in the summertime. It was a game we played—Sloane, Jacob, our cousin Torrie and I—the Valor of Vinehill. We would storm the castle, climb as high as we dared and crawl in through the windows. It was always a competition.”

“Who usually won?”

“Sloane. She was the lightest and most agile of us. Plus the most stubborn. She could hang off the tiniest slip of iron for what seemed like hours. Torrie was the most timid, but the smartest—she could pick the perfect line up the wall and follow it without fail. Jacob and I spent much of the time daring each other to leap from spot to spot in the stupidest show of virility that ever was.”

“Did any of you ever fall?”

“Yes, all of us. Jacob did once from a too high spot and broke his arm. Grandfather threatened to tear the whole wall down. But by the next summer, we were back to our same antics.”

She laughed.

“It behooved us in that particular instance that Grandfather bothered very little with us. But then Jacob was eventually off to Edinburgh. Two years later I joined him there and soon after I was focused on entering the crown’s forces. We just stopped climbing at some point. I couldn’t tell you when.” He shook his head, the nostalgia of it making him pause.

“The soldier in you explains much.” Her head bowed as she cut her roast beef.

“What does it explain?”

Her eyes lifted to him. “The inherent rigidness in how you’ve moved from place to place on the journey. What you expect of the men around you. It is disciplined and unrelenting. And you do not care for unexpected things.”

He eyed her. “Such as?”

“A rogue woman tagging along with the party and causing mayhem with every step.”

His right cheek lifted in a smile. “Aye. You, lass, I’ve had to get accustomed to.”

“It also explains why you’ve been so abrupt with me.”

“I’ve been abrupt?”

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