My fists were clenched so hard I could feel my nails cutting into my palms. I would have thrown a rock at him, but he was already out of range and moving fast, shoulders bunched with anger.

“What about William?” I bellowed after him. “If he’s ‘involved’ with John, so are you, you pigheaded Scot!”

The shoulders bunched harder, but he didn’t turn round. His shout floated back to me, though.

“Damn William!”

A SMALL COUGH from behind me distracted me from the mental list of synonyms for “bloody Scot!” I was compiling. I turned round to find Fanny standing there, her apron bulging with dirt-covered turnips and her sweet face fixed in a troubled frown, this directed at Jamie, who was vanishing into the trees by the creek.

“What has Will-iam done, Mrs. Fraser?” she asked, glancing up at me from under her cap. I smiled, in spite of the recent upheaval. Her speech was very fluent now, save when she was upset or talking fast, but she often still had that slight hesitation between the syllables of William’s name.

“William hasn’t done anything amiss,” I assured her. “Not that I know of. We haven’t seen him since … er …” I broke off an instant too late.

“Jane’s funeral,” she said soberly, and looked down into the purple-and-white mass of turnips. “I thought … maybe Mr. Fraser had had a letter. From William. Or maybe about him,” she added, the frown returning. She nodded toward the trees. “He’s angry.”

“He’s Scottish,” I amended, with a sigh. “Which means stubborn. Also unreasonable, intolerant, contumelious, froward, pigheaded, and a few other objectionable things. But don’t worry; it really isn’t anything to do with William. Here, let’s put the turnips in the tub there and cover them with water. That will keep the tops from wilting. I’m making bashed neeps for supper, but I want to cook the tops with bacon grease and serve them alongside. If anything will make Highlanders eat a leafy green vegetable, bacon grease ought to do it.”

She nodded as though this made sense and let down her apron slowly, so the turnips rolled out into the tub in a tumbling cascade, dark-green tops waving like pom-poms.

“You probably shouldn’t have told him.” Fanny spoke with an almost clinical detachment.

“Told who what?” I said, picking up a water bucket and sloshing it over the muddy turnips. “Get another bucket, will you?”

She did, heaved the water into the tub, then set down the bucket, looked up at me, and said seriously, “I know what ‘swived’ means.”

I felt as though she’d just kicked me sharply in the shin.

“Do you, indeed?” I managed, picking up my working knife. “I, um … suppose you would.” She’d spent half her short life in a brothel in Philadelphia; she probably knew a lot of other words not in the vocabulary of the average twelve-year-old.