Jamie laid aside the staring head and backbone of the first fish and chose another. Ought he to give Locke one of the Masonic signs? Given his origins and situation, the man was likely Made. Not yet, he decided, watching Locke methodically engulfing his sixth fish. Locke seemed solid enough, but Jamie wanted to talk to a few of the militia colonels presently enrolled in the Rowan County Regiment before deciding whether—and how—to make an alliance. There were the Overmountain men to be considered, too; they were less official, less well armed, and less organized, but a damn sight closer to Fraser’s Ridge than Locke was, and if he needed help in a hurry, they could move quickly.

He put that thought aside. He’d do what he could and pray about the rest.

Locke leaned back, considering as he chewed his last fish slowly.

“Well, I trust we may in time be fast friends, Colonel. Given our commonalities, as you might say.”

Before he could agree to this sentiment, the door opened and Young Ian came in on the wings of a chilly draft that lifted the newspapers on the tables. The Murrays had best be on their way quickly, before the weather turned wet, he thought.

He introduced his nephew to Francis Locke, who glanced at Ian’s tattoos, then at Jamie with an interested cock of the brow.

“I’ve found us lodging wi’ a widow named Hambly, Uncle,” said Ian, ignoring Locke’s examination. “She says her supper will be ready in an hour, should ye care to sit down at her table.”

Locke made a hem sound of warning in his throat.

“The widow’s a kind woman and her house is clean, but she’s no sort of a cook, God bless her. Perhaps ye’d best bring your family to my house for their supper. My land lies outside Salisbury,” he added, seeing Jamie’s brow rise, “but I’ve a small house in town for convenience, and my wife’s a famous gossip. She likes nothin’ better than to meet new folk and turn ’em inside out.”

Jamie met Ian’s eye and they shared a look. “Five to one on my mother,” Ian’s face said, and Jamie agreed with a slight nod.

“We’ll join ye, sir, with great pleasure,” he said formally to Locke, and rose. “We’ll go and fettle the women, and join ye by six o’clock, if that suits?”

MRS. LOCKE WAS a bright-eyed bird of a woman who asked blunt questions with the regularity of a cuckoo clock, but she was a good cook, and Jenny kept her engaged in a discussion of cheese making and the virtues of cow’s milk versus that of goats or sheep, while Rachel fed the bairn and Jamie and Ian asked questions about the regiment, all of which Locke answered readily.