“Then there was Rob Cameron,” she said, “and the nutters who were lying in wait at Lallybroch, wanting to take the kids. I couldn’t have fought off the nutters all by myself—and thank God for Ernie Buchan and Lionel Menzies! But I did smack Rob on the head with a junior cricket bat and laid him out cold.” She glanced at him with the flicker of a real smile. “So there.”

“Well done,” he said softly, and managed with some effort to suppress both his resurgent rage at Cameron and his guilt for not being there. “My braw lass.”

She laughed, and wiped her nose on the back of her free hand.

“I already knew you were a good husband,” she said. “But you’ll be a great minister.”

She leaned forward then and he took her in his arms, feeling her weight warm and heavy with her trust.

“Thanks,” he said softly, against her hair. It was smooth and warm on his lips. “But I can’t be either one of those things alone, aye?”

For a moment, she was silent. Then she pulled back enough to look at him, her face tear-streaked but solemn now, and beautiful.

“You won’t be alone,” she said. “Even if God’s not there when you need Him, I’ll be there—standing just behind you.”

74

The Face of Evil

ROGER CLIMBED THE LADDER to the loft, surprising his wife, who was crawling about on her hands and knees.

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

“Mandy’s sock,” she replied, sitting back on her heels with a small groan. “You know how people say something or other is a backbreaking job? That’s not hyperbole when it comes to laundry. What are you looking for?”

“You.” He glanced over his shoulder, but the printshop below was vacant at the moment, though he could hear voices in the kitchen. “Fergus asked me to go with him on an errand, and he asked me to bring a knife. So I thought I’d give you this for safekeeping—you know, in case we’re going to meet a highway robber and get his life story for the front page,” he added, trying to make a feeble joke of it. His wife was having none of his humors, and heaved herself to her feet with a hand on a barrel of varnish, her eyes fixing him with a look of dark-blue suspicion.

She kept her eyes on him while taking the paper from his hand and unfolding it, glancing away only to read it.

“What is this?”

“It’s a warehouse certificate. You’ve seen them before, surely? Your da has a fistful of them in his strongbox.”

“I have,” she said, giving him a pointed look. “Why do you have a warehouse certificate to a warehouse in Charlotte?”

“Because so far as either I or Frank Randall knows, there won’t be any significant fighting in Charlotte. That’s where I sent the, um, guano. I thought nobody would notice, and nobody did.”