“And you with a nearly grown son and a husband who’s an ex-pickpocket. I’ve seen some entertaining laundry, turning out men’s pockets … Jem had a dead mouse in his, just day before yesterday. He said it was dead when he picked it up,” she added darkly, pulling the bar again. “Speaking of laundry—do you know where Roger and Fergus have gone? I’ve just brushed and sponged Roger’s black suit so he can wear it this afternoon, to talk to the elders, but he needs to be back in time to change.”

Marsali shook her head.

“I heard Fergus say something about ‘milord’s guns’ to Roger Mac, but nothin’ about where he meant to find them.”

Bree’s heart gave a quick bump at the word “guns.”

“I hope Fergus doesn’t get Roger defrocked before he’s even ordained,” she said lightly, hoping it sounded as though she were joking.

“Dinna fash,” Marsali said comfortably, stretching up to hang another freshly printed sheet. “Protestant ministers dinna wear frocks to start with.” They both laughed, and the fresh sheet, caught by a breeze from the door, suddenly wavered, came loose, and doubled on itself, just as Bree pulled the lever.

“Horsefeathers!” she said.

Marsali leaned over and plucked the crumpled damp sheet out of its frame with two fingers.

“There’s one for the kindling,” she remarked, dropping it into a large basket, half full of ruined sheets. “Does it ever seem strange to ye, to be marrit to a priest?”

“Well … yes. I mean, I sort of didn’t expect that. Not that I mind,” she added hastily. “I mean, it’s not as though he was going to be a—a—”

“Thief?” Marsali suggested, and her smile widened. “I kent what Fergus was from the start—he told me—and it didna matter a bit. I’d have had him if he’d said he was a highwayman and murdered folk on the road for their coin.”

Brianna thought her mother had mentioned that Fergus had been a highwayman at one point, but it seemed more tactful not to say so. After all, he wasn’t doing that now—so far as she knew.

“Mind,” Marsali said, drawing a new sheet of paper from its quire and sliding it into the press, “I was no but fifteen at the time, and besides, he was helpin’ Da, and I didna mind him bein’ whatever he was. Ken, now I know what the two o’ them were doing in Edinburgh, I’m no sure it wouldna be safer for him to have kept on smuggling liquor, instead of carryin’ on with the printing. Though I suppose either one can get a man hanged, these days.”

The press was a solid thing, but the satisfying thump when she pulled the lever sent a vibration through metal and wood and straight down her backbone.