“I know it must seem perverse to you. I can’t explain it, I simply know that it would be wrong for me.”

“And what of Lochiel?” There were spots of colour in Julia’s cheeks. “How did you explain your rejection to the poor man who has come all this way to lay his heart at your feet?”

“Don’t! I pray you, don’t make me feel any worse than I already do. I told him that I was not ready to be a wife.”

“And so he is to wait patiently until you are ready, then?”

“No! I don’t know if I will ever be ready. I made that clear. I would never be so cruel as to hold out the prospect of false hope, and especially not to Donald. I told him that I must learn to be myself, and now I have the means . . .”

“So you are accepting your father’s thirty pieces of silver?”

Margaret jumped to her feet, leaning her forehead against the cool windowpane as the raindrops rolled down the outside. “That’s unfair! I am already estranged from my family, Julia. I am already forced to accept that I may never see Mama—” Her voice broke. She cleared her throat. “I have had no expectations of seeing my family again since I arrived here. The settlement my father offers doesn’t make that situation any worse, but it does offer me the freedom to live my own life, without being dependent upon anyone or, more importantly, responsible to anyone. I can be myself. Whatever that means.” She smiled grimly. “I intend to find out.”

“How?”

“I’m going to America.”

Julia’s jaw dropped. “Please tell me you are jesting.”

Margaret resumed her seat. “I’m deadly serious, actually.”

“Is this Lewis’s doing? Did he put this ridiculous notion into your head?”

“No, not really. Well, I suppose he sowed the seed with his talk of his own travels.”

“For the love of God, Margaret, if you must travel, why not do what everyone else does, and tour round Europe?”

“That is what Donald suggested.”

“Lochiel is a very sensible man.”

“But I don’t want to be sensible.” Despite all she had been through, the hurt she had caused Donald, a bubble of excitement began to form, quelling her doubts. She had been right to refuse him. And America—yes, that, too, was the right choice of destination. “I need to be somewhere no-one knows me. A place where I can be myself, without the weight of expectation my life entails. Do you see?”

“No, I don’t,” Julia said tartly, looking quite baffled. “Who will protect you from danger? Who will introduce you to society? Where will you live? Dear heavens, even the journey—those transatlantic liners sink all the time. It is also so far away. Half a world away, in fact. If anything happened . . .”