She shrugged, but her trembling mouth betrayed her. “When you saw me and realised I was unharmed, you were furious, not relieved, and you are not even directly involved in this debacle. You have been a perfect gentleman, and I have been most ungrateful. Your seeking me out was above and beyond the call of duty as Papa’s friend.”

Donald winced. She obviously considered him long past his prime, while he was only just thirty, which must put Killin, who had another five years on him, in the ancient-fossil bracket to one her age. “I am sure any of your father’s friends would have done the same thing.”

“I am very sure most of them would have passed the chore on to a servant,” Lady Margaret countered. “I am very grateful that you did not, but I must make my own way in now.”

They were brave words, when she was visibly trembling with fear. Donald wished fervently that she would succeed in being heard, but his gut told him that it was far more likely she would be summarily dismissed. The life would be crushed out of her, and in a society so tightly buttoned up that sometimes he himself felt stifled, that seemed a damned shame. But there was nothing he could think of to say or do that would help. “You will be in my thoughts,” he said instead. “I wish you the very best of luck.”

“I’ll need it,” she said grimly. “I’ll go round to the service door, then I can have one of the servants tell Mama I am safe, and make my way to my room by the backstairs, and wait until everyone has gone.”

Keeping to the shadows as they made their way from Whitehall past the line of carriages towards the mews, Donald became more and more reluctant to abandon her. “I don’t feel comfortable, leaving you alone like this.”

“I won’t have you embroiled. This is my mess, Lochiel. The best thing you can do is go home and leave me to it. I must bid you good night, and thank you, once more for escorting me home safely. Oh, and for the use of your cloak, too, though you’d better have it back or there will be more awkward questions for me to answer.”

She unfastened the garment and handed it to him. Donald watched as she knocked on the door and heard the servant’s shocked exclamation when it was opened. Then he turned away and headed for his own rooms with a heavy heart.

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

YOU’VE LET ME DOWN. You’ve let me down. You’ve let me down.