His throat felt thick with grief. Ross had been clever and handsome and destined for a brilliant future in his father’s architectural firm. And now he lay at the bottom of the sea with tons of metal strewing the seabed around him, one more Navy man with only a memorial to mark his death. Rutledge had received the news in France, one soft spring morning that heralded another gas attack. There had been no time to mourn. There seldom was.

Morag came out of the room that was his, having brought him hot water and fresh towels. She stood with hands clasped in front of her until he reached the top of the stairs and walked toward her. Her eyes were on his face, a woman who had known him from childhood, who had scolded him for mischief-making, saved him cakes left from tea, dressed his scrapes, and mended shirts torn by tumbling out of trees. He couldn’t turn away, and so he smiled.

“Were you hurt, then? In the war?”

“Nothing that hasn’t healed,” he told her, lying for her sake.

But her eyes read more in his face than he realized. “Aye, that’s what the letters said, but letters aren’t always the whole truth, are they? I wanted to see for myself.” She paused. “Do you dream, is that it?”

Wordlessly, he nodded.

“Aye. I thought as much. Well. That will pass. In God’s good time.”

She followed him to his room, smoothing the towels on the rack, twitching the curtains, moving the chintz-covered chair a quarter of an inch. Then she said quietly, “Mind Himself, lad. He’s still grieving. You saw the terrible change in him now.”

Rutledge had—the hair grayer, the new lines about his mouth, the dark circles under his godfather’s eyes. Trevor had aged—but not from age.

“Aye.” She nodded. “Don’t let him sit and remember—”

“No. I won’t.”

“Come down to the kitchen in the morning.”

“I will that,” he said, and she grinned at him.

“I’ll have hot scones for your breakfast, come Sunday.” It was a treat, a remnant of childhood. She walked on down the stairs to put the finishing touches on the dinner she’d made.

The two men sat late over their port that evening, and Trevor took out the book sent to him by a young architect who’d joined his firm in 1912. Edward Harper had been killed in 1917, blown to bits with half a dozen other men, when an ammunition wagon went up in their faces.

“Tell me what you think of this.” The way he unwrapped it and handed it to Rutledge showed clearly how he himself treasured it.