His grandfather, the wily old devil, had known how Ramsay would feel. After giving him the news of Gisela’s death, the laird had said that Ramsay could feed his wanderlust until his grandfather died or was near death. Then he must come home to assume his responsibilities as Laird of Thorsay.

Ramsay had seized on the proffered bargain, both because he couldn’t imagine returning to Thorsay with Gisela gone, and because he’d yearned to visit distant lands and study ancient ruins. He’d had a dozen years of that freedom and had managed not to get himself killed, though it had been a near run thing more than once.

That thought led him to recollections of a certain cellar in Portugal where he’d been held captive with four other men as they drank bad brandy and waited to be executed at dawn. But the five of them had worked together to escape and made a pact to meet up again after the war, if they survived. Now Napoleon was gone for good, exiled to a bleak rock in the South Atlantic to rule over the seabirds.

How many of his fellow captives had survived? They’d all been living risky lives. When Ramsay traveled through London on his way home, he could check for letters at Hatchard’s bookshop, which had been their chosen locale for information exchange.

Ramsay forced his wandering mind back to practical matters. Though he’d wished this day would never come, he’d been mentally preparing for it. Over the years he’d shipped his finest archeological finds home. He hoped they’d safely made the long journey through the Mediterranean, west around the Iberian Peninsula, then north through the English Channel and North Sea to Thorsay.

The three island groups north of Scotland were closer to Norway than to London. Orkney was visible, barely, from the northernmost coast of mainland Scotland. Thorsay lay beyond and far flung Shetland lay west of Norway. All three archipelagos were inhabited by tough, stubborn islanders whose first language was Norn, a Scandinavian dialect. Over the centuries, Gaelic speaking Celts had settled on the islands, and even a few English. No wonder the Thorseach, the people of his islands, were good with languages.

Ramsay turned to his painting of the Egyptian pyramids set against a blazing sunset sky. The picture was hinged on one side and he swung it away from the wall to reveal the mirror mounted on the back.

He concealed the mirror to avoid being accused of vanity. Its real purpose was so he could check his appearance when he was dressing up in local clothing in order to travel through the teeming city without being recognized as a foreigner.