They all moaned with disappointment, even the ones who’d never seen her before in their lives.

“Just like a Scotswoman!”

“Only a month till Christmas, Nancy Scrooge!”

“And we’ve been in the air all night—”

“And Flight Officer Pennyworth needs something to fortify her so she can make her report—”

Old Nan’s eyes shone as if they were full of tears. “Not a drop will be served until half past eleven,” she said in a high voice.

“It’s already gone noon in Norway,” said Jamie.

“Too right!” Silver agreed. “Only three hundred miles away, an hour and a half in a Blenheim, closer than London!”

Everyone went back to drumming on the shining brass countertop, and Nan lifted the wooden yett to let herself behind the bar. There was a great howl and a thunder of applause.

“No, no, no!”

Awash with pleasure, wisps of hair escaping their glittery grips and getting in her eyes, Nan Campbell smacked someone’s hands away from the ale taps and primly began screwing on the nozzles. “Now, Chip, you know better!”

“Huh!”

Our Chip was a short and sturdy lad, with stubbled hair that made his head look like a worn-out scrubbing brush. He set to complaining. “Aw, there’s no policemen in sight, and that hill’s so steep y’all can hear anything pulling up a mile away. Just one of your ‘wee drams,’ ma’am—no one will know!”

“Not until eleven thirty!” said Nan firmly. “I keep lawful hours.”

Chip jerked his thumb over his shoulder, toward Louisa at the piano across the room.

“If you’re so law-abiding, what’s the little darkie doing in here?”

I flinched and froze with hate.

In my head I heard “filthy tinker” in place of “little darkie.” As if I expected it. It took a moment to realize he was being rude about Louisa and not about me.

And the stupid thing was that, being American, Chip wouldn’t have known me for a Traveller if I’d pitched a tent in his granny’s garden.

But the others would, the Scots and English and Welsh.

I knew how Louisa felt. Everybody turned to clap eyes on her, as if she’d been caught trying to nick something.

She leaped to her feet suddenly, pushing herself up with one hand on the piano keyboard so that it let out a crashing angry groan. She looked as if she were choosing whether to fight or to run.

She was holding it in. She was good at holding it in. But I could see she was afire with anger.