Wilde stood with me there, gazing down at the ships sailing out through the Sound to the wider sea.

He said, “Our town intends to write a protest to the secretary of Their Majesties. You may get compensation. When that comes, you’ll build another house.”

The measure of a man.

I drew myself up straighter, still with my eyes fixed upon those sails, and gave a nod and answered, “Aye. All things can be rebuilt.”

Chapter 17

Thursday, 25 September, 1707

Violet’s father sent his chairmen to collect her after dinner, and because I knew it was my duty, since I was the reason Helen had invited her to Caldow’s Land, I fetched my hat and walked her down the forestair to the street.

I had no doubt she looked decorative against my arm. She would make a splendid wife for some man who would then gain, by her father’s social standing, all the comfort and respect a man could ask of life. But I was not that man.

I’d been handed what I’d thought I wanted—what I had come home to find—and found it did not suit me after all.

She thanked me prettily, and held my hand a little longer than she needed to as I helped her up into the chair, and sent me a departing smile that raised a sigh from the two spinster sisters who kept shop beneath the Turnbulls’ lodgings, and who had been standing sheltered in the portico behind me.

When I smiled at them and bowed, they laughed and called me rogue and disappeared again into their shop. Amused, I turned back to the street.

Violet’s chair had moved off, giving me a view across the Landmarket. Inside the entrance to Hamilton’s Close, the man in the grey coat was leaning against the stone wall, with his hat pulled low.

That changed my mood. Behind me, a door opened and then shut again, and I heard steps descend the forestair. Turning, I saw Gilroy coming down with Lily.

Gilroy’s explanation was dispassionate. “Apparently there was some unrest in the street this morning. Mrs. Turnbull asked if I’d see Mrs. Graeme home.”

I was not surprised he’d volunteer for that, since it gave him a chance to ask her questions that seemed innocent without her knowing he suspected her of fraud. But it surprised me Mrs. Graeme had agreed to have an escort, since she’d turned me down the day that I had offered. It could not be because she favored Gilroy’s company—she stood apart from him, and looked uncomfortable.

But when she glanced across the street as though in search of somebody, I thought I understood.

I said, “I’ll walk with you.”

I don’t know if she genuinely stumbled on the street as we were crossing it, or whether it was by design, but either way she seemed to lose her balance for a moment and her hand reached, very naturally, to take my arm. It stayed there, small and sure and warm. I tucked my arm more tightly to my side to anchor it and keep it well protected.