Matthew looked down at her, quizzical. “If you mean the ship that your Colonel Graeme’s on, it sailed already this morning, as soon as the wind turned fair.”

“Oh,” Lily said. “Oh, I see.”

She did not know why it suddenly pained her so deeply, when she had not seen Colonel Graeme nor Jamie these past six years, but there was something incredibly cruel about having them brought here so close and then taken away again without her once being able to contact them, and it broke something in Lily.

Her eyes were stinging as she stood. “I see,” she said again, although increasingly she could not see, because the tears were swimming in her eyes. Then they spilled over.

She’d have turned away and run then, to her room and private sorrow, only Matthew caught her hand and drew her close and held her, unexpectedly.

“It’s all right,” he said, although of course he had no way of knowing what was wrong, or how it could be fixed. But she believed him. Matthew’s chin came down and rested on her head and Lily rested in his arms like that and felt secure, and for a moment all the things that worried her felt small and far away.

* * *

Barbara saw before anyone else did.

She told Lily, “Best not let Archie see that ye like Matthew.”

They were in the kitchen and Lily was glad of the heat from the hearth since it gave an excuse for the warmth that rose instantly into her cheeks. “Ye’re seeing things.”

“Aye, I ken fine what I’m seeing. Ye might as well hand him your heart and be done with it.”

Lily knew there was no point in denying it. “If I did, he wouldn’t take it,” she said, certain. “He doesn’t look at me in the same way.”

Barbara reached to touch Lily’s cheek. “I see the way that he looks at ye.”

Lily stopped work for a moment and, turning her head, looked at Barbara, who told her, “They put Matthew into my arms when he was but a few days old, and I can tell when there’s something he wants—sometimes even before he has reasoned it out for himself. Give him time. Matthew doesn’t trust easily. And he’ll be trying to keep ye from harm. Which is why, as I say, ye should guard how ye’re feeling from Archie.”

Lily was very aware of the tension that stretched between Archie and Matthew when they were together, but hearing this warning from Barbara now made her take notice. Barbara did not make such comments lightly.

Taking a firmer grip on her knife, Lily went back to her chopping. “Why? What would Archie do?”

She had become accustomed to the pattern of their talks and knew that pauses were to be expected, but when she had finished with the carrot and an onion and scraped both into the broth that simmered on the hearth, and still no answer came, she turned again in puzzlement.