But Barbara looked up from her cards and told him drily, “I doubt ye’ll have many clients who are ages with our Maggie.”

Matthew passed the little girl the page. “Take that to Lily. She’ll make you a princess.”

They all partly had a hand in it, for Lily wrote the body of the document, but Simon aged the edges of it, Walter bore it witness, as did Barbara, and Henry—who did special work with wax—designed a seal fit for the kingdom of their Princess Maggie’s birth.

Even Archie grudgingly agreed the end result was something beautiful. He petted Maggie’s head and said, “Now off with ye to bed and keep it safe. And all the rest of ye, stop wasting my supplies.”

Not all the documents they worked upon were fraudulent or false.

Archie was a notary, and as such he served those who were respectable as well, and performed duties that were legal.

Late in February, a new client turned up on their doorstep. Walter showed him in, since Archie had gone out with Simon on another errand.

Lily had been helping Maggie with her writing lessons in the front room, but she stood when Walter and the visitor came in.

She recognized him straightaway. He had changed little in the ten years since she’d seen him at Jean’s wedding.

Thomas Gordon would now be just shy of thirty, she decided, and his features had grown firmer in their contours, but his eyes were just as blue as she recalled them being, and his smile was just as quick to charm.

He did not know her. Even when they had been briefly introduced and he had bowed, his gaze passed over her to Maggie and she realized she had not made an impression when they’d met. And she had changed. She was no more the little girl who’d sat with Jamie on the barrel at the penny wedding, cracking walnuts with the tool that Gordon used for his ship’s navigation while he told her life was for the living.

“That’s a bonny name,” he said to Maggie. “One of my best ships is named the Margaret.”

Maggie’s eyes became too large for Lily’s liking. Lily did not trust men who showed such attention to young girls. She said, “Ye will excuse us.”

Firmly taking Maggie’s hand, she left the men to settle their affairs.

Later, when Gordon was gone, she went down to the front room to study the papers that Walter had set on the work table. “This is for him?” she asked.

“Aye. He needs two copies made by Wednesday.”

Plain, straightforward work. It was only a pass that was issued in France giving Gordon permission to sail to that kingdom. She’d copied passes in French before and had gained some of the sense of that language. “It says that his ship and his crew are Dutch.”

Matthew, that evening, disputed this. Working so long at the harbor, he was well acquainted with some of the skippers. He’d crossed paths with Gordon a few times. He’d heard things.