But that hadn’t helped Lily feel better when she looked up at the dark eyes of the Marquis of Montrose that beckoned her to follow from his portrait.

She was thinking of that feeling now, as she tried to keep pace with Jamie through the field of waving summer grass that sang with unseen insects.

Seeing him with his twig sword in hand, striding ahead of her, she heard his cousin Anna’s voice repeating in her memory, “This is who your friend Jamie is named for,” and she frowned.

“Jamie?”

“Aye?”

“You’re not to be a soldier. Not for real,” she told him, as he turned round, with a question in his eyes.

“Why’s that?”

She could not tell him.

Jamie swung his sword in play, and Lily raised her own to parry his the way she had been taught.

“Your daddie is a soldier,” Jamie said, “and so is mine.”

“I ken that, but I’d not wish ye to be one.”

“I’ve no wish to be a soldier,” he admitted, to her great relief.

They found the others waiting for them at the bottom of the gardens of the house at Abercairney, where the river slid by at a languid pace and gave a view of the two islands that divided the calm waters.

Anna was not there—she was fifteen now, and had lately fancied herself grown too old for games, as had her brother William, one year younger, who was similarly absent.

But the other Moray boys were ready with their weapons: Robin, who at thirteen stood the tallest and could win at any argument; the youngest, Maurice, only six, who still kept up as best he could, and in between them John, eleven and a half this summer, and in restless motion.

John’s sword was a thing of wonder. Fashioned out of wood, it looked astonishingly real, and had a scabbard he had made for it of leather. What John did, he did with purpose.

Lily knew he wished to be a soldier, a dream shared by Jamie’s brother Pat, who stepped out now in front of them.

“Ye took your time,” Pat said to Jamie.

“Aye, well, she had work to finish.”

“We’ve been waiting ages,” Pat complained.

Lily began a quick apology, but Robin Moray, stepping up behind her, placed a reassuring hand upon her shoulder. “Never mind, you’re here now.” Turning to his younger sister, he asked, “What’s the game to be?”

Emelia, with her fair hair loose about her shoulders, stood a moment by the sundial, thinking. She was good at organizing games. Sometimes they’d all be bold adventurers, exploring on the island, or a band of privateers at war with Spain, or questing knights in search of dragons. But today, as if her thoughts had somehow been drawn back into the same current of memory Lily’s had, she chose a game they’d not played since last summer: “Covenanters and Montrose.”

John grinned. He loved this game. “I’ll be Montrose.”

Pat leapt in next. “And I’ll be Grandfather.”