It cost me more this time. The man I hired had looked at me and nodded to the sky. “You see a storm is coming.”

“Aye,” I’d said. “I know.”

The rain and wind had started shortly after, and since then the weather had stayed foul.

It had held Gilroy in the north. He’d sent us word of his delay, with his apologies—or what, for Gilroy, passed for an apology, and was no more than his brusque statement he’d be with us when he could. And so I waited.

I had work to keep me occupied, but there was only so much I could do alone, and once I’d written all the notes I felt I needed, I grew restless.

At least on the first two nights, although the wind stayed fierce, there’d been enough breaks in the weather that I had been able to get out to take my evening walk, but last night it had rained so hard that Helen had been horrified to see me take my hat and cloak and move toward the door.

“You’re never going out tonight in that,” she’d said. “You’ll have your fever back.”

I knew she was not wrong so I relented, but MacDougall had not missed the opportunity to say, “Ye’d think spending all the day locked up with books would give ye better judgment.”

All this week, MacDougall had been prodding at my patience. Helen had informed him he was not to interrupt me in the writing chamber when I was at work, and this had left him irritated.

“Next ye’ll be wanting a key to the lock on the door, will ye?” he’d asked me caustically.

“Is there one?” I’d countered, and since this exchange had taken place in front of Helen there’d been nothing he could do but own the fact that yes, there was, and fetch it for me, meaning I’d been able to do all my work in privacy.

The lock was a strong French one, and while I doubted MacDougall, with all his rough ways, had much skill as a picklock, I still secured all the papers away in the scrutore each day to be doubly safe. Some family secrets weren’t meant to be shared, and the notes I’d compiled for Gilroy were meant for his eyes alone.

I had taken care with what I wrote, and yet this morning Helen had, across the breakfast table, said, “My husband gets that same look when there’s something he has left undone.”

I’d pondered that this past hour.

Now, I took the illustrated book I’d bought of plants of the Americas, and gathered up a file of paper with a pen and ink, locked up the scrutore and the writing chamber, and went off to fetch my cloak and hat.

This time, when I passed Helen in the drawing room, I assured her I’d be in no danger. “There’s no rain this morning, only wind.”

She looked at me with open curiosity. “Where are you going?”