“No need,” said Archie. With a hand he guided her along toward to the workroom. “I but mean to show ye what needs doing, I’ll not keep ye long.”

On the table in the workroom, Archie had set out the necessary papers and the pens. “It is a birth brief that we’re needing, for a young man going to the colony. The council did not grant him one because he could not prove to them his origins. His birth is, shall we say, disputed by the family. But he does have a testificate to show his genealogy.”

Sometimes when Lily looked at papers such as this one they were clearly falsified, drawn up all in one hand and badly done, but this one did look to be genuine. So it would seem the only thing that barred the young man from his future was that he’d been born as the result of fornication, illegitimate, and had thus grown from childhood in a world made smaller and less kind by other people’s prejudice. It would not trouble Lily’s conscience to write this young man his birth brief so that he might start his life in a new world, away from such constraints.

Archie informed her, “He needs it by Saturday. I said that would be no problem.”

“No trouble at all,” Lily said.

“He must be on his ship by Monday,” Archie said. “I do expect your friend got the same order.”

Lily’s heart dropped, but she knew that sometimes Archie knew things, and sometimes he was just searching, so she strove for lightness as she asked, “What friend?”

“The one ye walk with every Wednesday on the sands.” He said it casually. “I must admit that at the first I did believe ye, for I thought our Lily would not tell a lie. If she says she has only gone to take the air, then that’s what she is doing. And I kent that Matthew’s leaving left ye melancholy.” That, she knew, was said to twist the knife, and it succeeded. “Then a few weeks back, one of my lads says, Archie, did ye ken your lass has found a new man? So then I took notice.”

Lily sought to hide her inner panic with a mask of bravery. “Am I not allowed a friend?”

“Of course.” The chilling thing with Archie was that, unlike most men who could do you harm, he did not raise his voice. He rarely changed his tone. Only his eyes changed, their humanity replaced by hardness. “What was in the letter that he gave to ye this morning? May I see it?”

“It is private.”

“Nonetheless.” He held his hand out, waiting.

Lily knew she had no choice. Physically, she was no match for Archie. He would take the letter from her if he wished. She might have called for help, but who was there to help her? Matthew was long gone, and Simon—the only other of the brothers able to stand up to Archie—wasn’t in the house today. However much Walter and Henry might love her, neither had the strength to defend her, and to ask it of them would be most unfair.