Defeat did not mean Lily lowered her head, nor that she gave up thinking. Without saying anything, she moved past Archie to stand by the hearth.

“Tear it, first,” he instructed.

She did as he said. But while tossing the fluttering, pale strips of paper upon the coals, she folded one fragment carefully into her palm and concealed it there, counting on Archie not noticing, since both her hands were curled into tight fists. He’d think nothing of that minor gesture, for it was the way she had always reacted when she sought to hold back her temper.

“There, now. Ye’ve done wisely,” Archie said. “Good lass.”

She turned and, still not answering, walked by him to the door, and Archie moved aside to let her pass, but not before he commented, “I think it would be best if ye did not farewell your friend afore he sails. Ye might forget the terms that we’ve agreed to.”

Lily paused within the doorway. Turning back with head held high she told him, “I do keep my word, when I have given it.” And bravely added, “See ye do the same.”

She did not flee along the passage, although every instinct deep within her urged her to escape. Instead she kept her pace as slow and measured as she could, to show he had no power over her, and that she was not frightened.

But she was.

Upstairs, within the safety of her chamber, that fear rose and broke its chains and made her hands shake as she knelt to ease the wooden chest below the window forward from its place so she could gently pry up the loose floorboard. Underneath, within the shallow, hollow space, she kept the leather purse of silver coins Jamie had given her to use if she had need. To this she added now the ragged slip of paper she’d been holding in her closed hand. She’d torn it carefully when she had torn the letter, so the writing would be well preserved, that she might later make a copy of those two words that made Jamie’s signature.

She had not yet lost all of him. Not yet.

* * *

Two more full weeks passed before the five ships of the Africa Company sailed with the morning tide in mid-July. Jamie’s ship, the Saint Andrew, was flying the commodore’s pennant and sailed at the head of the small fleet that carried the hopes of a nation within their sealed orders that yet held the secret of their destination. It was said there was no space on the hillsides for miles around for all the people who crowded from Edinburgh’s castle hill right down to Leith’s pier to watch those ships slip their moorings, sails filling with wind as they headed out into the firth.

Lily was not among them.

Barbara, who had passed a restless night with indigestion and was lying late in bed, said, “I should think ye’d rather be out on the Shore and in the midst of the excitement, than in here with me.”