Henry was puzzled. “What does that prove?”

This was personal, for Lily. “I’ll not claim a knowledge of Scots law, but Maggie’s being sent to London, and if ye do read that book of English trials just there, ye’ll find that ten’s a magic age, for girls. Below that, if a man does have relations with ye, it is counted rape. But once ye pass the age of ten, the man can say ye did consent.” She felt a sickness in her belly even saying it—the same sickness she’d felt when she’d first read those words within that book, and thought back to the day that Mr. Bell had told her that her own tenth birthday was important because when she’d passed it, she would no more be a child but a young lady. “Therefore,” he’d said, smiling, “we must celebrate it in a special way.”

Lily saw, from Henry’s eyes, that he was finally seeing and accepting the full horror of their situation. Looking at her helplessly, he asked, “Where will ye go?”

“The less I tell ye,” Lily said, “the less ye’ll have to lie.”

He smiled, and smiles from Henry were a rare thing these days. “Do ye not think I can tell a lie?”

“I think ye’ve told too many, living here,” she said. “It’s not your nature.” He had always been the kindest and most uncorrupted of the brothers, and she told him so. “I’ll not contribute to your downfall.”

“Most would tell ye it’s too late for that.” He was still smiling, but his eyes had altered and she knew that he was deeply moved. “Ye have the papers that ye need?”

She nodded.

She did not have all the papers that she would have liked to have. That evening she had forced herself to enter Barbara’s chamber—something difficult to do, because instead of giving solace to her, seeing all those tangible reminders of the woman she had loved so fiercely only brought the loss of her more sharply into focus, as when looking at a garment with a hole in it, no matter how you tried to keep your eyes from it, you only saw the hole.

The strongbox had been still in place beneath the bed, the key beneath the bolster, and it had not taken Lily very long to spring the lock. There had been papers yet inside the box. But Maggie’s letters from her father, in their bundle tied with string, were gone.

Whatever purpose Archie had in taking them was yet unclear. That there would be a purpose, Lily knew beyond all doubt, and that knowledge spurred her on to finish her own work.

She’d made a birth certificate for Maggie, and although she could not recreate the letter Jamie wrote her, she had gone one better, making a certificate of marriage.

After all, unmarried women could not travel freely, and at any place they could be pressed into domestic service. Lily could not take the chance, with Maggie in her care, that such a thing might happen. She’d allowed herself the one small lie which sat upon her conscience the more easily because she knew that Jamie would forgive her for it, given all the times he truly had asked her to marry him.