“Poor Marion,” said Lily. “I did like her. She was good to me.” And then, “Perhaps I’ll write to her.”

I said I thought that was a fine idea.

“Though I am glad you went to see her first,” said Lily, “for at least she does know now that I’m alive. It would be a great shock, I think, to get a letter from a person you believed was dead.”

There were shadows in the corners of the chamber and I felt, while we were talking, that the dead were somehow with us, settling in to listen, too. I felt the living ghosts as well, of what had been and might have been—the more so when the candle in the window guttered and went out on a slight, wispy puff of smoke that hung a moment in the air.

That startled Lily, who’d been sure she’d had three hours left yet of that candle. Then she realized we’d been talking for that long. “I am so sorry.”

“Why? I have enjoyed our talk. Besides, I’m not expected back at Caldow’s Land till morning. When I left with Captain Gordon, he implied our night would be…debauched.”

“I’m sorry to have spoilt it.”

Once again I turned her own words back upon her. “You could never spoil anything.”

The warmth I felt between us did owe nothing to the fire. Her instinct, unlike mine, was to escape it, and I could not blame her. Burns were dangerous.

I kept my seat while Lily rose and took the cups we’d used for wine while we were talking. As she passed me, I could see the weariness upon her face that came not from the lateness of the hour, but from the loneliness of how she lived.

Again I thought of Helen Turnbull, in the comfort of her rooms at Caldow’s Land, who in the absence of her husband—even with him—had the housekeeping assistance of MacDougall and the maid, while Lily kept these lodgings on her own. No matter this was but a single room, it still took effort, and with no one else to share the burden or to keep her company most days, the work must have seemed unrelenting.

I looked around. The coals within the fireplace needed to be banked up properly so that they’d not burn perilously through the night, but would still hold enough heat in the morning to come once again to life and let a new fire be rekindled. That, at least, was one small thing that I could do for Lily while she cleared our cups away. I was finishing the final task of covering the embers with thin layer of ashes when I felt the weight of silence at my back, and knew that I was being watched.

Still bending at the hearth, I glanced behind, over my shoulder.

In a quiet voice, she said, “You’re a good man.”

Having heard her tales, I understood the weight of those words now in a way few men could. “I’m not,” I told her, “actually. I’m truly not.” I stood, and closed the space between us, and she did not move but waited for me, her face tilting up as I came nearer. “You’ve had wine,” I said, reminding myself of that fact as much as her.