“Aye, half a cup. ’Tis not enough to meddle with my reason. Most men would attempt to give me more.”

“I’m not most men,” I said.

“I ken that.” As though she could feel the conflict in me and desired to calm it, she reached up and lightly touched my face and told me, “Stay.”

My life had left me hardened. I had seen and done things in it that were better left unsaid, and I had traveled far beyond the comforts most men knew, and learnt to live with none. I’d grown resilient. I had fought men, and I’d killed them. And yet standing now before this woman—and before her only—I felt vulnerable.

I said, “I’d like to hear you call me Adam. Could you do that?”

Lily nodded. “It’s a fine, strong name,” she told me. “Adam.”

“Say it over.” I was asking her, not ordering, my head already lowered so we breathed together.

“Adam.”

In my life I’d kissed more expertly, but never with more passion, nor more tenderness. Time stopped for me, and then I stopped as well, because my hand, which had been traveling its own path, had slipped underneath the neckline of her bodice, where the thin, smooth linen of her shift edged over her firm stays. And there my fingers touched a tiny object that dislodged itself into my palm.

I drew my head back and looked down. It was the little silver brooch, the heart-shaped brooch topped with a crown, that was itself made up of smaller hearts and roses.

Lily’s hand came briefly into mine as she took back the brooch from me and pinned it where it had been on her stays, above her own heart, saying, “It does hold the memory of a time when I was loved.”

With the fingertips of both my hands I gently brushed the darkly curling hair back from her face to either side of those blue eyes.

“Love,” I said, “should be more than a memory.”

Lily reached for me, and told me, “So then stay.”

And then I knew that I was right and she had been mistaken, for a good man would have told her no, and kissed her one last time, and made her lock her door against him as he left her there alone.

A good man would never have lifted her, the way I did, and carried her across to where the bed lay in the corner of the chamber. He would not have stood without a protest while she pushed his coat impatiently down from his shoulders, tugged his shirt over his head, and brought his mouth back down to hers.

I was not a good man, as I’d warned her.

So I stayed.

Chapter 35

Saturday, 4 October, 1707

The guard was not inclined to let me in. I did as I had done with the first guard at the portcullis gate, and showed again the pass the Earl of Seafield had provided me, that I had kept against such an occasion in my pocket. “It does plainly say that I’m to be admitted on demand at any hour,” I pointed out, and stood my ground before the guard.