He studied me a moment longer, then he came to a decision. “In December, of the year before my cousin Jamie sailed to Darien, I did return to Scotland on the business of King James. In Leith, I saw my cousin, and he told me he’d seen Lily. He was troubled,” Moray said, “for although grateful to have found her, he did fear she was unhappy.” A pause. “He told me he had asked her would she marry him.”

I waited. “Did he tell you what she answered?”

“Evidently it was yes.”

He did not know the truth, then—that the marriage had not taken place; that Lily had refused his cousin, and had only forged that false certificate so she could take young Maggie Graeme to safety.

But Moray’s lack of knowledge might be useful. The most direct way out of Lily’s problem was to prove the marriage, and for that there would be few things better than a witness.

“Since you care for Lily and you wish to be of help to her,” I said, “I take it you’ll sign a testificate to state exactly that? Your cousin James asked her to marry him?”

“It is because I care for her,” he said, “that I cannot.”

I felt a rush of pure frustration. “Why not? Speak plainly, if you can.”

“I’m sure ye’ll work it through.”

I did not lose my temper, to my credit, but I lost my patience. “I am done with wasting time,” I told him. “Lily’s not your playing piece, and this is not a game.”

His voice turned cool. “I would remind ye which of us is free to leave this chamber and go home, and which of us must daily wonder if he is to keep his head. Believe me when I tell ye I am well aware ’tis not a game.”

It was the closest I had seen him come to showing worry for his safety, but he tamped it down again and carried on in a more even tone, as though he were my schoolmaster.

“It isn’t me they want, it’s John. Ye heard them say so for yourself.”

“Yes. At the Earl of Seafield’s. They believed he’d been here planning the invasion.”

Moray said, “My brother John does have the confidence and trust of young King James and of the queen his mother, who counts John among her favorites at the court of Saint-Germain. The English—and their allies here in Scotland—know that if there’s an invasion coming, John will ken its secrets.”

I suspected he did not speak half so freely with most men, and that it likely went against his better judgment and his nature to do so with me. In recognition of that, I chose not to ask him if there would be an invasion in the spring. It did not matter.

“But,” he said, “they don’t have any way to draw John out where they can capture him. I don’t doubt when they put me in here, they were hoping he might try to rescue me, but John’s not such a fool—nor would I ever thank him for risking our cause and his life in exchange for mine. But if John had a wife? And if she were in this prison? He’d tear the town apart to set her free, and well they ken it.” Moray told me, in the even tone men use when they do swear an oath, “Our women are the heart of us, and no man of my family would do any less.” He paused a moment. Asked me, “Are ye following?”