Wishing to impress her friend, she tried hard to remember this when Mrs. Reid retrieved the book of maps. “Come,” Maggie told Sophia, “you can show me where you live.”

But when she started to sit at the kitchen table, Mrs. Reid advised her, “Not there, I’ve been mixing things. Go through into the parlor. I believe your cousin’s still playing at cards with Mrs. Paterson.”

It still felt odd to think of Lily as her cousin, but James Graeme was her cousin, and now Lily was his wife, so that made Lily Maggie’s cousin also. It did take some getting used to.

In the parlor, they indeed found Lily with Sophia’s mother and Sophia’s older sister, Anna, who was too sophisticated to come join them as they spread the map book open on the floor and searched to find Kirkcudbright.

“That,” said Maggie, when Sophia found the place and pointed to it, “is the strangest way to spell it.”

And they searched then for odd-looking names, and tried to think of ways that they might be pronounced.

They were enjoying this so much that Maggie nearly didn’t notice when the man in the green coat arrived.

He’d been sent from the African Company, and asked for Mrs. Graeme.

He took his hat off, an action that knocked his wig slightly askew. Maggie wanted to fix it, but she knew that doing so would be unspeakably rude, so she stayed where she was, but it bothered her having to look at that one detail out of alignment.

The man’s smile was thin. “It was difficult finding you,” he said to Lily. “The company kept a most improper record when you passed through Edinburgh. I’d not have known that you even existed if not for the clerk you did speak to, and even he barely recalled you. I say this,” he said, “not to chastise you, but to explain and, I hope, to excuse my delay.”

Lily answered with a tight smile of her own, and then they talked briefly of how he had managed to find her in Greenock, which seemingly hadn’t been easy, and Maggie lost interest, drifting back into the game with the maps, until she heard the man saying, “I’m sorry,” and Sophia’s mother exclaimed, “Oh, my dear!”

Maggie looked up, and Lily was standing, her hands slowly closing to fists.

The man said, “It has been confirmed, I’m afraid, by two colonists who have but lately returned. It did happen last year, on the twenty-fifth day of October, on the journey down to the colony.”

Lily said quietly, “So Jamie never did reach Caledonia.”

“No, it is very unfortunate. We do mourn every man lost in this venture. There were a good number who died of the flux or of fever at sea, like your husband. I’m so very sorry.”

It couldn’t be true, Maggie knew. The man must be mistaken. Her cousin James couldn’t be dead. She had heard him promise Lily that, “A Graeme would not leave ye.” And a Graeme never lied. Lily had told her so. Which meant her cousin James could not be dead.