Had he conjured it from thin air I’d not have been more astonished. “How did you…?”

Taking the first set of papers he’d shown me—the ones from the trial—he began feeding them to the fire.

“The way I see it,” Gilroy said, “there was a lad named Matthew Browne, once. Born a foundling, raised at Leith, who was ill-used and sent to the Americas. But there his trail ends. It was never Matthew who marched up from Albany to fight the French, and it’s for certain Adam Williamson came back.”

He said it in a sure tone, as if he understood the stigma of the Browne name and how badly I wished to be free of it and everything it represented.

“Some say Matthew Browne came back to Leith awhile,” said Gilroy, “but I am not certain that he did. I think the man people saw then was Adam Williamson as well, he only needed to find out who he was meant to be.”

I did not know how to reply. “He took his time.”

“We get there in the end.” He held his hand out. “It’s been good to know you, Sergeant Williamson.”

Above the handshake, I found myself searching for words that would not sound inadequate. None came, at first. And then suddenly, there they were.

I asked him, “How would you like to come dance at my wedding?”

Chapter 40

Friday, 17 October, 1707

We had to wait for Gordon.

He arrived just after seven in the evening, very dashing in his blue coat with gold buttons and gold braid. “I found this bit of baggage lying about,” he said, as he drew Maggie across the threshold with him, “so I thought I’d bring her with us.”

She apologized. “It’s my fault we are late,” she said. “My classes ran on longer than they ought to have.”

Behind her came a gentleman who looked to me as though he might be seventy or so, with steel-grey hair showing beneath his hat, and kindly eyes that met mine warmly.

“Mr. Cant?” I shook his hand. “I’m Adam Williamson.”

“A pleasure. May I ask”—he glanced around—“where is my Lily?”

There may well have been more heartwarming reunions, but I can’t say I have witnessed them.

There may, too, have been more memorable weddings, but I haven’t taken part in them.

It did seem only fitting we should marry, not within a church or great cathedral, but there in the front room of the little house in Riddell’s Close, where we had passed so many hours together, with our friends, our joy, and Barbara’s loving spirit crowding out the darker memories.

We used Barbara’s ring as well—that bit of silver that did carry love as deeply and as surely as the little silver heart I’d given Lily all those years ago, that she had worn above her own heart where no one could see it, and that she wore now for all the world to see, pinned to the bodice of the orange-flowered gown.