He had laughing eyes that crinkled at the corners, and his smile showed beneath the greying beard. “And it would please me, lass, to follow ye.”

She took him in the back way, through the stables and the storerooms to the corridor that ran along the courtyard. She’d been right about his height—his shoulders were not far above the level of her own, and he was built compactly, yet he had a presence and a strength about him and he had a soldier’s walk, not swaggering but self-assured. It made her think of Moray. And like Moray, Colonel Graeme wore, beneath his cloak, a basic leather buffcoat over breeks and boots, his sword belt slung across his shoulder with the ease of one who had long worn it.

“My memory is not what is was,” he told her, with a sideways glance, “but am I right in thinking ye were not at Slains two years ago? Or were ye hiding with the horses then, as well?”

She liked his eyes, his face, his friendly manner. “No, I was not here. I only came last spring.”

“Oh, aye?” He showed a keener interest. “Was that afore or after Colonel Hooke was here, with his companion?”

They’d come around the courtyard now, and reached the steps that led upstairs, and she was grateful that she was ahead of him so that her face was hidden while her voice pretended ignorance. For though she liked this man, she could not easily forget the need for caution. Repeating “Colonel Hooke…,” she shook her head and told him, “I regret I have no memory of the name.”

“’Tis of no matter.”

As they reached the upper floor the earl stepped out into the passage from the library and narrowly missed colliding with them.

“Colonel Graeme!” Looking as surprised and pleased as Rory had been earlier, the earl reached out to greet the colonel with a hearty handshake. “Where in God’s name have you sprung from?”

“I can tell ye that, your lordship, when ye’ve offered me a dram.”

Sophia had not heard another man, except the Duke of Hamilton, be so familiar with the earl—the colonel said “your lordship” in a tone so much at ease that he might just as well have said “my lad.” But from the earl’s acceptance of it she assumed the two men shared a long acquaintance, and her sense of this was strengthened when the earl, with one hand clapped around the colonel’s shoulder, steered him through the doorway of the drawing room, announcing, “Mother, look at who has come.”

The countess came across, delighted. “I heard no one at the door.”

“I came directly from the stables. Mistress Paterson was brave enough to guide me, though I look a proper rogue and we’ve not yet been introduced.”

The countess smiled. “Then let me set that right. Sophia, this is Colonel Graeme. He is truthfully a rogue, as he admits, but one we welcome in our midst.” Turning to the colonel, she said, “Patrick, this is Mistress Paterson, our kinswoman, who came this year to live with us.”