I’d marked his eyes before he took up that position, when I’d crossed to offer Mrs. Graeme my own coat, because the day’s warmth could not penetrate that tower’s walls, and in the shadows of that room the air had a decided chill.

She’d thanked me, and accepted my help as she put the coat around her shoulders.

Robert Moray during this had watched me, closely. “Sergeant…Williamson? Forgive me, but while I’ve met Gilroy several times, I do not know your face. Have ye worked long for Lord Grange?”

Voices like his, smooth and self-assured, came from a lifetime of servants and schooling, though even those had been unable to dislodge the deeper Perthshire accent underlying his more educated tones.

“My employment with Lord Grange,” I’d said, “is only temporary, and in the place of another.”

He had given me one more look, faintly curious, and that was when he’d leaned against the table. It had seemed a move made casually, although I came to doubt that he did anything at random.

Now he looked at Mrs. Graeme. “I am pleased to find ye well.”

“I thank you, Robin. I do wish I found you likeways.”

Seeming nonchalant, he raised one shoulder in a shrug. “’Tis but a small misunderstanding, which I trust will soon be put to rights. Ye need not be distressed.”

Yet he was, I observed. I’d walked too many years upon a razor’s edge myself to miss the telling signs of one who knew his fate was yet uncertain.

He sat a little too straight, making every effort not to let us see the effort that it took. I’d seen men do the same when they kept watch by night and, growing overtired, were determined not to let it show. And while his mind was quick, I did perceive a pause before he spoke, as though he had need of the space to concentrate.

For all his brave appearance, I’d have laid odds Robert Moray was not sleeping well.

It had not dulled his intellect.

He’d clearly had no difficulty following my explanation of why we were here, and his own thoughts had since been traveling on courses of their own. “I did not know that Lord Grange was appointed a commissioner,” he said, “to the Equivalent.”

He asked that directly of Gilroy. I let Gilroy answer.

“He’s not a commissioner, sir. But he has friends who are, and they have asked him to look into Mrs. Graeme’s claim.”

A trace of dryness touched the edge of Robert Moray’s voice. “And Lord Grange is obliging to his friends.”

Gilroy had also caught that edge. He said, “I can assure you, sir, Lord Grange was most displeased to find you have been treated thus, and wishes it were in his power to correct it.”

“Does he? That is very kind. Do thank him for me, and remind him, if ye will, that it is within his power, if it pleases him, to send a letter to his brother, who might have more influence.”