I turned my back, dismissively, and reached for a clean shirt.

MacDougall said, “The master has troubles enough of his own, without looking tae yours. In the Earl of Mar’s regiment, he should by now be a captain commanding a company of his own men, and he’s written tae the earl himself saying so, as have the mistress’s high-flung relations, but he’s held back as a lieutenant while other, more cunning men rise—younger men, with less time in the army.” Men like you, he might have said, from the fierce burn of the gaze I knew well that MacDougall had aimed at my back. “With a wife and a bairn on the way, he’s no time tae be burdened with such as yerself. Ye’re not even a gentleman.”

I turned then. Met his eyes. “Then we are equal, you and I.”

There was a moment when I thought he might forget his station altogether and return the challenge in my tone with a strike of his fist. But he did not. Instead, he carefully laid out the towel he had brought, beside the basin.

Looking down, he commented, “That’s three days with no fever.”

“Aye.”

“It’s finished, then. Ye’re better.”

“Aye.”

“Good,” he said, and turned away. “Time ye were gone.”

* * *

“We must find you a wife while you’re here,” Turnbull’s wife said at breakfast. “No, you may smile, but a bachelor of your age—”

“Of my age? I’m not yet five and thirty. Still a few years younger than your husband, and I hope you will agree he’s hardly ancient.”

With a blush she laid a hand upon her rounded belly, in awareness that it proved the man she’d married was yet virile. But her wit would not be bested. “And my husband was a few years younger than he is now when he met me, so my point stands. What sort of woman do you favor? I have several friends in mind who might do well for you.”

“My dear Mrs. Turnbull—”

“Please do call me Helen.”

MacDougall cut in to serve our morning porridge. He gently set Helen’s bowl down, but set mine down hard, with a glower.

I’d had time while finishing dressing to think on his words without passion, and now that I knew my friend Turnbull was having his own struggles climbing the ranks, I agreed that my being here would only add to the weight Turnbull carried. I could not do that to my friend.

I replied, “My dear Helen, then. You’re very kind, but I’ve been in your care these ten days and I cannot impose on you longer, not now that I’m well.” I glanced at MacDougall, who narrowed his eyes as I told Helen lightly, “’Tis time I was gone.”

She looked at me, surprised. “You will not leave, I hope, until my husband has returned? He’d not forgive me if he learned that you’d been here and gone and he had missed your company.”

No more than I’d miss his, I knew, as I would miss the comforts of this house that I’d been able to explore these past few days since my last fevers had subsided and I had regained my strength.