A multitude of thoughts chased through my mind as I was entering that kitchen, but I had no time to sort them.

Marion Bell shut the door to the close at my back and she bolted that, too. Then she took a step backward, to put space between us, and came to the point.

“You’ll think me very forward and I’m sorry for it, but it can’t be helped. I have to know if what you said is true,” she said. “I have to know—is Lily still alive?”

Chapter 10

Wednesday, 5 August, 1685

Jamie went first through the Netherbow.

From the beginning, he’d done that to show her that she had no reason to fear. “See?” he’d told her the first time, two years ago. “It’s nothing more than a gate.” She hadn’t believed him then. She’d thought it looked like a castle.

To her eyes, it still had the look of one, blocking the street with its solid, stone walls rising two stories high, and round turrets protecting the arched passage that could be closed off at will with an iron portcullis, now winched up and firmly secured. The tall, pointed roofs of the turrets with their crenellations were dwarfed in turn by the square tower that rose like a castle keep over the archway. The tower soared skyward to end in a spire, and contained both a bell and the works of a clock that faced out to the town.

There were guards here, as well.

Lily tried not to look at them as she passed by, since it raised memories of when her father had taken his turn standing guard here. Captain Graeme, as though understanding, offered her his hand, and Lily took it as they walked together underneath the great portcullis.

Jamie had gone through the smaller door off to the side, meant for foot traffic, but Captain Graeme knew Lily was not over fond of small spaces, so he took her under the arch built for wagons and horses and rich men’s sedan chairs, and as they came through to the other side, into the Canongate, Jamie was already standing there, waiting.

“Ye’ll like Mr. Bell,” Jamie promised her. “And, Lily, his father once made a sword for Montrose. And another for Grandfather.”

“Aye,” said the captain, when Lily looked up at him for confirmation of this. “Mr. Bell’s family has been connected to ours a long time, much like yours.”

She was pleased by that.

“And,” Jamie added, “ye’ve only to ask him and he’ll let ye hold any blade, if ye mind what he says and are careful.”

She already knew that she’d like Mr. Bell, for the captain had told her she would, and she trusted the captain. She still worried, though, whether Mr. Bell would like her.

On waking that morning she’d scrubbed her face shiny and taken great pains with her clothing and hair, and she’d wished that her sleeves weren’t so plain and her skirts weren’t so limp, until Jean with a kiss and a smile had said, “That is my favorite of all of your aprons. The stitching’s the very same blue as your eyes.” And then, suddenly, she had felt something like confidence.