Captain Graeme said, “Aye, well, that’s the thing about wolves, lad. They don’t always look the way ye would expect them to.”

Mr. Bell turned his attention to Lily, who through this discussion had stood back and held her tongue shyly.

“And what about you?” he asked. “Is there a sword you would wish to see?”

Uncertainly, she glanced around the shop, not wanting to disappoint him. And then she saw it.

He followed her gaze. “Ah, yes. This one.” He fetched it, and laid it in front of her, with understanding. “It looks like your daddie’s.”

It wasn’t, of course. There were differences in the design of the hilt. But the sure way he’d said those words made Lily look at him. “You knew my father?”

“I did. I took care of his sword for him.” Mr. Bell touched the blade lightly, and coughed, and looked sharply down, but in a moment he lifted his gaze to meet Lily’s again, and his eyes held a warm promise. “And I will take the same care of his daughter.”

* * *

The kitchen was familiar ground.

Larger than the one in Kinloch’s Close, it was not yet so large as the great kitchen up at Inchbrakie, and any nervous feelings Lily had were calmed by the reminder she’d been taught well by her grandmother.

The Bells had one maidservant, Nanse, who both kept house and cooked and seemed relieved to have an extra pair of hands to help, although she was particular about how things were done. By that first dinnertime, so many rules had been explained to Lily that she didn’t think she’d have a hope of keeping them in mind. But Nanse was friendly—an older woman with ruddy cheeks and fading copper-colored hair beneath her cap—and she sometimes sang while doing work, and Lily liked her.

Nanse was quick to praise. On seeing Lily smooth and spread a washing cloth flat to let it dry, Nanse said, “Ye are a careful worker, and I’m glad to have ye here. The last lass would not learn so small a thing as that. She aye would leave my washing clouts balled up and damp around the kitchen till they rotted through with holes.”

Lily hadn’t known there’d been another girl before her, although of course it did make sense, for there was too much housework here for Nanse alone to do it all, and keep the kitchen, too.

The house had many rooms and passages and stairs to be kept clean. The beds needed airing and making up, everything had to be dusted and swept, and the candles all kept in good order and new ones set in where required. There were linens—bed, body, and table—that had to be laundered and dried. The cooking seemed constant, as did the washing up, and any spare moments were filled with spinning and mending.

When evening came, Lily was so weary she wanted no more than to crawl into the low pallet bed she shared with Nanse by the kitchen wall and let the waves of sleep rise and roll over her, dragging her down till they drowned out the ache of her homesickness.