“He is not bad,” Lily told him. “He is honest.”

“Then I promise ye, if he is as ye say, and tells the truth and takes no part in any rising, he will not be harmed.”

“Ye promise?”

“Aye. And that’s a thing ye can take with ye to your grave, the promise of a Graeme.”

Lily was not altogether certain. “Jamie promised me he would not leave me. And now he is gone.”

The captain’s mouth curved faintly at the corner, and he stood to his full height. “He had no choice in that decision, I’m the one ye want to blame. Truth is, he would have wished to stay where ye are, and when this unrest is over, he’ll be at your side again.” He reached for Lily’s hand. “Come, I’ll walk ye back.”

“But the Lord Provost is waiting.”

“I’ll not be gone a quarter of an hour,” he said.

She closed her fingers round his hand, as always finding the firm comfort of his grasp and his sure, easy stride a steady reassurance. “Captain Graeme?”

“Aye?”

“Should ye not have men guarding ye?”

“I will be fine, lass.”

“He said they would kill ye.”

He smiled. “They can try. But my daddie would tell them the devil’s aye kind to his own.”

Lily didn’t think that Captain Graeme was acquainted with the devil, but she knew the captain’s daddie was the old Laird of Inchbrakie, who’d been a great soldier and survived long years of battling the Covenanters, so perhaps that same good fortune would hold for the captain. She wished for it, regardless, and held tighter to his hand.

As they approached the Netherbow, the guardsmen straightened to attention, and the guard who’d let her pass drew up defensively and told the captain, “She did claim to have a message for you, sir, of great importance.”

“Aye, and so it was,” said Captain Graeme. “Very great importance. Ye did right to send her through.”

The guardsman visibly relaxed, and Lily swelled with pride as she passed with the captain through the Netherbow.

The Canongate was quiet yet. Some of the candle lanterns had been lit along the street against the coming darkness, but the windows for the most part were well shuttered as though violence was expected. Lily led the captain up the steps from Bell’s Close and into the kitchen, back the way she’d come, surprising Nanse, who had not realized she had left the house.

“I thought ye were in the drawing room with Mistress Bell,” she said, one hand pressed to her heart as though to will it to resume its normal pace.

“There’s no harm done,” the captain said. “She only came to give me something I had need of.” Then, before Nanse could inquire what that might be, he asked, “Has Mr. Bell returned from Niddrie?”

Nanse’s face cleared. “Is that where he’s gone?”

“That’s where he was going when I saw him heading from the town this morn. The Laird of Niddrie called him for a private consultation on the making of some swords.”