Nanse said, “The laird won’t be the only Catholic thinking now to arm himself.”

“Indeed. When Mr. Bell comes home, would ye be kind enough to let him know I wish to have a word with his apprentice? He can send the lad to see me at the Tolbooth.” Captain Graeme waited until Nanse had said she’d pass the message on, and then he thanked her.

All this time he had been holding on to Lily’s hand, but now he let it go. “And ye’re to bide indoors,” he said to Lily. “What ye did was brave, and I am grateful that ye did it, but some days it is difficult to do the work I must do and protect those I most care about at the same time. That’s why I sent Jamie to Perth, ye ken? So promise me ye’ll bide here till the streets are safe.”

He’d just said he cared for her. Lily said solemnly, “I promise.”

“Good lass.” He moved to the door.

“Captain Graeme?”

“Aye?”

Lily was thinking of what he had said to her earlier, about how some people weren’t all they seemed; how the people you most trusted oft let you down, and she suddenly needed to make sure he knew she knew he wasn’t one of those people. That he knew she cared for him, too. She said, “Ye’ve always had my trust. And ye would not disappoint me.”

His face, in the shifting of shadows and light from the fire on the hearth, showed her little response for a moment while he worked the reference back in his own mind. Then his eyes warmed.

The captain brushed Lily’s hair back from her forehead and, bending, kissed her exactly where her father always had kissed her to sweeten her dreams. Quietly he told her, “God grant I never will.”

And then he stepped through the door and was gone, and the room all at once seemed cold and empty.

Chapter 12

Thursday, 4 February, 1686

When Lily went to clear breakfast three days later, Mr. Bell was at the table alone.

He looked up as she entered the room. “Lily, give me your counsel.”

“Sir?”

“If you were me, and your wayward apprentice were held in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh under suspicion of being involved in the tumult of Monday night, would you allow him to stay in that prison? Or would you arrange for his bond so that he may be free while awaiting his trial?”

Lily cautiously set down her tray on the table and started to load it with dishes. “I’d do what I could, sir, to help him. He did nothing wrong.”

“So he says. So you say,” he granted, for Lily had told him what she’d overheard Monday morning. “But others would claim he took part in the violence.” And the second night had been worse than the first.

Lily said, “They were probably angry with him for refusing to join them, and angrier still they’ve been caught, and they wish their revenge.”