If I didn’t answer right away, it was because I didn’t want to be reminded that Sophia hadn’t ended up with Moray. I had gotten so caught up in their romance, I didn’t like to think of any ending for them but a happy one.

‘It’s too bad,’ said my father, not quite serious, ‘you didn’t get David’s memory. I’d love to find out anything about his early years in Ireland, before he got married. The family Bible doesn’t start till then.’

I said, reacting to his tone of voice, and not his words, ‘I knew it.’

‘What?’

‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

‘Honey, whether I believe or not, it doesn’t matter. I can’t offer any explanation of my own, how you came up with all those names and dates from nowhere, so I guess that your genetic memory theory makes about as much sense as anything.’

‘Well, thanks.’

‘I mean, I’d hoped it was a book you’d found, or something.’

‘Sorry to disappoint.’

‘You haven’t disappointed me,’ he said. ‘You’ve got me back two generations on the Patersons. And like I said, I’ll keep an open mind.’

I knew my father well enough to know he’d keep that promise, and that if I passed on any other details I ‘remembered’ from Sophia’s life, he’d search for documenting evidence, the same as he’d have done if I were finding information in a book.

But I didn’t choose to tell him, yet, that it might just be possible Sophia’s marriage to our own McClelland hadn’t been her first; that three years earlier, she might have bound herself by handfast to a young Lieutenant-Colonel in the French king’s service.

That was knowledge that I wanted to hold closely to myself a while longer.

There was nothing that my father could have found to prove it, anyway, and even if there had been, something deep within me wanted me to keep Sophia’s secret, as she’d kept it for herself, those many years ago.

And I obeyed the instinct, though I knew it was irrational. I had already written down the scene, and when the book was published there’d be other people reading it, and nothing would be secret. But for this small time between, I felt responsible to Moray and Sophia to protect their hour of happiness, to help them hold it just a little longer…though I knew that like the beach sand that had slipped between Sophia’s fingers, it could not be held.

X

IT WAS, SOPHIA THOUGHT, like waiting for the headsman’s axe to fall.

It had been but a day since Colonel Hooke had made a safe return to Slains, looking ill and weary from his days of horseback traveling among the Scottish nobles. And this morning, shortly after dawn, Monsieur de Ligondez’s French frigate, the Heroine, had reappeared in full sail off the coast, having kept strictly to his earlier instructions to remain three weeks at sea.

Sophia’s heart felt like a stone within her chest. She could not look at Moray, who sat now in his accustomed place across the dinner table, for she would not have him see the wretched nature of her misery. It was as well, she thought, that all the others were so focused on their conversation that they took no notice of the fact she had no appetite for any of the fine food Mrs Grant had set in front of them—oysters and mutton and wildfowl in gravy, a swirl of rich smells that would normally stir her, but which, on this day, failed to tantalize. Pushing the meat round the plate with her fork, she listened while the Earl of Erroll questioned Hooke about his meetings with the other chieftains.

‘Nearly all,’ said Hooke, ‘have signed their names to a memorial whereby they pledge King James their swords and loyalty, and lay out their requests for arms and aid, to guard his person when he lands. If you will sign it for yourself, and for those others who did give you leave to sign for them, then I will gladly carry it with me to Saint-Germain, and give it by my own hand to the king.’

The earl was sitting back, his keen eyes deep with thought. ‘Who has not signed?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You said, “nearly all” had signed. Who did not choose to put their name to this memorial?’

‘Ah.’ Hooke searched his memory. ‘None but two. The Duke of Gordon and the Earl of Breadalbane, though both did pledge me their support. The Duke of Gordon said he could not in good conscience sign a document that calls upon King James to come to Scotland and so put himself in danger.’

The young earl glanced along the table to where Moray sat, and in a calm, impassive voice, reminded Hooke, ‘I know of many in this country who do risk as much, for lesser gain.’

Hooke nodded. ‘And I’m well aware of that. I tell you only what the Duke of Gordon said to me. ’Twas my opinion that both he and Breadalbane would not sign more from caution than from any great concern about the king.’

The earl shrugged. ‘Aye, well, Breadalbane has kept his head and health for eighty years, and in that time I do not doubt he’s grown too canny to affix his name to anything except his correspondence.’

‘You may be right.’ Hooke cocked a look towards the earl. ‘Do you then share his cautious nature?’

‘If I did,’ the earl said, ‘you would not be here, nor would there be a French ship anchored now below my castle. Do you honestly suppose that, in these times, no one has whispered to Queen Anne of our involvement? It is sure she knows, or does suspect, and only my position keeps our lands from being forfeit. Yet for these past years my mother and my father, heaven rest his soul, and now myself, have ventured all to aid our king however we are able.’