The countess raised her eyebrows in astonishment. ‘Your crew?’

‘I know. ’Tis difficult to fathom, is it not, when I am so well loved by those I do command.’ His smile held a good-natured conceit. ‘I can assure you, it was not an easy thing to manage.’ Slicing off a piece of beef, he speared it with his knife point. ‘Several days before, I stirred a rumor round that we’d be bound for the West Indies after Leith. My men, who for the most part have been pressed to service, taken from their homes against their will, have little liking for the prospect of a passage to the Indies, with its dangers and its depravations. By the time we’d reached the Road of Leith, they were fair fevered with anxiety. And so I went ashore, and stayed there some time on the pretext of my waiting on the Treasury to clear my old accounts, and sure enough, while I was gone, one hundred of my crewmen made good their escape in boats.’ He grinned. ‘It took two weeks for us to round them up and coax them back aboard. And in that time, of course, I could not sail.’

The countess could not quite achieve a look of disapproval. ‘I do hope you did not punish them when they returned.’

‘My men? No, all has been forgiven, and they’ve settled to their labors as before, with my advice to close their ears to idle rumors in the future.’

‘Oh, Thomas,’ said the countess, with an open smile now.

He gave a careless shrug. ‘’Tis not a tactic I am like to use again, at any rate. I can hardly hope to move my crew to mutiny a second time without it reflecting poorly on myself, and much as I do love my king, I have no strong desire to sacrifice my reputation for him.’ But he said that lightly, and Sophia had a feeling that despite the show of self-importance, Captain Gordon stood prepared to sacrifice far more if he were asked. He carried on, ‘No, I shall have to find some other means to keep these waters clear for him. It should not be so difficult. I’ve no reports of any ships to the northwards that want convoy, and no privateers have been seen on this coast for a long time, so we have no cause to make this cruise a lengthy one, nor keep close to the shore. No doubt I will be forced by the weather to stand off to sea a while,’ was his straight-faced speculation, ‘and the gales this far north can so damage a ship that, by the time we do reach England, enough small things may have suffered that we’ll likely need repair. In fact, it’s possible the Edinburgh may need enough attention to be put into a dry dock, and when that is done I would not be at all surprised to find some sudden business matter pressing me to ask for leave to spend some days in London. So with luck,’ he finished off, ‘the king may find his way unchallenged until Christmas.’

From the table’s end, the earl asked, disbelieving, ‘Can you do that?’

‘I can try.’

The countess said, ‘You must be careful.’

‘I am careful.’

‘You are good,’ she told him. ‘And I mean to see that young King James does know it.’

Gordon flashed a smile and shrugged. ‘He can reward me when he comes,’ he said, ‘by making me an admiral.’

When the meal was over, he sat back and viewed his stomach with a pretence of dismay. ‘Your cook does try to make me fat each time I come here.’

‘It was not the cook,’ the countess said, ‘who made you take three helpings of the pudding.’

‘Aye, you’re right. Still, I’d be well advised to take a bit of exercise, else I may sink my ship when I return to her. I wonder,’ he said casually, and looked along the table, ‘if your lovely Mistress Paterson would join me for a turn around the gardens.’

With three heads turned to look at her, Sophia could not think of any graceful way to tell him no. She might have claimed a headache, but she’d not have been convincing since she’d been behaving normally the whole time of the meal. Besides, the countess was watching her now with a motherly interest. Sophia could not disappoint her by treating their favorite guest rudely. She nodded. ‘Of course.’

It was cool in the garden. The walls blocked the bite of the wind off the sea, but the air held the chill breath of autumn. Those flowers that had not yet died had begun to fade, and everything had a more desolate feel. But a songbird, alone by the high wall, sat trilling his melody bravely, undaunted.

Sophia had not ventured out to the garden too often since Moray had gone. She had come with the countess a few times, to walk and admire the colorful blooms of the summer, and once she had come out with Kirsty to help gather herbs. But she’d always been uncomfortably aware of Billy Wick, whether he was at work in the open or scuffling unseen in some weed-tangled corner. His dark-windowed stone bothy crouched like a loathsome great toad at the foot of the gardens against the high twisting trees edging the burn, and she could not look upon it without feeling in her heart a touch of dread, of something evil that was watching her, and waiting.

Billy Wick himself was in full view today, at work with shears among the branches of the lilac tree—the same tree she had stood beneath with Moray that last night, when it had showered her with petals and he’d kissed her…

‘I must confess,’ said Gordon, ‘when I met you first, I did not know how you would fare at Slains. You seemed too quiet, and the countess is’—he paused, to find the word—‘a forceful woman.’

She was well aware he meant that as a compliment, but still she felt the need to rise a little to the countess’s defense. ‘She is a woman of intelligence and grace.’