He stood so obviously higher than myself in social ranking that I know my face revealed my thoughts on just how likely it would be that any father would reject him as a suitor.
“What?” he asked.
“You are the son of Abercairney.”
“That title does belong now to my brother William, since my father died.”
I said, “I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need. But great estates are not so easily divided. They are passed to the firstborn son,” Moray said, “and all the rest of us carry our own fortunes under our hats.” He tapped his forehead, as if I did not already know he carried more wealth of intelligence beneath his hat than most men. “Or else seek them on battlefields.”
I could not see his face with any clarity because the light was at his back, and yet I knew that he was speaking of his brother John, and from the tightness of his tone I realized that his wife and child were not the only people he was trying to protect.
I thought things over, but it did not take me long. There were some situations where the right decision was not difficult to make.
I said, “I heard the Earl of Seafield say he wished they’d caught your brother John, not you. He knows your brother has been in the north on business from the court of Saint-Germain, but the earl does not know what that business is, nor where your brother might be now.”
Moray was watching me. “Where did you hear these things?”
“I dined on Wednesday last at the earl’s house,” I said, “by invitation. I can’t say I much enjoyed the company. But I believe you have a right to know what they discussed, in case they try to tell you something false while questioning you here, to make you think your brother is in greater peril.”
“I am in your debt,” he said again.
“There also was a mention made that it might help you talk more freely if your wife were taken up,” I said, “and put in prison.”
This silence felt more dangerous. “And what did Seafield say to that?”
“He thought it was unnecessary. He said there were subtler ways.” The letter I’d received from Seafield had been sitting like a burning coal within my pocket, and I took it now and passed it to him. “I expect that this is what he meant. I am ashamed to be the bearer of it.”
“They would have sent someone,” he said, unconcerned. He broke the seal. “Have you read this?”
“No, but I was told of its essence.”
He took several minutes to study it. I knew its contents would come as an insult, but its wording must have been worse, because I had the sense he was trying to hold in his temper.
When he finally spoke, his voice was evenly controlled. “Money’s never been my master, Sergeant. And while I suspect that, since the Union, torture is worn out of fashion, I’ll admit I’m liable to the weaknesses of any other man of flesh and blood, and am not absolutely certain how I would conduct myself if it did come to that. But I would hope—and ye may tell this to the Earl of Seafield,” he said, his tone hardening, “I would hope that nothing would prevail with me to part with my integrity. And ye may tell him also that, as I was born a gentleman, so I do hope that by God’s grace I would behave as such. There is no sum of money, no amount of pain, that could make me forget my honor, or my loyal friends, and if I ever did, I trust they’d turn me from their presence for a villain and a rogue.”
He’d grown more heated as he spoke. “Ye tell the Earl of Seafield all of that,” said Moray, then revised the thought. “No, give me paper and your pen, I’ll write it for myself, for I would have the words my own.”
It was the second time that I had waited while he wrote a letter, watched him fold it so it sealed itself, and took it from his hand.
He said, “I also have a message for my wife, but this one I’ll not trust to paper. Tell her I love her. That her words did bring me warmth in this cold place, as did her news about the bairn, but she must write to me no more. Tell her to take our son and go now to her father’s house where they’ll be better guarded. What is coming will be dangerous.”
He coughed, and from his smallest finger took a gold ring that had been inscribed inside with writing, and said, “Send this with it, so she’ll know the message comes from me.”
I gave a short nod, and I stood, and slid the ring onto my finger, thinking that the guard would be less likely to take note of it if he believed it to be mine. I tried to frame my next words carefully. “The last time I was here, you asked why the Commissioners of the Equivalent would bother with the inquiry at all, when they could have dismissed it and saved themselves the effort.”