She told him quietly, “Ye are the first man I have loved in this way, and ye’ll be the last. Ye’ll always be enough for me.”
His eyes searched hers, as though he truly needed to believe that.
But he turned from her, and without looking back, he walked away.
Chapter 30
Friday, 3 October, 1707
Ten years had passed, but I could see that Captain Gordon had not forgiven himself. Facing me now across the remains of our supper in the private chamber upstairs at Steell’s tavern, he looked deliberately away and focused on the fire.
“I had no business saying anything,” he told me. “I was younger then, and arrogant, and did not spare enough thought for the consequences of my speech. And so I cost a young couple their happiness, and lost a friend.”
“There was no way you could have known.”
“She never liked me much.” He said it in an offhand way. “I never understood it. After that day, though, she had good reason. She could barely bring herself to look at me.”
I held my silence for a moment. “It was not your fault, the first part.” I knew I was breaking faith with Lily in a sense, but Gordon carried enough guilt. “She was in service as a child to a man who broke her trust as no child’s trust should ever be betrayed. He gave her gifts. I think that seeing you give gifts to Maggie raised those memories for her, and those fears.”
“I see.” He looked troubled. “Poor lass. Had I known, there are things I’d do differently.”
I settled back in my chair and reminded him, “Clocks don’t wind backwards.”
“No.” He granted this was likely a good thing. “Still, it’s a shame that we cannot reclaim those vanished days, and try to live them better.”
“Who’s to say we would not live them worse?”
That made him smile. The rousing cheer that drifted upward from the main room of the tavern underneath us brought him upright in his seat. He stretched his shoulders. “Shall we put in an appearance belowstairs? I’m sure there is much gossip to be had, and we are out of wine.”
I warned him, “I am told the walls here do have ears.”
“Oh, very certainly. His Grace the Duke of Hamilton likes to be kept informed. But he’s on our side, for the most part,” Gordon said.
He meant the Jacobite side, of course, and his confidence that I’d agree with his politics called up a reflexive answer of loyalty that showed me why men would so freely follow him. “Why ‘for the most part’？”
“If you would ask our enemies, they’d say the Duke of Hamilton is on our side. Most of our friends would say the same. But there are some who will remind you he is an ambitious man, and popular, and Protestant. And that his family lineage does also give him a strong claim upon the Scottish throne, so that perhaps the duke is not so keen to see our young King James restored as he might wish us to believe.”
“The duke intends to have the throne himself, you mean?”
He said, “’Tis only what some people say. But friend or foe, there’s little that escapes his notice.”
“Does he have a hand in the invasion?”
“What invasion?” Gordon’s face was total innocence.
I let it pass, and told him, “Fair enough. You needn’t tell me.” I could understand why he’d not wish to share the details of a game with stakes so high.
But Gordon took my measure. “Let us say, if there were an invasion, and if the duke were involved, he’d not be trusted by all of our friends, and he would not know all of the plans. Which would make him more determined to discover them,” he said. “He keeps his men among the patrons here. They are not difficult to spot. Let’s see if you can manage it.”
I took his challenge when we went downstairs.
I did find two of them, from how they moved to sit at closer tables, seeming not to listen while in truth they hung on Gordon’s every word. But it was left to Gordon to point out the third, discreetly—a large, jovial man who seemed for all the world to be so far gone in his cups that he’d not have remembered anything he overheard. I marked their faces, so I would remember them.
And then, quite unexpectedly, I saw another face I knew, half-hidden by a grey cocked hat. He had been sitting at a table near the door, but when he saw me notice him, he stood and pulled the collar of his grey coat close, and slipped out of the tavern like a shadow.
I excused myself from Gordon’s group, explaining that I meant to take some air. It was no lie. The pipe smoke hung like layered webs within the room, and while the company and warmth were welcome, I felt the beginnings of a headache from the wine and noise and staleness of the space.