She might have questioned that, but Lily held her tongue. They stood in peace a moment longer before starting back, and Jamie, because he was lost in thought, did something out of habit that he had not done with her of late.
He walked a step ahead.
It made her smile, faintly. Lily followed after, fitting her footsteps to his ones in the sand, as though she were a little girl once more upon the sunlight-dappled green paths of Inchbrakie woods, following Jamie on a new adventure. Only this time, she knew she could not go quite as far as he was going.
In the shadow of the windmill, Jamie stopped.
Lily liked the windmill, with its sturdy round stone walls that soared high like a castle turret, and its creaking sails that turned incessantly at work. But from here she saw the bustle of activity along the Shore and pier—the ships and small boats in the harbor, and the larger ships that lay at anchor in the Road of Leith beyond.
Jamie said, “I have to be on board my ship by Monday.”
Lily felt a deep misgiving, standing there within that shadow. “Ye are certain ye do wish to go? They have not even told ye where ye’re sailing to. It may be somewhere terrible.”
“It may be somewhere wonderful. What happened to the lass who wished to sail to Norway?”
“Norway’s not so far.”
He smiled, and took a folded paper from his pocket. “If ye change your mind afore I leave, ye ken where ye can find me. But if ye change it after I have sailed, I leave ye this—’tis a letter stating my intent to marry ye, and signed by my own hand. If ye do take that to the company’s directors up in Edinburgh, they’ll pay your passage to me in the colony.” He put the paper in her hands and folded his own larger ones around hers, holding firmly as he fixed her gaze with his. “And hear me, now. If ye have need of me, whatever ye decide, ye use this letter and ye come to me, ye ken? Marriage or no, if there is trouble here, ye come to me. And bring my own wee cousin with ye. I’ll keep the both of ye safe,” Jamie promised. “We Graemes take care of our own.”
She knew he truly meant it, but she also knew that this was where their paths were meant to separate, so Lily tried to tease him. “And if ye have a wife already? What then?”
“Then we will have a full house.” He grinned, and in that moment he was the boy on the barrels again at Jean’s wedding, who’d wished he could marry her then, too, and take her to Perth with him so they would not be divided. “Anyway,” Jamie said, and his eyes told her that he was remembering that moment also, “who else would ye have?”
He bent, and gently kissed her cheek, and letting go her hands he turned and walked away. He turned back twice along the Shore to look behind and wave farewell, and Lily waved, too, but her smile was hard to hold in place, and without his hands over hers, her own felt cold.
Chapter 32
Wednesday, 29 June, 1698
Returning to Riddell’s Close, Lily was met at the door by Maggie, who taking her by the hand, half danced and half dragged her past the front rooms to where warm talk and laughter spilled into the back passage from Barbara’s chamber, which meant Walter and his wife had brought the bairn.
Archie was not over tolerant of bairns within his workroom anymore, so since the birth of Walter’s son in February, Barbara’s chamber, normally off-limits to the family, had become the place to gather when the bairn was brought to visit. It was a comfortable room, with soft furnishings, and if it had not been designed for that function, well, “What’s more important than family?” asked Barbara of Archie, one morning.
Dryly he’d answered her, “Earning your keep.”
“I’ve earned it twice over.” Barbara had matched his tone, ending the argument, likely because Archie knew she was right.
Barbara had fewer gentlemen visitors now, and she went out less frequently. She seemed more tired these days. She often did not wake in time to take her morning draught, and was asleep again when Lily had just started to prepare for bed. She’d said to Lily several times there was no need to worry, she was only wanting rest.
Archie, on hearing her say that, had rolled his eyes. “Ye’re wanting feeding. Ye’ll be naught but bones if ye keep going on as ye are.”
All of them were thinner, it could not be helped. Meat was scarce, as were barley and wheat, and although Captain Gordon still carried in cargoes of food when he could—no doubt some of it stored out of sight belowdecks with his ballast—their meals had grown plainer and smaller to make their provisions last until the harvest.