“Since you care for Lily and you wish to be of help to her,” I said, “I take it you’ll sign a testificate to state exactly that? Your cousin James asked her to marry him?”
“It is because I care for her,” he said, “that I cannot.”
I felt a rush of pure frustration. “Why not? Speak plainly, if you can.”
“I’m sure ye’ll work it through.”
I did not lose my temper, to my credit, but I lost my patience. “I am done with wasting time,” I told him. “Lily’s not your playing piece, and this is not a game.”
His voice turned cool. “I would remind ye which of us is free to leave this chamber and go home, and which of us must daily wonder if he is to keep his head. Believe me when I tell ye I am well aware ’tis not a game.”
It was the closest I had seen him come to showing worry for his safety, but he tamped it down again and carried on in a more even tone, as though he were my schoolmaster.
“It isn’t me they want, it’s John. Ye heard them say so for yourself.”
“Yes. At the Earl of Seafield’s. They believed he’d been here planning the invasion.”
Moray said, “My brother John does have the confidence and trust of young King James and of the queen his mother, who counts John among her favorites at the court of Saint-Germain. The English—and their allies here in Scotland—know that if there’s an invasion coming, John will ken its secrets.”
I suspected he did not speak half so freely with most men, and that it likely went against his better judgment and his nature to do so with me. In recognition of that, I chose not to ask him if there would be an invasion in the spring. It did not matter.
“But,” he said, “they don’t have any way to draw John out where they can capture him. I don’t doubt when they put me in here, they were hoping he might try to rescue me, but John’s not such a fool—nor would I ever thank him for risking our cause and his life in exchange for mine. But if John had a wife? And if she were in this prison? He’d tear the town apart to set her free, and well they ken it.” Moray told me, in the even tone men use when they do swear an oath, “Our women are the heart of us, and no man of my family would do any less.” He paused a moment. Asked me, “Are ye following?”
I was beginning to, and yet I was uncertain, so he spelled it out.
“There is another man who kens the secrets that my brother holds. My uncle, Colonel Patrick Graeme. Do ye follow now?” He saw the confirmation in my face, and carried on, “My uncle is a man of honor. He would come for Lily anytime she were in trouble whether she were Jamie’s wife or no. ’Tis fortunate the duke is unaware of that.” On seeing my reaction he remarked, “It is the Duke of Hamilton behind this then?”
“I think so, aye.”
“That’s not surprising. Seafield might be clever, but he lacks the motivation to put all these wheels in motion, and he never could charm Lord Grange into doing him a favor. No, it had to be the duke, there like a spider at the center of his web, controlling everything. I should imagine it was just too great an opportunity to miss—these payments being made, from the Equivalent.”
The plan was simple and straightforward. As it stood, with James Graeme officially unmarried, his sole heir would be his father, Colonel Graeme, who would then be sent the payment owed to Jamie. No competing claim had yet been filed with the commissioners, since Lily’s claim had not been put in front of them. The duke, when he had first seen her certificate, had likely noticed the same problem Robert Moray pointed out at our first meeting—the same problem Moray told me would have prompted the commissioners to disallow the claim: there was no way to prove it with so little evidence.
Which would explain why the duke had then resorted to a secret inquiry, and passed the certificate on to Lord Grange.
“Lord Grange has Gilroy,” Moray said, “who, as you’ve seen, is very good at what he does. He’s like a bulldog with investigations.”
Frowning, I asked, “Do you think Lord Grange is in the scheme?”
“I shouldn’t think so. Not his style. He’d take the duke’s word at face value, that it was a task that needed to be done, that’s all.”
I thought on this. “So, Gilroy and I get the proof that James and Lily married, and we send this back to the commission…”
“And then the commissioners declare the marriage valid.” Moray nodded. “And my uncle, being now informed he is no longer heir, learns Jamie had a wife. I’d think about this time the duke will also move behind the scenes to see that Lily’s taken up and put in prison. Not in here,” he said, “but in the Tolbooth. Have ye ever seen the Tolbooth, Sergeant Williamson?”