“I had been instructed to.”
“By Lord Grange?”
He raised one shoulder in a shrug. “Lord Grange passed me my instructions. Who had written them, I cannot say. I did not think to question them until I realized that this inquiry was not what it appeared to be.”
“And then you knew why they were looking for John Moray.”
“Aye. And I stopped helping them.”
Our conversation ended then, for Maggie had begun to sing, and after two songs she grabbed Gilroy’s hands and dragged him in to join her, and as if he’d not surprised us all enough for one night, he sang us three verses of “I Love My Love in Secret” in a baritone that brought fair tears to Lily’s eyes.
As I stood alone with Gilroy at the door that night and bade farewell to him, I said, “You truly do have a romantic soul, and I am grateful for it, but you’ll want to keep it hidden well from Helen Turnbull, or she’ll make you the object of her matchmaking endeavors when she does return to town.”
He smiled faintly. “She can try. But she’d do well to read her Plato, and refresh her knowledge of his theory of the matching half.” To my blank look, he said, “The theory runs that all of us are halves of beings that were once whole, yes? Well, Plato reasons that some of those beings were male and female intertwined, androgynous, so when they were divided, you would have a man and woman searching for each other to be reunited. But he also claims that some of those original, whole beings were of one sex to begin with—wholly female, for example,” he explained. “Or wholly male.”
I took his meaning. “So, you’re saying…”
Gilroy fitted on his hat. “I am saying, Sergeant Williamson, if Helen Turnbull tries to see me wed to Violet Young, I wish her luck with that,” he said, “because my matching half is not a woman.”
I wasn’t shocked—I’d seen too much for such a thing to shock me—but his revelation did surprise me, for if he had made it to a different person, he’d have risked exposure and arrest. Perhaps he felt secure, because he knew my secrets, that I would not reveal his. But I preferred to think it was because I’d earned his trust, as he’d earned mine.
He shook my hand, and wished me well, and headed out into the night. I watched him striding down the close.
In the front room, I found Gordon, holding court. He clapped me on the shoulder and congratulated me again. “I’ve left a few bottles of brandy in the kitchen.”
Gifts, again. I said, “You’d best tell Simon. He will be the only one left living here after we sail tomorrow.”
“Are you taking Henry with you?”
“Aye.” I would not leave him lonely. Not again. “Simon said he would rather stay and keep watch over Maggie.”
Gordon thought that choice very responsible. “I sail tomorrow, too,” he said, “now that I have my men on board again, or nearly all of them. I will be headed north, and I’ll warrant Colonel Graeme will be soon there with our friends. I’ll see he gets word that he’s heir to Jamie’s wages.”
I said, “Make sure he sends a factor down here to collect them—that he does not come himself.”
“I have your warning,” Gordon reassured me, “and I will deliver it.” He looked at me with something of the air of a proud father, though we were divided by no more than ten years in our ages. “I did think you once too young to settle down and marry. I am happy to see I was wrong.”
“No, you were right when you did say it. You were right. I was not ready.” Looking back along the passage to where Lily stood with Maggie, talking now to Mr. Cant, I said to Gordon, very certain, “I am ready now.”
I was.
I’d been the greatest fool a man can be when I was young. I’d walked away from someone who had given her whole heart to me, and there’d not been a day since then that I’d not missed her touch and felt regret, and I knew well that I did not deserve to have her offer me her heart again.
And yet…
Sometimes life gave you back the things you’d lost.
Upstairs that night, in the small chamber where we had shared our first kiss, I stood with Lily, arms wrapped tightly around one another, saying nothing, doing nothing, feeling that we’d come full circle.
This, I thought, was my beginning.
I was Adam.
“You’re the first man I have loved,” she said, her voice not much above a whisper, and it was as though she knew I needed those words then. “The first man and the last man. You will always be enough for me.”