She told me, “There, you see? The perfect place for you to keep your papers. And your books, which I believe will fit just here.”
She pointed to the opening between the banks of small drawers at the back of the writing surface, directly beneath the central compartment with the door. My new-bought books, when laid together on their sides, did fit there perfectly.
She said, “I am afraid the drawers are very likely full already of my husband’s papers, but at least you can leave yours here undisturbed.”
I reached to test the rounded length of molding at the top edge of the scrutore’s row of pigeonholes, and felt it give. “This drawer is empty,” I confirmed, as it slid open.
Helen looked at me with wonder. “How on earth did you know that was there? A secret drawer!”
“Not very secret. Every scrutore I have known of this design does have one.” I might have added most had more than one, but we were interrupted by the sound of knocking from the street door, and she turned away from me.
“It is late for a caller,” Helen said, then sighed and added, “I had better go make certain that MacDougall does not deal too harshly with them.”
She was not gone long. No sooner had I settled in the leather-seated chair, having satisfied myself that the scrutore suited my needs exactly, than Helen was back with the look of a child who’d been given a gift.
“Adam, what do you and Gilroy plan to do tomorrow?”
“Gilroy plans to go to Leith, to search more deeply through the records of the parish for the details of the witnesses to Mrs. Graeme’s marriage, and since I would only hinder him in that work, I’m to stay here and to meet him in the evening to learn what he has discovered.”
“Good. Because we’ve just received an invitation,” Helen said, “to dine tomorrow with the Earl of Seafield.”
I could feel my eyebrows rise. “The Earl of—？”
“Seafield,” Helen said again. “The chancellor. He has a grand house in the Canongate and keeps an interesting table, I am told, although I’ve never had the fortune before this to be his guest. I don’t suppose you have a wig?”
“I do not own one, no.”
“That is a pity. Wigs do make men look more serious. Besides, they are the fashion.”
I’d never liked the feel of wigs—the weight of them, the itch of them, the close, infernal heat of them. I’d had to wear one for a short time as a younger man, and had been glad to leave that “fashion” far behind, along with the expense. My own hair, while it did not have the tight curls of a wig, could neither be called straight, though I more often wore it combed and neatly tied with a plain black band at the back of my coat collar. “I’ll do my best,” I told her, “to look serious. But surely…” Sitting back, I took this in. I had no wish to dampen Helen’s joy, but, “Surely the earl expects your husband to accompany you. He does not mean for his invitation to extend to me.”
She proved me wrong by showing me the paper that had been delivered to her door. “He asks for you explicitly. You need not fear you’ll be unwelcome.”
That was not the thing I feared.
I was hearing Robert Moray’s voice, advising me to keep my best suit brushed and ready.
“People in high places will begin to take an interest in ye…”
Why, I wondered, would the Earl of Seafield, Chancellor of Scotland, wish to have me at his table? What on earth was I entangled in?
“There’s often danger in this dance ye’ve just been drawn into” had been Robert Moray’s warning, and I wished now I had pressed him further, for while I was poor at any dance, I did far worse when I knew not the music nor the steps.
Chapter 9
Wednesday, 24 September, 1707
I was not the only man at table wearing my own hair.
Across from me, a gentleman some years my senior who’d been introduced as Dr. Young had also drawn the line at wearing wigs. Twice now he’d regarded me above his wineglass with the private smile of a conspirator.
I put his friendly gesture down to our shared circumstance of finding ourselves sitting at the middle of the table, marking both of us as men of lesser rank and less importance than the guests who had been seated near the Earl of Seafield at the table’s foot, or near his lady at the table’s head.
Helen held the place of honor at the earl’s right hand. The seat at my right hand was taken by a less appealing guest—a gentleman who drank too much and talked too much—and on my left the doctor’s daughter, who gave her attention to the lady opposite. I feigned an interest in the tennis games of conversation taking place across the table while I tried to focus on the rules of formal dining.