“More than meets the eye,” said Gilroy. “Like many people.”
I could not tell if he intended that to provoke or to pacify. I waited.
He asked, “Is the book of law Turnbull’s, or yours?”
My chin lifted a fraction. “Mine.”
He nodded but said nothing for a moment. Then he said, “I will admit my friend the stabler only said the girl was the best forger, but he did not say which girl, and there were two who lived within that house. We never did ask Henry Browne what happened to the bairn who came to live with them.”
Colonel Graeme’s nephew’s daughter. Little Maggie Graeme, who’d been born the summer that the Jacobites had won their bitter victory at Killiecrankie, and whose mother—Barbara’s sister—had been dead before that winter’s end.
Gilroy told me, “Perhaps you could follow up on that, when you return the copy books.”
I looked at him. “When I return them?”
“Aye. I’ll not be here the next few days. My niece is being wed up in Dundee.”
I frowned. “I thought there was an urgency to our inquiry.”
“We are waiting still for answers from the Continent. You have your book of law. Besides, I would have thought you’d welcome time without me at your side.”
I would indeed. But, even so, I asked, “You’ve made Lord Grange aware?”
“Of course.”
“And when will you be back?”
“On Tuesday, I expect. I’ll not stay long. But family’s family,” Gilroy said, “and my niece will not soon forgive me if I am not there. I am her favorite uncle.”
He said it convincingly, and with a clear and steady gaze, but then, that was the thing with Gilroy. Whether he was telling you the truth or not, you couldn’t tell the difference. You were only left to wonder, when he’d gone, what purpose he’d have had in telling you a lie.
*
On Saturday, the little house in Riddell’s Close looked even more unwelcoming than it had looked two days before, and Henry Browne looked even less inclined to let me in. He eyed the bottle in my hand and asked, “Whose cellar did ye steal that from?”
I’d known men who from bitterness or anger tried to goad me to a fight, and I had learned to let it go, so I did not rise to his sarcasm. I answered mildly, “From a vintner’s near the castle in the town. It was expensive.”
Henry’s gaze stayed level on my own a moment, and I saw him weighing his decision. “Then ye’d better bring it in afore it spoils.”
There was less wind today, and yet the sky was overcast and made the front room darker. As we entered, Henry asked me without turning, “Where’s your friend?”
“Gone north for a few days, on family business.”
“He seems a cheerful sort,” said Henry, meaning just the opposite.
Remarkably, to me at least, I found myself defending Gilroy, in his own words. “Speaking brusquely is his habit.”
Henry wouldn’t let me help. He tucked his stave beneath one arm and took the glasses from the corner cabinet by himself, then motioned I should set the bottle down on the small table near the hearth. I did so, taking a respectful step back while he used his pocket knife to pry the stopper out.
He asked me, “Sent ye here for information, did he?”
“To bring back the copy books, actually.” I eased them out of the leather case I’d used to carry them as I’d walked down today, so they’d be safe from the weather.
“Then put them back,” Henry advised me. “Ye ken where they go.” He had opened the wine and was starting to pour. “But if I judged your friend right, he sent ye for something more. What are ye meant to be asking me?”
I was crossing to the cabinet with the copy books. “Gilroy did remind me we forgot to ask you what became of Maggie Graeme.”
“Aye. Ye did.”
It was a simple thing to find the place for Walter’s book amongst its fellows on the shelf, but standing there I found myself reluctant to do likeways with the book that had belonged to Lily.
Once more, just once more, I turned the pages to where she had drawn that small crowned heart in ink, and signed her name above it, and where Matthew Browne had written his beneath.
Behind me, I could feel the silence.
Turning, I faced Henry with the feeling that his watching eyes saw more than I would care to have them see.
“Why are ye really here?” he asked.
Chapter 19
Tuesday, 15 March, 1692
Sometimes, Lily thought, life gave you back the things you’d lost. Or very nearly.