She knew she could not go to him in person, it would hardly be allowed, but there were always boatmen in the harbor who, if paid enough, would carry letters to the larger ships. All Lily wanted was to let him know that she yet lived, and where she was, and that he and his family rarely left her thoughts, and that she wished both he and Jamie well, and hoped that time would one day bring their lives together once again.
With care, she wrote that on the finest paper Archie kept within his workroom, and was sealing it with red wax when she heard the voices in the passage. She’d been concentrating so completely that she had not heard the door, but here was Matthew, coming through into the workroom beside Henry.
Lily kept her head down, waiting for the flush to leave her cheeks, and slipped the letter underneath her apron as she stood.
He wished her a good afternoon, then turned again to Henry. “Not till supper?”
“No, they’ve both gone out, and Walter with them. No one told me where.”
“And Simon?”
“Taken Maggie for a walk upon the Links.”
That earned a smile from Matthew. “Simon?”
“Aye. He goes all soft, with Maggie.”
“Well, there’s none will dare to harm her,” Matthew said. He leaned past Lily, sending all her senses spinning. “Where have all the inks gone?”
Henry showed him. “Which one were ye after?”
“One that matches this.” He’d brought a letter of his own, on heavy paper. Smoothing out the folds, he laid it on the writing table as he settled in the chair that Lily had just left. “They’ll not admit me as a carter unless someone recommends me, so I reckon this will satisfy them.”
Henry thought it possible. “And where did ye get that?”
“Not telling. But the ‘William Rowan’ mentioned here needs little effort to be turned to Matthew Browne.”
Tying a corner of her apron round the letter she had written, Lily put her hand out to stop Matthew when he would have chosen the wrong ink. “No, that’s too dark. It’s this you want.”
His head turned, not in doubt or disbelief but simply in surprise, and Henry told him, “Lily kens more than the rest of us.”
“Is that a fact?”
He was fair skilled as well, when it came to the craft. Lily watched as he expertly razed out the letters or parts of the letters he did not want, using the edge of his penknife, then mixed a solution of chalk and glue to build the scraped places level again before carefully lettering over them. Only in one spot did she see him hesitate.
Henry asked, “What?”
Matthew frowned. “Nothing. Only there’s no room for error.”
“Then let Lily do it. I’m serious,” he said, as Matthew glanced up. “She is better than all of us.”
Matthew met Lily’s eyes. His were a beautiful brown. “Can you?”
She nodded.
He stood and she sat. She bent her head over her work. Willed her hand to keep steady. She wanted to do her best, wanted to prove herself so he would be impressed.
“Perfect,” said Matthew.
She felt she could live on that smile.
It made her brave enough to ask him, “Ye have lodgings near the harbor, do ye not?”
“Aye.”
“Could ye…that is, if I gave ye a letter, could ye find a boatman to carry it out to a ship there? They’ll not cheat a man the way they will a woman,” she said. “I’ve saved some coins from what Archie allows me, to pay for it.”
Matthew looked down at her, quizzical. “If you mean the ship that your Colonel Graeme’s on, it sailed already this morning, as soon as the wind turned fair.”
“Oh,” Lily said. “Oh, I see.”
She did not know why it suddenly pained her so deeply, when she had not seen Colonel Graeme nor Jamie these past six years, but there was something incredibly cruel about having them brought here so close and then taken away again without her once being able to contact them, and it broke something in Lily.
Her eyes were stinging as she stood. “I see,” she said again, although increasingly she could not see, because the tears were swimming in her eyes. Then they spilled over.
She’d have turned away and run then, to her room and private sorrow, only Matthew caught her hand and drew her close and held her, unexpectedly.
“It’s all right,” he said, although of course he had no way of knowing what was wrong, or how it could be fixed. But she believed him. Matthew’s chin came down and rested on her head and Lily rested in his arms like that and felt secure, and for a moment all the things that worried her felt small and far away.