‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A very charming man.’
‘Were I younger, I myself would likely be in love with him. But such a man,’ the countess said, ‘is not for every woman.’
She glanced up at that, and in her smiling eyes Sophia read an understanding, a forgiveness. And although they never spoke of it directly, she was sure the countess somehow knew the core of what had passed between herself and Captain Gordon on the garden path, and that whatever hopes the countess might have had were laid to rest without regret, and would no more be mentioned.
I didn’t need to look into the Old Scots Navy book to know that what I’d written was the truth, but I looked anyway. It was all there, as I had known it would be: the renaming of Captain Gordon’s ship, the Royal William, to the Edinburgh; his journey northwards in October, and the mutiny among his men at Leith.
And afterwards, it seemed he’d tried to keep his word to do whatever he could think of to make sure his ship would not be in the way of young King James and his invading Frenchmen, should they come.
‘The ship,’ he wrote in one report, ‘has suffered much in the bad weather we had to the northward, and wants to be repaired.’ And later, having requested and received an order to put the Edinburgh in a dry dock, he wrote in December to the Admiralty, ‘All the docks here are full at present, and the master builder can’t as yet determine when any of them can be cleared.’ And later still, in January, reported that the ship had been examined by a master builder who had concluded the Edinburgh needed a great repair, or a rebuilding. ‘There will be no necessity of my being here for some time,’ Captain Gordon had concluded, ‘therefore I desire you will please communicate this to his Royal Highness that I may have leave to come to town…’
Clever, I thought, as I closed the book. Risky, but clever. He’d kept the seas clear to the north, for his king.
But I had my suspicions the people at Slains should be worrying more about dangers that traveled by land.
XIII
NOVEMBER CAME, AND BROUGHT a weary week of wind and storms, and one more unexpected guest. He came on horseback, blown across the threshold of the stables by a fiercely gusting north wind and a drenching sheet of rain, his cloak wet through and hanging heavily across his horse’s steaming flanks. To Sophia, who’d been passing time by chatting with the soft-eyed mare and feeding kitchen scrapings to the mastiff, Hugo, this new stranger bursting in upon them seemed like something flung up by a force unnatural. He looked, to her eyes, darker than the devil, and as large.
As he dismounted she withdrew a step, her hand on Hugo’s collar. It surprised her that the dog had not yet growled, nor even laid his ears back. She herself was measuring the distance to the door and wondering what her chances were of getting past the newcomer without his taking notice. He was standing with his back to her, and viewing him against the horse she saw that he was not as big a man as he had first appeared. In fact, he likely was not too much taller than herself—it was the cloak, with its great hood drawn up to shield his face, that had deceived her.
Merely wary now, she watched him while he tended to his horse, first lifting down the heavy saddle, then with clean straw rubbing dry the creature’s heaving sides. No devil, thought Sophia, would have taken such great care. She looked again at Hugo standing calmly at her side and felt her fears recede, and then they vanished altogether when the man turned finally, pushing back the black hood of his cloak to show a lean and weathered face with pleasant features neatly bordered by a trim brown beard that here and there displayed the greying evidence of middle age. He wore no wig—his hair was greying, too, and worn drawn back and tied without a care for fashion.
‘I’m sorry, did I frighten ye?’ His voice was pleasant, and it held the cadence of a Highlander. ‘Forgive me, lass. I took ye for a stableboy at first, there in the shadows. Is there one about?’
‘A stableboy?’ She did not know where Rory was, just then. She glanced around.
‘Eh, well, I only need a blanket and a stall, and I can see to those myself.’ Not far from where he stood he found an empty stall to suit his purpose, and when Rory did arrive a short time afterwards the horse was settled comfortably, the stranger having found a blanket on a nearby rail.
Rory’s eyes held recognition. ‘Colonel Graeme!’
‘Aye,’ the man acknowledged with surprise. ‘I did not think to be remembered—it must be two years since my last visit here.’
The fact that Rory had remembered, and was moving round the man with obvious respect now, told Sophia that this Colonel Graeme was no common guest.