‘Yes, but your husband…’
‘Would do anything the countess asked, and gladly.’ With a hand upon Sophia’s arm, she’d said, ‘You must not worry. We will keep her safe with us, I promise, till your husband does return.’
And Kirsty’s sister had been sure to hold that promise, so that little Anna grew each month in laughter and in happiness and saw Sophia often, though from caution she had not been taught to call Sophia ‘mama’。
There would be time enough for that, Sophia knew. And though she would have given much to have her daughter with her every day, she weighed her own needs lightly against Anna’s, and was grateful beyond measure that her child was so well cared for.
She saw little of herself in Anna’s features or her character—the eyes, the hair, the energy, were Moray’s, and it gave Sophia joy to see his nature reproduced with such perfection every time she looked at her daughter.
That brief visit in the drawing room had raised her spirits instantly, as Kirsty had intended.
Just as now, these two weeks later, as she sat in her accustomed place among the dunes and watched the children play with Kirsty’s sister on the wave-washed curve of beach, Sophia’s darker thoughts ran from her as if they had been no more than shadows to be chased off by the brightness of the early autumn sunlight and the sound of Anna’s laughter.
The little girl was happily at play with the great mastiff Hugo, who had cast aside his fierce fa?ade to show his own true gentleness, his jaws clamped softly round the stick that Anna had held out to him.
Sophia was so focused on that tiny tug of war she nearly didn’t hear the brush of skirts across the grass as Kirsty climbed the dunes to join her. ‘’Tis not a fair contest,’ said Kirsty. ‘The dog is too strong for her.’
Sophia smiled, still watching. ‘But she will best him, regardless.’
‘Aye, I do not doubt it. I do not doubt she can do anything,’ said Kirsty. ‘Not after seeing with my own eyes how she had my Rory galloping on all fours round the cottage playing horses, and him having sworn he had nae time nor liking for bairns.’
‘Perhaps his views are changed,’ Sophia said, ‘and he does seek to make a family of his own, and settle to that life that you so long for.’
‘Rory? Never.’
‘There is no such thing as never,’ said Sophia, as a sudden shriek of laughter turned her head again toward the shore, where Anna had succeeded in recovering the stick from Hugo’s mouth and had begun to run. She’d walked with confidence at ten months and having had several months’ practice since then ran easily on tiny feet that touched so lightly on the glistening sand they left no mark behind. Sophia thought of Moray walking barefoot on this beach and looking like a lad himself, and something he had told her on that day seemed fitting for the moment, so she said it over now for Kirsty, in a quiet voice: ‘You cannot ever say which way this world will take you.’
The sand felt cool beneath her hands. She cupped a handful of it, sifting it with absent fingers while her eyes, from habit, searched the far horizon for a sail, but there was nothing to be seen in all that wide expanse of blue except the faint and fleeting lines of white along the breaking waves against the rocks that marked the far end of the beach.
Kirsty watched in silent sympathy. ‘Perhaps there will be news today from France. The countess did receive a letter.’
‘Did she? When?’
‘As I was coming out.’
‘Another message from His Grace the Duke of Hamilton, no doubt.’ Sophia’s voice was dry. The duke had written often to the countess since the spring. He had at first expressed his great concern about Sophia’s welfare after Mr Hall had lost her in the marketplace, and he’d wondered if he might perhaps have details of her lodgings there in Edinburgh so that he could himself pay her a visit and ensure that she was well. The countess, reading that first letter, had remarked, ‘He will be disappointed, surely, to discover you are back with us at Slains, for though his influence is great within the town he dare not challenge us in our own home. The worst that he can do now is to wait, and watch, and hope we will betray the king’s designs.’
And so the letters of the Duke, professing friendship, filled with loyal sentiments towards the king, had started to arrive, and each one left the countess out of temper for an hour or more.
‘This did not come from Edinburgh,’ said Kirsty. ‘It was carried by a fisherman, the same man who last month did bring the letter from the Duke of Perth at Saint-Germain, and anyway the countess seemed quite happy to receive it.’