The Scottish Prisoner

“Then why?” she cried, fists curling. “Why would he do it?”

He swallowed, seeing again the tiny dark room and smelling blood and excrement. Seeing “Teind”on the wall.

“Despair,” he said quietly.

She made a small huffing sound, shaking her head doggedly to and fro.

“He was a Papist. Despair’s a sin to a Papist, isn’t it?”

“Folk do a great many things they think are sins.”

She made a little noise through her nose.

“Yes, they do.” She stood for a moment staring at the stones in the walk, then looked up suddenly at him, fierce. “I don’t understand at all how he could have—what made him despair?”

Oh, God. Guide my tongue.

“Ye ken he was a Jacobite, aye? Well, there was a plot he was involved in—a great matter, with great consequences, did it either fail or succeed. It failed, and the heart went out o’ the man.”

She let out her breath in a sigh that sank her shoulders, seeming to deflate before his eyes. She shook her head.

“Men,” she said flatly. “Men are fools.”

“Aye, well … ye’re no wrong there,” he said ruefully, hoping that she would not ask whether he had been involved in the great matter—or why the soldiers had taken him to start with.

He needed to go before the conversation became personal. She took his hand again, though, holding it between both of hers, and he could see that she was about to say something he didn’t want her to say. He’d shifted his weight, about to pull loose, when he heard footsteps on the walk behind him, heavy and quick.

“What’s going on here?” Sure enough, it was Roberts, face flushed and lowering. Jamie could have kissed the man.

“I brought sad news to Mistress Betty,” he said quickly, taking back his hand. “The death of a kinsman.”

Roberts looked back and forth between them, clearly suspicious, but Betty’s air of shock and desolation was unfeigned and obvious. Roberts, who was not, after all, a stupid man, went rapidly to her, taking her by the arm and bending solicitously down to her.

“Are you all right, my dear?”

“I—yes. It’s only … oh, poor Toby!”

Betty was not stupid, either, and burst into tears, burying her face in Roberts’s shoulder.

Jamie, being the third wise party present, silently praised God and backed hastily away, murmuring inconsequent regrets.

The wind was cold outside the shelter of the kitchen garden, but he was sweating. He made his way back toward the stables, nodding to Keren-happuch, who was standing outside the kitchen garden, holding a vegetable basin and waiting patiently for the godless behavior inside the walls to cease.

“A death, was it?” she said, having obviously come along to ensure that his aim had not been wicked canoodling, after all.

“A sad death. Would ye say a prayer, maybe, for the soul of Tobias Qui

A look of surprised distaste crossed her face.

“For a Papist?” she said.

“For a poor si

She pushed out her thin lips, considering, but reluctantly nodded. “I suppose so.”

He nodded, touched her shoulder in thanks, and went on his way.

The Church did call despair a sin, and suicide an unforgivable sin, as the si

For himself, he prayed each night for Qui

39

The Fog Comes Down

BOWNESS-ON-WINDERMERE WAS A SMALL, PROSPEROUS town, with a maze of narrow stone-paved streets clustered cozily in the town center, these spreading out into a gentle slope of scattered houses and cottages that ran down to the lake’s edge, where a fleet of little fishing boats swayed at anchor. It was a considerable coach ride from Helwater, and Lord Dunsany apologized for the effort required, explaining that his solicitor chose to live here, having left the London stews for what he assumed to be the bucolic pleasures of the country.

“Little did he know what sorts of things go on in the country,” Dunsany said darkly.

“What sorts of things?” Grey asked, fascinated.

“Oh.” Dunsany seemed mildly taken aback at being thus challenged, but furrowed his brow in thought, his cane tapping gently on the stones as he limped slowly toward the street where the solictor’s office lay.

“Well, there was Morris Huckabee and his wife—only it seemed she was, in fact, his daughter. And herdaughter was in fact not Morris’s at all but born to the ostler at the Grapes, as the mother admitted in court. Now, ordinarily, the wife would inherit—old Morris had died, you see, thus precipitating the trouble—but the question arose: was a common-law marriage (for of course the old creature had never gone through with a proper marriage, just told everyone she was his wife, and no one thought to ask for details) based on an incestuous relationship valid? Because if it wasn’t, you see, then the daughter—the wife daughter, I mean, not the daughter of the wife—couldn’t inherit his estate.

“Now, under those circumstances, the money would then normally pass to the child or children of the marriage, save that in this case, the child—the younger daughter—wasn’t really Morris’s, and while in law, any child born in wedlock is considered to be the child of that marriage, regardless of whether he or she was really fathered by the butcher or the baker or the candlestick maker, in thiscase …”

“Yes, I see,” Grey said hastily. “Dear me.”

“Yes, it was quite a revelation to Mr. Trowbridge,” Dunsany said, with a grin that showed he still had the majority of his teeth, if somewhat worn and yellowed with age. “I think he considered selling up and going straight back to London, but he stuck it out.”

“Trowbridge? I thought your solicitor was a Mr. Wilberforce.”

“Oh,” Dunsany said again, but less happily. “He was, indeed. Still is, for matters of conveyancing. But I did not quite like to employ him for this particular matter, you know.”

Grey did not know, but nodded understandingly.

Dunsany sighed and shook his head.

“I do worry about poor Isobel,” he said.

“You do?” Grey thought he must have missed some remark that established a relationship in the conversation between Mr. Wilberforce and Isobel, but—

“Oh!” Grey exclaimed himself. He’d forgotten that Lady Dunsany had said that Mr. Wilberforce was paying considerable attentionto Isobel—this remark being made in a significant tone that made it clear that Lady Dunsany had her doubts about Wilberforce.

“Yes, I see.” And he did. They were visiting the solicitor for the purpose of adding the new provision to Dunsany’s will, establishing Lord John’s guardianship of William. If Mr. Wilberforce had aspirations to Isobel’s hand in marriage, the last thing Lord Dunsany would want was for the lawyer to be familiar with the provisions of his will.

“Her sister’s marriage was so—” Dunsany’s lips disappeared into the wrinkles of his face, so hard pressed were they. “Well. I have concerns, as I say. Still, that is neither here nor there. Come, Lord John, we must not be late.”

IT WAS A RARE and beautiful day, one last warm breath of what the local people called “St. Martin’s summer,” before the chill rains and fogs of autumn fell like a curtain over the fells. Even so, Crusoe looked sourly up toward the distant rocks and rolled an eye at the sky.

“Something’s coming,” he said. “Feel it in me bones.” He straightened his back with an alarming crack, as though to make the point, and groaned.