the start.”
“Aye,” she said without hesitation, then stood, remembering dinner. “Might I offer you meat before you return to your labors?”
“Ye may.” He let her go, though he did not take his eyes off her.
She felt him watching her closely as she went about her tasks. Slicing the juicy meat. Cutting open the hot potatoes. When a moment later she joined him at table with their plates in hand, she asked, “Are you imagining what it will be like, day after day, seeing me cook?”
His mischievous smile told her otherwise. “I was imagining ye all richt. But not at the hearth.”
“Neil Gibson!” she exclaimed, pretending to be shocked, though she was secretly delighted. They were not young, but they were not dead.
“I must think of a praisent for ye,” he said, then bit into his mutton with a satisfied groan.
She brushed the hair from his brow. “You love me, dear Neil, with all my faults and weaknesses. That gift will last me a lifetime.”
“I mean it to, lass. A lang life, full o’ a’ that is guid.”
She watched him now, as he’d watched her, and forgot everything she ever knew about fretting.
Seventy-Six
Gifts come from above
in their own peculiar forms.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
ill you be finishing that, milord?” Dickson eyed the large cut of beef that sat untouched on his master’s plate.
Jack pushed the remains of his dinner across the table. “I thought you left such poor manners aboard ship.”
“Oh, I did, mostly.” Dickson cut into the meat with relish. “But I brought my appetite with me. And ’tis a shame to waste good meat.”
Jack gazed out the inn’s small-paned windows into the Grassmarket, eager to quit the capital and start for home. But when they’d returned to the inn to change into riding clothes and claim their belongings, Dickson had reminded him he’d eaten little for breakfast that morning, and they’d be some hours riding to Middleton. “We’d best dine now,” Dickson had said. So here they sat on hard wooden chairs while the clock ticked round.
When Dickson had consumed everything on both their plates and began gazing longingly at a stranger’s meal, Jack pushed back from the table. “Time we were off.”
“Lord Buchanan!” a voice called from the entrance. “Can it be ye?”
Jack turned to find Archie Gordon, the bearded Scotsman charged with looking after Fiona Cromar’s welfare, lumbering toward the table. Jack had chosen the man not only for his honesty but also for his size. Even the fiercest Highlanders might think again before they’d take on Archie Gordon.
The man lowered his bulk onto a tottery chair and planted his elbows on the table. “Are ye lodging here?” he asked.
“We were,” Jack told him, “but are now bound for Bell Hill.”
“Weel, that’s whaur I was headed.” Archie wagged his head, his thick red hair tied back with a bit of leather. “A coincidence, aye?”
“I prefer to think of it as divine providence,” Jack told him. “You must have news of some import, Archie, to bring it to my door rather than post a letter.”
The man’s jovial expression faded. “Aye, milord.”
Jack’s stomach knotted. “Good news or ill?”
“I’ll let ye be the judge o’ that.” Archie rubbed his hand over his beard, then waved over the innkeeper and ordered a pint of ale and a kidney pie before finally relaying the news. “Ben Cromar is deid.”
Jack stared at him. “Dead?”
“Aye,” Archie said, frowning. “Got into a brawl with a neighbor after they both had too much whisky. Cromar fell and hit his head on a rock sticking up from the ground. Folk were there as witnesses. ’Twas an accident and naught else.”
Jack sank back in his chair. “I am very sorry to hear it.”
“Is that a fact?” Archie looked at him in amazement. “I thocht ye micht be pleased, cruel as the man was.”
“Relieved,” Jack admitted, “but not pleased, not at another man’s death.”
“Aye, weel.” Archie took his first sip of ale and sighed. “To be sure, Fiona Cromar is alone noo, with none to provide for her.”
Jack stood. “That I can remedy.” He sought out the innkeeper, then returned to the table shortly thereafter with quill, ink, paper, and wax. “In a moment I’ll have a letter ready for Mrs. Cromar. When you return to Bell Hill with her answer, I’ll reward you for your labors. Will that suit?”
“Aye, milord. If ye’ll not mind, I’ll have my dinner while ye write.”
Jack nodded, his pen already moving across the paper. He did not know Elisabeth’s mother well enough to guess