Hester(58)

The past is here now: I see it in the way Felicity looks at him through the corner of an eye and the way he shifts his gaze away—as if she is remembering his great-great-grandfather’s cruelty and the death he brought to this city.

“My needlewoman will decorate men’s gloves as well,” Felicity says. “Perhaps she can put your initials in a pair of calfskin.”

“I’ve just had a new waistcoat made,” he says. “A pair of calfskins would be just the thing. Or an embroidered vest rendered with a stag or a leopard. I might consider these for myself if a price might be agreed upon.”

A leopard. He’s said it aloud.

A leopard is a solitary hunter. But who is the hunter, and who is the prey here?

“I’ll inquire,” Felicity says. “Come back soon if you wish to place an order. Her work will be in high demand as we approach the Light Infantry banquet.”

After he’s gone, I wait for Felicity to speak to me about stitching a leopard on a vest. She must find it an unusual request. But her face is clouded, and I feel sure she’s remembering the fate of her ancestress.

I hate to think of a kinship with Felicity, but it is undeniable that she and I stand on one side with the accused, while Nat stands on the other. And yet he is one of the few people I trust in this new world, and the tenderness and excitement I feel for him blots out everything else. Even the curse that Isobel Gowdie shouted from the rooftop. Even the curse—God will give you blood to drink—that follows Nat.

He came for me, and I want him.



* * *



THAT NIGHT I dream of my mother standing beneath a tree beside the River Clyde.

“Do I want my husband to come home?” I ask her. Even in my sleep I know I’m at the edge of life and what comes after. “What if someone else is meant for me?”

I know she has an answer, but she doesn’t want to say it.

“Mam?”

I reach out a hand and catch her hair between my fingers. She begins to fade away.

“Mam—wait.”

She turns and says, “Isobel, think of the faeries beneath the May trees. Remember what I told you.”

“What did you tell me?” My fingers are knotted around a tangled filament of her red hair. But before she can answer, she has crossed the river and faded to white, then to light, then to pounding rain.

The rain roars like the Falls of Clyde, and the knocking on my door is like the sound of footsteps crossing rocks.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Isobel, I need help.”

I sit up. It’s not a dream.

Knock, knock.

“Please, Isobel. It’s Nat.”

I rub my eyes and strike a match to light the candle, and that is when I see the filaments of red hair still in a small tangle around my fingers.

He begins to say my name in a flat singsong. “Is-a-bell, Is-a-bell—”

I ball the hair into the pocket of my dressing gown and crack open the top of my Dutch door to find him in the pouring rain. Right away I know he’s drunk.

“I’m hurt.” He holds up his arm and I can see the jacket sleeve is torn away. His face is scratched, his lip bloody. “And I’m freezing; please let me in.”

Now I am fully awake. I look about my cottage with the same crystal clarity I felt the day the constable came for Edward in Glasgow. My heart is pounding, and then my mind is perfectly clear. Charlotte’s petticoats and layette are everywhere, pure and white, arms in one direction and skirts in another like angels frolicking on clouds. I gather the pieces into a corner, take the cover off my bed, and throw it over the white work.

I do not lie, even to myself. I know why he’s come and I know that if I open the door, I will have agreed to the beginning of something. I smooth my hair and rinse my mouth with water and then let him stumble into the cottage, soaked through and shivering.

“My new waistcoat is ruined,” he says. “My first and best gentleman’s coat—newly made and now—”

He lifts his arm. The black coat is made of superfine wool, a tight weave that must have come from England. Half the sleeve is missing, and the liner is shredded. I pull over a chair and he slides into it, making a strange, strangled sound.

“I played cards in Marblehead.” His words are garbled and muddy, the color of dirt. “I don’t usually go so far—”

I stand behind him and pull at the good sleeve of his jacket. When I tug it off, the back of his head falls against me. His face is scratched. There are dark whiskers running across his chin and above his lip.

“You’ve been drinking,” I say to his upturned face. His eyes are luminous.

“Rum—too much rum.” Rum puts me in mind of Edward, but I push away the thought.

Nat tells a story in fractures and fragments: a quarter-moon, owls in the trees, oil lamps and jugs of rum, a man with a gun and another with an Indian who stood at the door without speaking.

“I won,” he says, struggling with a muddy shoe, and I help him by pulling on the heel. When it slides off, paper bills and silver coins pour onto the floor. “All of this, Isobel—it was all so that I can buy your gloves.”

My heart blazes.

“The bastards tried to take it from me. Just outside town I was hit from behind.” He swings his fist as a man will do when telling of a tavern fight. “One was tall, the other was quick and had a knife—but I fought and got away.”