The Winter Sea (Slains, #1)(116)

‘Aye. ’Tis from the countess.’

She had known it would not be from Moray, for he’d told her it would not be safe for him to write, but still she felt a twist of disappointment as she took the letter in her hand. She salved it with the knowledge that it would not be much longer now till Moray, as he’d promised, would be home. There would be no more separations.

She suddenly became aware of Kirsty, standing at her side in silent misery while Rory, his deliveries made, prepared to go. Sophia saw him glance at Kirsty once, and in that single look she glimpsed the force of his frustration and regret. For now, his duties lay at Slains and hers were here. They were divided, thought Sophia, as completely as herself and Moray.

Calling Rory as he turned to leave, Sophia said, ‘When I have read this letter, I will wish to send the countess a reply. I pray you wait and carry it.’

He turned, a little slow in his acceptance of this unexpected gift.

She tried to look the part of the commanding lady. ‘If, as you did say, you have done all that you were sent to do, it should not be too great an inconvenience to delay your journey home by such a small thing as an hour?’ She felt a stir of hope from Kirsty, close beside her, and she saw a trace of gratitude chase briefly over Rory’s stoic features.

‘No,’ he told her, ‘it would not.’

‘You must be hungry. Kirsty, will you show him to the kitchen?’

Kirsty’s smile was broad. ‘Aye, Mrs Milton.’

With them gone, and Mrs Malcolm having gone off to attend to preparations of her own, Sophia sat to read her letter.

It was written in the countess’s clear hand, with care in case it should be intercepted by unfriendly hands. ‘My dearest Mrs Milton,’ it began, ‘We are so pleased to hear that you have been delivered safely of a daughter. I am sure she brings you joy, and that you soon will come to wonder how you ever filled your days before she came. When you are able you must bring her north to visit us at Slains, for we would dearly love to see you both, although we would advise that you not venture it until our climate here has grown more favorable. I did this week receive a note from Mr Perkins,’ she went on, and ‘Mr Perkins’ was, Sophia knew, the name the countess used in code when speaking of the Duke of Perth, her brother, who was chancellor at the court of Saint-Germain. The Duke of Perth wrote regularly to his sister, smuggling the letters over sea by varied messengers to keep them from the prying eyes of agents of Queen Anne. His news was mostly of the court itself, but this time it appeared to be more personal. The countess’s own letter said, ‘He writes that he did chance to meet our friend the colonel and did play a pleasant game of chess with him and found him very well indeed, and in good spirits. And in that same house he met your husband, Mr Milton, who was also well, and who did say that he intends at any day to travel to the coast and seek his passage home in company with Mr Johnstone.’

Here Sophia stopped, and read that passage for a second time to make quite sure she’d read it right—for ‘Mr Johnstone’, she knew, meant the king.

So it was real, then. Moray would be coming, and he would be coming soon. Sophia sat to write her letter in reply, but she could not at first compose it for her hands had started trembling from no other cause than happiness—a happiness so pure and strong she sought not to contain it but to share it, so that when the trembling ceased she still wrote slowly, knowing Kirsty and her Rory would make good use of the extra moments she could give them. It was well beyond an hour before she gave the letter into Rory’s hand, and saw him ride again towards the north, and Slains.

In the days that followed afterwards, Sophia kept a closer watch upon the waters of the Firth, and woke each day in expectation, with her ears tuned to the sounds of running wheels and hoofbeats passing by the house along the road to Edinburgh.

The very wind felt different in those days, as though the smoke from some strange fire rode upon its currents, often scented yet unseen.

The baby fretted in her cradle and refused all comfort, while Sophia paced the chamber back and forth and back and forth until her slippers showed the wear. And still there was no word.

Then came the night when she heard cannon-fire.

Five shots, and silence. Nothing more.

When morning came she had not slept.

‘What is it?’ Kirsty asked her, waking.

But Sophia did not know. She only knew she felt a strangeness in the air this morning. ‘Did you hear the cannon?’

‘No.’

‘Last night, upon the stroke of midnight.’

‘You were dreaming,’ Kirsty told her.

‘No.’ Sophia stopped her restless pacing by the window, gazing out across the grey mist that was melting with the sunrise, touched with bands of gold and red that shimmered like the blood of kings. ‘It was no dream, I think.’

And she was right. For on the evening of the next day Mr Malcolm, who had been away from home for some few nights, returned in agitation.

‘Fetch me bread and clothes!’ he called. ‘I must away.’

His wife, surprised, asked, ‘Why? What is it? What has—?’

‘Christ, woman, cease your talk and make ye haste, else ye may see me hang with all the rest of them.’ And with that outburst Mr Malcolm sank despondent to the nearest chair and gripped his head with both his hands. He had not bothered taking off his heavy cloak, to which the salty dampness of the sea winds clung and channeled down in rivulets to drip upon the floorboards.