* * *
“Five pounds,” I said firmly. “It’s worth ten, and I could get six for it, if I cared to walk all the way up the hill to another shop.” I had no idea whether this was true or not, but I reached out as though to pick up the necklace from the counter anyway, pretending that I was about to leave the pawnbroker’s shop. The pawnbroker, Mr. Samuels, placed a quick hand over the necklace, his eagerness letting me know that I should have asked six pounds to start with.
“Three pound ten, then,” he said. “It’s beggaring me own family to do it, but for a fine lady like yourself…”
The small bell over the shop door chimed behind me as the door opened, and there was the sound of hesitant footsteps on the worn boards of the pawnshop floor.
“Excuse me,” began a girl’s voice, and I whirled around, pearl necklace forgotten, to see the shadow of the pawnbroker’s balls falling across the face of Mary Hawkins. She had grown in the last year, and filled out as well. There was a new maturity and dignity in her manner, but she was still very young. She blinked once, and then fell on me with a shriek of joy, her fur collar tickling my nose as she hugged me tight.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, disentangling myself at last.
“Father’s sister lives here,” she replied. “I’m st-staying with her. Or do you mean why am I here?” She waved a hand at the dingy confines of Mr. Samuels’s emporium.
“Well, that too,” I said. “But that can wait a bit.” I turned to the pawnbroker. “Four pound six, or I’ll walk up the hill,” I told him. “Make up your mind, I’m in a hurry.”
Grumbling to himself, Mr. Samuels reached beneath his counter for the cash box, as I turned back to Mary.
“I have to buy some blankets. Can you come with me?”
She glanced outside, to where a small man in a footman’s livery stood by the door, clearly waiting for her. “Yes, if you’ll come with me afterward. Oh, Claire, I’m so glad to see you!”
“He sent a message to me,” Mary confided, as we walked down the hill. “Alex. A friend brought me his letter.” Her face glowed as she spoke his name, but there was a small frown between her brows as well.
“When I found he was in Edinburgh, I m-made Father send me to visit Aunt Mildred. He didn’t mind,” she added bitterly. “It m-made him ill to look at me, after what happened in Paris. He was happy to get me out of his house.”
“So you’ve seen Alex?” I asked. I wondered how the young curate had fared, since I had last seen him. I also wondered how he had found the courage to write to Mary.
“Yes. He didn’t ask me to come,” she added quickly. “I c-came by myself.” Her chin lifted in defiance, but there was a small quiver as she said, “He.…he wouldn’t have written to me, but he thought he was d-dying, and he wanted me to know…to know…” I put an arm about her shoulders and turned quickly into one of the closes, standing with her out of the flow of jostling street traffic.
“It’s all right,” I said to her, patting her helplessly, knowing that nothing I could do would make it right. “You came, and you’ve seen him, that’s the important thing.”
She nodded, speechless, and blew her nose. “Yes,” she said thickly, at last. “We’ve had…two months. I k-keep telling myself that that’s more than most people ever have, two months of happiness…but we lost so much time that we might have h-had, and…it’s not enough. Claire, it isn’t enough!”
“No,” I said quietly. “A lifetime isn’t enough, for that kind of love.” With a sudden pang, I wondered where Jamie was, and how he was faring.
Mary, more composed now, clutched me by the sleeve. “Claire, can you come with me to see him? I know there’s n-not much you can do…” Her voice faltered, and she steadied it with a visible effort. “But maybe you could…help.” She caught my look at the footman, who stood stolidly outside the wynd, oblivious to the passing traffic. “I pay him,” she said simply. “My aunt thinks I go w-walking every afternoon. Will you come?”
“Yes, of course.” I glanced between the towering buildings, judging the level of the sun over the hills outside the city. It would be dark in an hour; I wanted the blankets delivered to the prison before night made the damp stone walls of the Tolbooth still colder. Making a sudden decision, I turned to Fergus, who had been standing patiently next to me, watching Mary with interest. Returned to Edinburgh with the rest of the Lallybroch men, he had escaped imprisonment by virtue of his French citizenship, and had survived hardily by reverting to his customary trade. I had found him faithfully hanging about near the Tolbooth, where he brought bits of food for his imprisoned companions.
“Take this money,” I said, handing him my purse, “and find Murtagh. Tell him to get as many blankets as that will buy, and see they’re taken to the gaolkeeper at the Tolbooth. He’s been bribed already, but keep back a few shillings, just in case.”
“But Madame,” he protested, “I promised milord I would not let you go alone…”
“Milord isn’t here,” I said firmly, “and I am. Go, Fergus.”
He glanced from me to Mary, evidently decided she was less a threat to me than my temper was to him, and departed, shrugging his shoulders and muttering in French about the stubbornness of women.