‘They’ll hear us, John.’
‘They won’t.’ He pressed her close against the garden wall, his shoulders shielding her from view, while at his back and overhead the thickly laden branches of a lilac tree hung round them, filling all the shadowed corner with a sweet and clinging scent.
All around, the final dying light of day was giving way to darkness, and Sophia found she could not take her eyes from Moray’s face, as someone going blind might look her last upon the things best loved, before night fell. And night, she knew, was falling. In the shelter of the cliffs below the castle walls, the Heroine was back, and riding silent on the waves. When it grew dark enough, the boat would come to carry Hooke and Moray from the shore.
She did not wish him to remember her in tears. She forced a smile. ‘And what if Colonel Hooke is looking for you now?’
‘Then let him look. I have my own affairs to tend before we leave tonight.’ He touched her hair with gentle fingers. ‘Did ye think that I’d be parted from my lass without a farewell kiss?’
She shook her head, and let him raise her face to his, and kissed him back with all the fierceness spilling from her soul, the wordless longing that would not be held, but rushed upon her like the flooding tide. There was a quiver in her lips, she knew, but when he raised his head she’d overcome it and was trying to look brave.
She might have saved herself the effort. Moray studied her in silence for a moment with his solemn gaze, then gathered her against his chest, one arm around her shoulders and the other hand entangled in her hair, as if he sought to make her part of him. His head came down so that his breath brushed warm against her cheek. ‘I will come back to ye.’
She could not speak, but nodded, and his voice grew more determined still.
‘Believe that. Let the devil bar my way, I will come back to ye,’ he said. ‘And when King Jamie’s won his crown, I’ll no more be a wanted man, and I’ll be done with fighting. We’ll have a home,’ he promised her, ‘and bairns, and ye can wear a proper ring upon your finger so the world will see you’re mine.’ Drawing back, he brushed a bright curl from her cheekbone with a touch of sure possession. ‘Ye were mine,’ he told her, ‘from the moment I first saw ye.’
It was true, but she did not yet trust her voice to tell him so. She could but let him read it in her eyes.
His hand withdrew a moment, then returned, to press a small, round object, smoothly warm, into the yielding softness of her palm. ‘Ye’d best take this, so ye’ll not doubt it for yourself.’
She did not need to look to know what he was giving her, and yet she raised it anyway and held it to the fading light—a heavy square of silver, with a red stone at its centre, on a plain, broad silver band. ‘I cannot take your father’s ring.’
‘Ye can.’ He closed her fingers round it with his own, insistent. ‘I’ll have it back when I return, and bring a gold one in its place. ’Till then, I’d have ye keep it with ye. Any man who knew my father knows that ring, as well. While I’m away, if ye need help of any kind, ye’ve but to show that to my family, and they’ll see you’re taken care of.’ When he saw that she still hesitated, he went on more lightly, ‘Ye can keep it safe for me, if nothing else. I’ve lost more things than I can name, on battlefields.’
She clenched her fingers round the ring, not wanting the reminder of the dangers he would face. ‘How soon must you rejoin your regiment?’
‘As soon as I am ordered to.’ He met her eyes and saw her fear and said, ‘Don’t worry, lass. I’ve kept myself alive this long, and that was well before I had your bonnie face to give me better cause. I’ll keep my head well down.’
He wouldn’t, though, she knew. It was not in his nature. When he fought, he’d fight with all he had, and without caution, for that was how he’d been made. Some men, the countess had once told her, choose the path of danger, on their own.
Sophia knew that he was only seeking now to lift a little of the heaviness that weighed upon her heart, so she pretended to believe him, for she would not have him bear her worries, too, beside his own concerns, however broad his shoulders. ‘Will you write to me?’ she asked.
‘I wouldn’t think it wise. Besides,’ he said, to cheer her, ‘likely I’d be back myself before the letter found ye here. ’Tis why I thought to leave ye this.’ He took a folded paper from his coat and passed it over. ‘I’ve been told by my sisters a lass likes to have things in writing, to mind her of how a man feels.’
She was struck silent for a second time, the letter feeling precious beyond measure in her hand.
He said, ‘Ye burn that, if the castle’s searched. I’d not have Queen Anne’s men believing I’m so soft.’ But underneath his stern expression she could sense his smile, and she was well aware her shining eyes had pleased him.
She did not try to read the note. The light was too far faded, and she knew she’d have more need of it when he had gone, and so she kept it folded in her hand, together with the ring that still felt warm from being on his finger. Looking up, she said, ‘But I have nothing I can give you in return.’
‘Then give me this.’ His eyes held all the darkness of the falling night as, lowering his head once more, he found her mouth with his, there in the closely scented shelter of the lilac tree against the garden wall. His movement freed a fragrant scattering of petals that fell lightly on Sophia’s face, her hair, her hands. She hardly noticed.
Moray, when he finally raised his head, looked down at her and half-smiled in the darkness. ‘Now ye look a proper bride.’
She did not understand at first, but coming slowly to awareness of the feathering of lilac petals, moved to shake them off.
He stopped her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘’Tis how I would remember ye.’
They stood there, in the little silent corner of the garden, and Sophia felt the world receding from them as a wave withdraws along the shore, till nothing else remained but her and Moray, with their gazes bound together and his strong hands warm upon her and the words unspoken hanging still between them, for there was no need to speak.
The night had come.
She heard the sound of someone opening a door, and footsteps starting out on gravel, and the hard, unwelcome sound of Colonel Hooke’s voice, calling Moray.
Moray made no move to answer, and she tried again to find a smile to show him, and with borrowed courage, told him, ‘You must go.’
‘Aye.’ He was not fooled, she thought, by her attempt at being brave, yet he seemed touched by it. ‘’Tis only for a while.’
Sophia held her smile steady when it would have wavered. ‘Yes, I know. I will be fine. I’ve grown well used to being on my own.’
‘Ye’ll not be that.’ He spoke so low his words seemed carried by the breeze that brushed her upturned face. ‘Ye told me once,’ he said, ‘I had your heart.’
‘You do.’
‘And ye have mine.’ He folded one hand over hers and held it close against his chest so she could feel its beating strength. ‘It does not travel with me, lass, across the water. Where you are, it will remain. Ye’ll not be on your own.’ His fingers held the tighter to her smaller ones. ‘And I’ll no more be whole again,’ he said, ‘till I return.’
‘Then come back quickly.’ She had not meant for her whispered voice to break upon those words, nor for the sudden tears to spring behind her eyes.
Hooke called again, some distance still behind them, and she tried to step aside to let him go, but Moray had not finished yet with his farewell. His kiss, this time, was rougher, raw with feeling. She could feel the force of his regret, and of his love for her, and when it ended she clung close a moment longer, loathe to leave the circle of his arms.
She’d told herself she would not ask again, she would not burden him, and yet the words came anyway. ‘I would that I could go with you.’
He did not answer, only tightened his embrace.
Sophia’s vision blurred, and though she knew he would not change his mind, she felt compelled to say, ‘You told me once I might yet walk a ship’s deck.’
‘Aye,’ he murmured, warm against her brow, ‘and so ye will. But this,’ he said, ‘is not the ship.’ His kiss, so gentle on her hair, was meant for comfort, but it broke her heart.
Hooke’s steps were coming closer on the gravel.
There was no more time. Sophia, moved by impulse, freed her hands and reached to draw from round her neck the cord that held the small black pebble with the hole in it she’d found upon the beach.
She did not know if there was truly magic in that stone, as Moray’s mother had once told him, to protect the one who wore it from all harm, but if there was, she knew that Moray had more need of it than she did. Without words, she pressed it hard into his open hand, then quickly pushed away from him before her tears betrayed her, and ran soundlessly between the shadows to the kitchen door.
Behind her, she heard Hooke call Moray’s name again, more loudly, and an instant later Moray’s steps fell heavily along the garden path, and in a voice that sounded rougher than his own, he said, ‘I’m here. Is everything then ready?’
What came after that, Sophia did not hear, for she was through the door and running still, past Mrs Grant and Kirsty, and she did not stop till she had reached the solace of her chamber.
From her window, she could see the trail of moonlight on the sea, and rising dark across its silver path the tall masts of the Heroine, her sails now being raised to take the wind.
She felt the small, warm hardness of his ring, clenched in her fist so tightly that it bit into her hand and brought her pain, but she was grateful for the hurt. It was a thing that she could blame for all the tears that swam against her vision.
There was nothing to be gained, she knew, by weeping. She had wept the day her father, with one last embrace, had sailed for unknown shores, and she had wept still more the day her mother had gone after him, and weeping had not given them safe passage, nor yet brought them home again. She’d wept that black night that her sister, with the unborn bairn inside her, had been carried off in screams and suffering, and weeping had not left her any less alone.
So she would not weep now.
She knew that Moray had to leave, she understood his reasons. And she had his ring to hold, his unread letter to remind her of his love, and more than these, his promise that he would come back to her.
That should have been enough, she thought. But still the hotness swelled behind her eyes. And when all the frigate’s sails were filled with wind, and set for France, and the dark ship was loosed upon the rolling sea, Sophia blinked again, and one, small traitor of a tear squeezed through the barrier of lashes and tracked slowly down her cheek.
And then another found the path that it had taken. And another.
And she had been right. It did not help. Although she stood a long time at her window, watching steadily until at last the winging sails were swallowed by the stars; and though her tears, the whole time, slid in silence down her face to drop like bitter rain among the lilac petals scattered still upon her gown, it made no difference, in the end.
For he was gone from her, and she was left alone.