"I will charge Amanda with making sure of it," she said. "If it were not for my lumbago, I would make the journey myself. Heaven knows what you young women will get up to, you are all so set on your independence. I did so count on bringing Kitty home to Oakmere with me, and see how she changed her mind at the last minute. I am still most seriously displeased, but perhaps you can persuade her, Elizabeth, once you are home again. Certainly you must see to it that she doesn't fall under Dr. Todd's influence. Such a very flighty young woman; she requires your firm hand if she cannot have mine." She sniffed. "Of course, you might still get it into your head to turn privateer and sail off to China, children in tow. Certainly my son-in-law already looks the part." And she scowled as if she had Will Spencer before her.

Elizabeth got up to plant a kiss on her old aunt's cheek. "You are worried for us," she said. "But please be assured, we have no interest in going anywhere but home, and that as quickly as possible."

"Do not try to mollify me," said her aunt, swatting at her with a folded fan. "I shall worry if it pleases me to worry, every day until I have word of your safe arrival. Now your husband has been waiting for you these twenty minutes, and his patience is not eternal, I am sure of it. Go on, the two of you, but do not be long."

They went to see the ship that would take them home. Hawkeye and Will had been here before, as had Thomas Ballentyne in his new role as Carryck's agent and factor. Even now Carryck's men milled around the dock, and there they would remain until the Bonners were safe away.

And still, Nathaniel knew maybe better than Elizabeth did herself that she would not rest easy tonight unless she had examined the ship and met its captain and officers.

She was called Good Tidings, a small but comfortable packet on her way to New-York with the mails and a shipment of Scotch whisky for the governor and porcelain for his wife. A fast ship, and not so large that she would attract the attention of privateers--but well armed enough to repel anyone who showed unwelcome interest. The captain and owner was a Yorker by the name of George Goodey, a small man with a stern expression and a taciturn way about him; he showed them their quarters, had his sailors run out the guns for Nathaniel's inspection, and then he bade them good-bye. He suited Elizabeth very well.

"Curiosity will lock horns with him," she noted as they walked back to her aunt Merriweather's lodgings. "And she will enjoy every minute of it."

"It'll be close quarters," Nathaniel said. "Your cousin may get a little itchy."

"Amanda is too pleased to have Will back again-- even her mother cannot interfere with her happiness."

"And what about you, Boots?" he asked, tucking her arm tighter under his own.

"Me? I would paddle a canoe home if that's what it required," Elizabeth said. "We have been gone only a little more than four months, but it feels like so much longer."

They walked on in a comfortable silence for a while, and then she turned to him suddenly, and stretching up on tiptoe, she kissed him there on the High Street, with people all around.

"What was that for, Boots?"

"For keeping our children safe."

"You're thinking of Isabel."

She nodded. "I can hardly think of anything else but Robbie, and Isabel."

A flush was creeping up her cheeks, anger and grief pushing her to sudden tears. Nathaniel put his arm around her as they walked, willing to wait for her to put words to what she was feeling. Until she did that, she would have no peace.

It came in a low rush. "I cannot imagine what Carryck is suffering now, to have lost his daughter not because she was disloyal, but because he was too blind to see Moncrieff's true nature."

Neither did we see him for what he was, not at first. Nathaniel thought of saying this, but held his tongue, knowing full well that they would have to deal with it soon enough.

She said, "The look on Carryck's face when we took our leave--I don't think he will ever forgive himself for refusing to go to Isabel when he had a chance, there at the end. And perhaps he does not deserve forgiveness." She was flushed with remembering, still full angry.

"You know I'm not likely to make excuses for the man," Nathaniel said, as evenly as he could manage. "But it seems to me he knows well where the blame lies and he ain't shirking it. I don't know that he'd survive all this, if it weren't for Jean Hope and Jennet. And you'll forgive me, Boots, if I point out that the man buried his priest and his daughter within a day of each other. That's punishment enough."

She shook her head, quite forcefully. "He is getting what he wanted, Nathaniel. A way to keep Carryck free of the Breadalbanes, and an heir. Do you not worry about sending ... Luke to him, knowing now how he dealt with his own daughter?"

"I don't know that Luke will want to come here," Nathaniel said slowly. "He's more of a stranger to me than Carryck is. And the truth is, it don't feel real, yet, the news about the boy. You're asking me if I trust Carryck with a son I don't know, and might never see again. I've been thinking about that all day long, and I'll tell you what. He's a man already, as old as I was when he came into the world. We'll tell him what he needs to know about this place, give him the good and the bad of it, and he'll make his own decision. And if he wants to come here and if that solves Carryck's problems, well then, I'll be glad for both of them, Boots. But I know one thing for sure, and maybe it's something I can see and you can't. Carryck will be relieved to get the boy if that puts an end to his problems, but there's no joy left in this world for him. He buried that part of his life with his daughter. And Moncrieff."