“Are ye finished?” He was standing in the doorway.
Madame Roy spoke back to him in English, only Mary was surprised to hear her accent and her intonations sounded much like his. “We’re nearly done, aye.”
“Where’s your book?” he asked, and Mary stared at him uncomprehending until he repeated with more emphasis, “Your book. The one ye write in.”
When she still could not reply he muttered something that she took to be a curse and crossing to the bed began to shift the bolster and the pillows. Frisque, who until now had been content to sit amidst the blankets and observe the bustle and confusion, rose to bark a protest. The Scotsman swung his gaze towards the little dog, and Mary found her voice.
“Do not harm him!”
Madame Roy had finished with the fastening of Mary’s cloak and let her hands drop lightly onto Mary’s shoulders as if she would hold her back from interfering, but the potent rush of terror and protectiveness would not let Mary hold her tongue. “The book is in the clothespress.”
It was underneath the linens but the Scotsman found it easily and slipped it with the penner into one of his coat pockets before turning once again towards the bed, where Frisque was barking still. “The dog,” he said to Mary, “cannot come.”
“I will not leave him.” She could feel her chin lift even though she was afraid, and for a moment they stood staring at each other.
He was not a handsome man. His face was formed of stubborn angles, none of which was even, and his mouth at one end slanted up and downward at the other, and his eyes held not a hint of warmth. They measured her impatiently. He said, “It will be trouble.”
She did not back down. “You said that we could bring what we could carry,” was her argument. “And I can carry him.”
With a frown the man reached down and scooped the barking dog into his one large hand with no apparent effort. Frisque, whether from prudence or his love of being held, wisely fell silent, though his feathered tail began to wag. The Scotsman exhaled tightly in what could not quite be called a sigh, and turning from the bed closed the small distance between him and Mary, thrusting Frisque into her hands. “But nothing else,” he said. “And we go now.”
He seemed to have a knowledge of the house and all its rooms that hinted this was not the first time he had been inside. She’d been afraid that he would lead them down through the entry where the dead man lay and where, beyond the door, the coach might yet be waiting in the street outside. But he did not. He took them by the back stairs Mary had used after breakfast, that went straight into the kitchen. Mary stumbled on the stairs, her limbs still numb and unresponsive and her movements made more cumbersome by being bundled in two gowns at once like a stuffed doll, but she’d regained her balance and was holding Frisque more tightly by the time the man glanced back.
Just standing in the kitchen made her stomach twist unpleasantly. She focused for a moment on the soiled coat, still lying where she’d left it on the table by the window, but it seemed quite far away from them and he had on another now, so really she supposed it didn’t matter.
“Come,” the Scotsman told them, sliding back the bolt he’d fastened earlier and easing the door open to allow them access to the courtyard. “Quietly.”
Mary, through the fog that had encased her brain, observed that from the tone in which he spoke there always seemed to be a silent threat appended to his words, so that one could, if one were moved to make a game of it, attach the words “or else I’ll kill you” to the things he said and have them fit as though he’d spoken them aloud.
They followed him along the back walls of the row of houses and so out into the street some way behind the waiting coach. She little noticed where he led them—through what streets or for how long—but in the end they found themselves within another sheltered courtyard tightly crowded by the high dark walls of other houses, and they climbed another narrow twisting stair into a set of cold and sparsely furnished rooms. The Scotsman was the last to enter. Bolting shut the door he turned and told them, “Find a seat.”
“Or else I’ll kill you,” Mary murmured to herself. He stood too far from her to hear her, Mary knew. His gaze swung briefly to her, studied her dispassionately for a moment, then moved on.
The fire within the room had been allowed to burn so low that it was little more than embers in the fireplace. Madame Roy crossed without asking for permission and took up the poker from the hearth to stir the fire to stronger life. The Scotsman took no notice. He was standing now at one of the room’s windows, looking out.
Madame Roy said to Mary, “Come and sit here by the fire, child.” She said it first in English, then when Mary did not move from where she stood, repeated it in French, and slowly Mary did as she was told and with Frisque in her arms she took a seat upon the stool Madame Roy had set near the hearth.
The Scotsman without turning round told Madame Roy in English, “Keep the fire low.”
“The lass has had a fright. She must be warmed or she’ll fall ill. Do you have brandy?”
“No.” His focus stayed upon whatever he was watching through the window. Mary noticed he was standing back just far enough that he would not be easily observed by someone looking in. And then she saw the little table to the one side of the window, and the pale clay pipe that rested on it, and she knew exactly where they were. For all the walking they had done, they’d ended up a stone’s throw from where they had started, in the house across the street, and in the room where he had stood for all those nights and watched them, as he now was keeping watch upon the street below.