But there was no need for him to wait. Mr. MacLeod, Ilsa’s butler, said she was not at home. Agnes bit her lip but nodded.
Something flickered over Felix’s face when she came back down. “Won’t she see you?”
“She’s out.”
His gaze jumped to the sitting room windows above them.
“She’s likely sitting in a coffeehouse with Sorcha White or walking on the hill with Robert,” said Agnes, feeling guilty and a bit jealous, which made her feel guiltier. She used to be the friend Ilsa walked with and sat in coffeehouses with. “I’ll call again tomorrow.”
“Aye,” said Felix. “Do.”
But when tomorrow came, things were even worse.
A knock sounded on the door as they were finishing breakfast. Agnes ran down to answer and found Felix. “I cannot stay,” he said when she invited him inside. “I wanted to tell you Deacon Fletcher left town at dawn. The sheriff’s men are at Mrs. Ramsay’s house.”
“What?”
Felix held up one hand. “To see if she knows where her father went, nothing else.”
“I have to go!”
He caught her as she started to run upstairs. “It’s only questioning. They won’t arrest her.”
Agnes gripped his fingers. “But we have to help.”
He wrapped his other hand around hers. “She will need her friends. Otherwise, there’s naught we can do.”
She blinked rapidly. “Naught!”
“They’ll only ask questions,” he said in the same calm, forceful voice. “She’ll tell them she knows nothing. They haven’t even arrested Fletcher.”
“But what if she does know something?” Agnes burst out.
Felix tensed. “Do you believe so?”
“No, but she’s devoted to her father. She won’t tell the sheriff anything if they intend to arrest him.”
He turned and stared into the distance, his jaw tight. Agnes shook his arm. “What can we do?”
“Be her loyal friend,” he said after a pause. “If she needs help, she’ll want a lawyer.”
Agne recoiled. “You think they will arrest her.”
He put up one hand. “I don’t see why they would, unless they’ve got evidence she was involved.”
“She wasn’t! But the gossips will think so. Oh, Felix, she suffered so much from the evil gossip last year. There must be something…”
“Advise her to do nothing to arouse the sheriff’s suspicions. If he believes she knows nothing, he’ll leave her be.”
“She should sit quietly at home and insist she knows nothing of her father’s criminal activities?” Agnes demanded. “She shouldn’t protest his innocence, only hers?”
He gave her a look of apology. “If she wants to stay clear of trouble, yes.”
Agnes knew her friend. Ilsa adored her father; she would never sit by quietly and watch him be condemned. And Agnes understood that. If someone had accused her papa of such a terrible thing, she wouldn’t sit quietly at home, either. “Drew would do something.”
Felix’s brows drew together. “Then he’ll do it when he returns.”
“That may be too late!”
He took a deep breath and cupped her cheek. “If I know him, he’ll find the fastest horse in Fort George and race back to Edinburgh. He’ll be here soon.”
Agnes turned her face away and said nothing.
Felix raised her hand and kissed her white knuckles. “Trust me, love. I’ll come back if I learn more.”
He left, and Agnes slammed the door. Wait. There’s nothing you can do. Tell your friend to say nothing as her family is torn to shreds by cruel and vicious gossip.
Felix didn’t understand. His family had never suffered a sudden fall from grace, as hers had. He had never had to endure the pitying looks, the way friends suddenly vanished, the shame of being unwelcome where you had once been at home.
There had been nothing to say or do against that when it had been her family, reeling from Papa’s death and struggling to adapt to their new poverty. Perhaps she couldn’t do much for Ilsa, but she could let her friend know she was not alone—and never would be. Agnes ran back up the stairs to fetch her hat, determined not to be turned away this time.
13
Felix hadn’t wanted to worry Agnes, but he was uneasy for Mrs. Ramsay.
He feverishly dug about for more information. It was the first thing St. James would want when he roared back into town, and Felix was determined to have something to tell him. He began haunting Agnew’s, waiting for Oliphant or any other criminal lawyers to turn up and share what they’d heard. He even chatted up two sheriff’s officers he knew, to no avail. All anyone knew was that Fletcher had disappeared, and while the man’s sister and daughter claimed no knowledge of his actions or location, rumors were flying around town that they knew more than they were admitting.
When Agnes asked him, he jumped at the chance to call on Mrs. Ramsay and see for himself how she was faring—which was, not well. The sparkling, beguiling woman he’d known at Stormont Palace was gone, replaced by a quiet woman with guarded eyes.
“I thank you, sir,” she murmured in response when he asked what he could do to help. “But I don’t know what there is to be done.”
Agnes was all but vibrating beside him. Felix tried again. “I heard the sheriff has been here more than once. Perhaps, out of an abundance of caution, it would be wise to retain counsel.”
Thanks to a loose-lipped sheriff’s deputy, Felix knew they had searched her house. He’d expected that, but it was still a bad sign. And yet Mrs. Ramsay only shook her head and repeated that she had no need of an attorney.
Agnes was distraught when they left. “She’s miserable,” she exclaimed. “What can we do?”
“Remain a steadfast friend,” he said for the tenth or twentieth time.
“Stop saying that!”
“What do you want to hear?” he demanded.
She stopped walking, flushed and angry. “Something else! Anything else. There must be something—“
“If there were, I would tell you,” he cut in. “She’s not been arrested. She’s being watched, but we can’t stop that. Control the gossips? Only God could, and I give even Him only half a chance in this town. You can’t force aid upon her.”
Tears glittered in her eyes.
Felix gentled his tone. “There’s no indication the sheriff thinks she was involved in the robberies, only that she might know where her father has gone. She says she doesn’t and they can’t prove otherwise. I know it’s hard to bear, but she’s safe in her home. What she needs are friends, to keep her spirits from flagging.”
A muscle in her jaw trembled. “I am her friend,” she said at last, in a quiet, controlled voice, “but holding her hand and drinking tea with her isn’t enough. She had to sit in silence during that dreadful trial last year, when everyone whispered that she’d had an affair with that—that horrid Englishman, and that’s why he killed her husband. People called her a Jezebel and a whore, did you know?”
“I heard,” he admitted, rubbing his neck. “But that was only gossip—“
“Gossip wounds!”
“She’s got to ignore it!” he exclaimed. “She must. Anything she does will only appear to confirm it and make everything worse.”
Agnes flinched as if he’d struck her. “You would make her a helpless rabbit, paralyzed in the middle of an open field for fear of attracting the notice of a hawk who is already circling overhead.”
“She’s not a rabbit,” he said tightly. “But it is difficult, even impossible to prove a denial. Sometimes the best you can do is not lend credence to the accusation.”
“And in the meantime, she must simply suffer all manner of slurs upon her entire family.” She shook her head. “It’s too much to ask a person to bear. I wish you could understand that.” She turned and headed toward her house.
He caught her arm. “If there were more I could do, I would. I swear it, Agnes!”
She looked at him with
unreadable eyes. “I understand. You cannot do anything. I need to think of how I can help my friend, because someone must.” She pulled loose. “Goodbye, sir.”
Felix stood on the step for several minutes after she went inside, alternating between impatience at Andrew St. James and anger at the sheriff’s men. They were hounding Mrs. Ramsay, because they had no other leads on finding Deacon Fletcher, and only St. James, with his Carlyle connections, might be able to stop them.
He let out his breath. It had been several days since he sent the messenger to Fort George. St. James would surely be back any moment now, ready to take the action Agnes yearned to see.
Felix didn’t know what that would be. But if it were Agnes in trouble, he knew he would risk life and limb to get to her side, and do everything and anything in his power to protect and comfort her.
Anything in his power.
He closed his eyes. There was one source he hadn’t tried—one source he never tried. He had made a vow not to, to avoid the slightest hint of impropriety. He had always been determined to be his own man and make his own way.
But this time, it wasn’t his interest at stake. He turned and headed toward Parliament Square. A clerk waved him in, and Felix closed the door.
“Has she accepted? Is the wedding date set?” Lachlan—a Lord of Justiciary who heard criminal cases from the bench and signed warrants for arrest—glanced up, a half-smile on his face.
Once raised to the bench, he had refused to discuss one word about any case that might come before him until the case was concluded. Lives and liberty are at stake, he would say. No man should gain advantage over another because of his connections.
“Not yet,” said Felix. “I need to know what evidence Sheriff Cockburn has against Mrs. Ilsa Ramsay in the matter of William Fletcher.”
* * *
Agnes racked her brain for ideas.
Felix wasn’t wrong, but she couldn’t do nothing. Holding Ilsa’s hand and murmuring empty phrases about hope and solace wasn’t her way; nor was it her friend’s. Felix said she was safe at home, but Agnes knew that the longer this dragged on, the tighter the vise holding Ilsa would become: always suspected, unable to clear her name, hearing her father reviled from one end of town to the other but unable to defend him for fear of bringing more suspicion upon herself.
There might be little she could do, but that little she would do. She went to see Sorcha White and encouraged the other girl to defend Ilsa in every drawing room she visited. In the shop, she gossiped freely about the thieves and robberies, asserting to all that Ilsa knew absolutely nothing about anything, especially her father’s actions, whatever those might be. She told her sisters to do the same with their friends. They might not be able to turn the tide of rumor, but they could muddy it up.
But she realized that eventually one of two things would happen. Either Deacon Fletcher would come home to face the charges, or Ilsa would break under the strain and go looking for him. Given the clandestine way Fletcher had left, Agnes thought it was more likely to be the latter.
Ilsa’s butler didn’t want to let her in. Agnes asked, she pleaded, she hectored. Finally the man hesitated long enough to allow her to slip past him and run up the stairs, where she found Ilsa in the drawing room.
The sight made her stop in shock. Pale, thin, nothing like her merry self, Ilsa was simply sitting alone in the room, the drapes pulled shut. “Agnes,” she murmured. “How are you?”
“What are you planning?” she demanded.
Ilsa didn’t flinch. “What do you mean?”
“I saw it in the papers, that your father contacted you. Was it really a confession?”
“Of course not. He’s innocent.”
Agnes nodded. “I know. But I also know you, Ilsa. What are you going to do?”
Ilsa looked up, a tiny spark in her eyes.
It took some persuading, but in the end she tacitly admitted that Agnes had guessed correctly. She was going to go after her father, because no one and nothing else had come to her aid.
Agnes indulged in a moment of fury at her absent brother. Where was Drew? He’d been gone for weeks. “Let me go with you,” she begged.
“Absolutely not.”
Agnes despised this helpless inactivity. “When are you leaving?”
Ilsa said nothing. A shaft of sunlight pierced a gap in the draperies and illuminated her face, stark white and bereft. Her anguish was almost palpable in the still room. Agnes thought again of her beloved father, of the blow she’d suffered when he died so suddenly and left them in such bad circumstances. People had whispered about Papa’s failings as their family plummeted into poverty. It must be similar for Ilsa, but with the added torment of facing it all alone.
Agnes flung her arms around her friend. “Promise you’ll be careful.”
Ilsa nodded. “Would you look in on Robert? It would be a great comfort to me.”
She had promised to do anything to help her friend, and here it was: walk the pony. Tearfully she nodded. “Of course! We shall walk him out every day and spoil him with apples and carrots.”
When she left, she walked aimlessly. Mama and her sisters would be at the shop. Agnes knew she should go there, too, but instead she found herself in front of the Exchange.
Agnew’s coffeehouse was busier than ever. She caught sight of Felix in a small group of men standing around a table, cups in hand. They were arguing; Felix slashed the air with his hand, making some point with force. One man was shaking his head, while another, familiar-looking fellow periodically nodded in agreement.
She stood staring at him. All this time, he’d been right. Be a steadfast friend, he’d said. That had been the most important thing all along. She’d spent days worrying about what she could do, trying to convert the women who came to the shop, when she ought to have been with Ilsa to buoy her spirits. She ought to have asked Ilsa how she could help, instead of thinking she might somehow divert a criminal investigation or shout down the gossips. And if she had listened to Felix, she would have done all that.
Felix must have felt her gaze upon him. Mid-argument, he glanced her way. Agnes’s throat tightened. She hadn’t seen him since their rather frosty parting a few days ago. Never taking his eyes off her, he strode through the crowded coffeehouse to her.
“Has something happened?” he asked.
Her lip trembled, and then she reached for him. With a quiet oath he pulled her into his arms, holding her tight. Heedless of the scandalous public display they were making, Agnes clung to him, hiding her face against his shoulder.
“There, love,” he whispered.
“You were right,” she managed to say. “You were right and I was wrong. Oh Felix, what are we going to do?”
14
Felix paced his sitting room for hours.
He had broken his pact with his father. He didn’t regret it, but it had not helped him know what to tell Agnes. Too late he realized he’d been too certain there was nothing to her fears for Mrs. Ramsay. He’d expected his father to confirm it and reassure him that he’d given Agnes the right advice.
Instead, Lachlan Duncan had told him that Sheriff Cockburn, frustrated in all his attempts to locate William Fletcher, was contemplating arresting Ilsa Ramsay to lure her father out of hiding. Cockburn suspected she had warned her father to flee, and Fletcher had sent his daughter a letter after his flight. It looked like a simple farewell note, but some in the sheriff’s office thought it was a coded message about his destination. The possibility was enough, just barely, to justify putting her in the Tolbooth for a few days.
The sheriff was already watching her house. If she tried to leave town, as Agnes believed she was planning, they would probably take her into custody.
God above, where the bloody blazes was Andrew St. James? Did Felix have to ride up to Fort George personally to fetch the man? If he wasn’t back by morning, Felix would have to take up vigil outside Mrs. Ramsay’s house himself.
But finally, a few minutes after midnight, t
he door flew open with a vehemence that almost extinguished the lamps. Grimy with dirt, gray-faced with exhaustion, Andrew St. James strode in.
* * *
It was barely light out the next morning when a ferocious pounding woke him. Felix staggered to open the door and was nearly bowled over by the St. James girls. “Where is he?” cried Winifred and Isabella. Felix waved one hand. Agnes paused to lay her hand on his arm as her sisters rushed past.
“Thank you,” she said softly. He’d sent her a note late last night letting her know her brother had returned.
Still half-asleep, Felix nodded. He and St. James had been out disturbing officials and arguing with them until five in the morning—furiously enough to please even Agnes, he thought. “Leave him to it now.” He jerked his head toward St. James’s room.
“What can he do that you could not?”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. Lachlan’s intelligence about the sheriff’s intentions had indeed spurred St. James to immediate and extreme action. Agnes might not like her brother’s new expectations, but that ducal connection had been what got the sheriff and the procurator-fiscal’s deputy out of bed to speak to them in the wee hours of the night, and made them listen to St. James’s arguments in Ilsa Ramsay’s favor. Felix thought they’d persuaded everyone to leave the woman in peace, for now. “Win her confidence, for one thing. She’ll welcome his help when she rejected mine.”
“But what will he do?”
Before Felix could answer, the man himself staggered into the sitting room, two sisters at his heels. Unshaven, eyes bloodshot, plaid wrapped around himself like a winding sheet, St. James gave Felix an exhausted look and dropped into a chair.
“Drew, what are we to do?” asked Agnes at once. “We have to help Ilsa.”
“Aye,” he said groggily. “Give me a moment.” He reached for a discarded boot and missed. His sister kicked it toward him.
“What did you learn last night?” demanded Bella.
“Will they leave Ilsa alone?”
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