“Do you remember my friend, Mr. MacLennan?” he asked now. “You met him the other day—”
“Yes, of course. He asked me if Alasdair had hurt me. I couldn’t believe his nerve.” She laughed, but it was a low, desperate noise.
“Euan is an unusual man.”
“And a radical,” she said bluntly.
“Yes,” David agreed gently. “He is a radical. He believes in equality, between the classes, and between men and women, amongst other things.”
“He told me that. He said—he said I should run away from Alasdair.”
David saw her pale throat bob as she swallowed.
“Do you want to?”
Her eyes flickered from side to side, fearful. “He will never let me go.”
“Do you want to leave?” David persisted.
“Yes!”
How could a mere whisper hold so much yearning? So much yearning and so little hope.
David tightened his hold on her hand. “Listen to me, then. Euan and I are both willing to help you. But your husband has rights over you. It would not be easily done.”
“I know.”
“So you would have to be willing to run away—far away—with nothing but the clothes you stand up in. To trust Euan to get you to London, where you can start a new life.” He paused. “You have to decide if your life with Kinnell is so bad as to be worth that kind of sacrifice.”
“It is,” she said, without hesitation. “But, my family… David, I don’t want to shame them!”
David shook his head. “Your father is already concerned about you, and—you must have realised this already—he is not well. I think it would comfort him to know you were away from Kinnell. I think he would make financial arrangements for you, if you asked him, or if I did so on your behalf.”
She looked suddenly afraid. Afraid to hope, perhaps.
“It would have to be soon,” she said. “We are due to leave for Galloway in just over a week’s time, and I do not want to go back there. I can’t go back there.” She shuddered as though at some unpleasant memory, and David’s stomach clenched again. He never wanted to learn what put that fear into her eyes.
“When are you alone?”
She sent him a despairing look. “Never. Alasdair is always there, or a servant. I am not allowed out without one of the footmen. When I came to your rooms with Catherine, it was the first time I’d been out without a servant in months, and that was only because, when I got to Catherine’s house, Donald told my footman, Fraser, to go to the kitchen while we had tea. Then Donald ordered the carriage to be brought round, and we left without him. It was Donald’s doing—he didn’t even think to fetch Fraser—but Alasdair turned Fraser off without a reference when we got back.” She paused. Swallowed again. “And I was punished.”
Her expression was haunted as she remembered whatever her punishment had been.
The music of the dance ended just then, and the dancers began to rearrange, some leaving the floor and others joining new sets.
“We should dance,” Elizabeth said. “If Alasdair comes in and we are strolling and talking, he will be angry.”
“Come on, then,” David said, turning around and leading her towards the nearest incomplete set. “We have another few minutes before you have to go back to him.”
“We are not going to be able to talk anymore,” she said, her voice breaking. “If I cannot even speak to you, how am I ever to get away from him?”
David squeezed her hand. “We will be able speak a little,” he said. “We will make a plan.”
The dance was a sedate one, with gentle passes and turns, light skipping and stately promenades. David questioned her about the rhythms of her household whenever they encountered one another in the dance. He asked her too about the events that she and Kinnell would be attending during the last week of the King’s visit.
Towards the end of the dance, on one of their passes, David felt Elizabeth stiffen. He followed her gaze and found Kinnell and Murdo standing together at the end of the dance floor, watching them.
“He’s back,” Elizabeth said despairingly.
