Cilla followed Gwen out of the church to their bicycles. “What are we going to do? Why did you accept?”
Gwen’s pale cheeks turned pink. “It would have been rude not to.”
“They’re Lieutenant Mackenzie’s parents. This is a bad idea.”
“I know.” Gwen leaned closer and lowered her voice, glancing over Cilla’s shoulder. “But a lightkeeper would have no excuse not to go.”
“That’s true.” Cilla had to stay in character, and she adjusted her red hat and her attitude. “We might as well enjoy ourselves. This will be fun. This is the first time I’ve been invited to dine.”
Gwen gazed from under the brim of her tricorn Wren’s cap. “Like Zacchaeus.”
Cilla’s step hitched. “Yes.”
When they reached the bicycles propped against the stone wall around the cemetery, Cilla buttoned her black overcoat. Far too warm for the day, but it was the only coat she’d brought to Britain, and a lightweight coat would cost fourteen of the sixty-six clothing coupons she had been allotted for the year. If she could ever convince Gwen or Imogene to take her to town to shop.
Cilla stuffed her handkerchief back in her coat pocket. It rustled.
She pulled out a newspaper clipping. The headline trumpeted the hanging of the two Abwehr spies captured in Edinburgh, and Cilla couldn’t breathe.
“What’s that?” Gwen peeked over. “You kept that?”
“I—I didn’t put it in my pocket.”
“Imogene,” Gwen whispered.
Cilla’s jaw hardened. Imogene never wasted an opportunity to remind her of the gallows.
She forced a smile and jammed the article back into her pocket. “No one can accuse Third Officer St. Clair of not performing her duty.”
Cilla mounted her bicycle and led the way, leaving the tiny village behind and crossing fields spotted with sheep and wildflowers. Imogene could taunt her all she liked, but Cilla was riding through the countryside under the open sky.
Guarded by a fearful Wren with a revolver.
At the even tinier village of Brough, they turned northeast toward Pentland Firth. Before long, the Mackenzie home rose, stately yet simple.
“Is this where you were captured?” Gwen looked both terrified and fascinated.
“Yes.” She squinted at her surroundings. “It was night, so it looked different. There—that cove on the far side of the house.”
She could still see Mackenzie in his kilt, aiming his torch and his dagger and his ire at her.
If she’d been a real spy, she would have pulled out her pistol and shot him. She’d be free.
But she’d surrendered her pistol without being asked. Didn’t that prove her innocence? Why couldn’t he see?
Her sigh flowed down to the cove. All he’d seen that night was a woman in black, burying spy gear and spinning tall tales.
From what she knew of Lachlan Mackenzie, he could do nothing else but turn her in. How could she blame him for doing right?
Cilla and Gwen leaned their bicycles against a hedge.
The front door swung open, and Mrs. Mackenzie waved, wearing a brown suit, as unassuming as her home, but well cut and becoming. “Welcome to Creag na Mara. It means ‘Cliff of the Sea.’”
“How fitting. And what a lovely home.” Cilla stepped inside, shrugged off her coat, and placed it in Mrs. Mackenzie’s outstretched hands.
“Yes, it is,” Gwen said. “Thank you for inviting us.”
“We are honored having you as our guests.” Mrs. Mackenzie hung up the coats on a coatrack. “Two sailors from Dunnet Head are billeted with us, but they’re here scarcely long enough for sleeping.”
