“Aye,” he said. “Breakfast, then penance.”
“Touristing,” she corrected, yanking the duvet out of his hands.
“Same thing.”
By the time they made it downstairs, Edinburgh had shaken off the worst of the weather. The city gleamed: wet stone, glossy cobbles, everything catching the light as if freshly varnished.
Claire pinged her just as the coffee arrived.
Queen Byrdie has claimed the velvet armchair in the sun.
Staff now take orders from her. All well. x
Heather snorted and showed Flynn the screen.
“She’s a tyrant,” he said solemnly. “I support it.”
Heather typed back—kiss her paws for me—then slid her hand into his. “Ready to fool them?”
“Lass,” he said, pulling out her chair with an unnecessary flourish, “I was born ready.”
They let the city carry them. Up the Royal Mile—bagpipes, chatter, and the swirl of tourists—then down a narrow close until Victoria Street bent under their feet in its candy-colored curve.
“Rule one,” Flynn said, pausing at a window full of antique maps. “Do what normal people do when they’re not hiding stolen secrets.”
“Buy a scarf we don’t need?”
His eyes gleamed. “Exactly.”
He plucked a soft blue and rose tartan from a stall and wrapped it around her neck with a tenderness disguised as practicality.
“Perfect,” he said. “Criminallyperfect.”
“Do you say that to all your felonies?”
“Only the pretty ones.”
They bought fish and chips from a stall where a seagull served as security. A busker coaxed Caledonia out of a fiddle like the sound itself could keep them safe for one more hour.
“Chipstaste better when you can’t feel your fingers,” Heather said, reaching for more vinegar.
“Science,” Flynn agreed, stealing one and earning a wrist-slap. “Careful with that. People will clock you.”
“For what?”
“For bein’ happy, obviously.”
“That illegal?”
“In some boroughs.”
She laughed—bright, ordinary—and he kissed the corner of her mouth because that’s what a boyfriend in public would do.
In a café window they caught their reflection: her scarf, his arm slung comfortably around her, two people with too much daylight between them to be suspicious.
Behind the glass, a man turned a newspaper page without looking up.
Heather’s stomach tipped.
