“What if we're caught?” she softly cried. “You know what they do. They will punish us.”
The marks on my back were proof of that.
“I’ll go first and make certain no one is there. You can follow,” I told her.
But I could not persuade her. She was too frightened.
"I canna go with ye!"
And then she was gone, back the way we had come.
I called after her, but there was no reply. I waited, hoping she would return but she did not. Somewhere a clock chimed through the darkened night. They would come for one last time for the night, to make certain they were all in their beds.
If I were caught, I knew that I would be punished. Perhaps worse. There were whispers about the ones that disappeared.
“Ye are evil!” the nun had screamed at me, the memory sharp of her fingers digging into my shoulder for something I didna understand—the things I saw sometimes, the whispered warnings. Everything that I had buried deep and refused to accept because it was frightening.
“The devil’s own, with yer strange ways! I’ve seen it in ye!”
I could not go back. I turned and ran down that long hallway, the stones cold beneath my feet, down the stairs at the end that led to the kitchen, and out into the night...
There wasgrey light in the room as I came up out of the dream.
Slowly, gradually, I remembered the day before—Kip, the encounter at the Grassmarket, and how I had returned to the flat at Albany Street.
I glanced at the chair beside the bed with a faint memory, as I heard voices from the parlour and the kitchen beyond, as Elizabeth offered coffee to someone.
Munro! It was only a glimpse the night before. He had been there!
I found my gown that appeared to have been cleaned and quickly dressed.
“Will ye have more coffee, Mr. Munro?” Elizabeth asked him as I stepped into the parlour.
“Aye, if ye please,” he replied, as that blue gaze found me, then narrowed. He stood.
“Here ye are,” Elizabeth commented when she saw me, as if it was any other day and not the day after I had appeared at her door...
“And ye found the gown. I cleaned it with a few tricks from cleaning me husband’s uniforms.” A smile, perhaps a little anxious.
“Sit yerself and I will bring more coffee.”
I took the chair across from the one Munro had been sitting in.
I had brushed and braided my hair. Otherwise, I must look a sight with the bruise on my cheek that was now an impressive shade of blue that matched my gown, even in the meager light in the bedroom mirror.
I fully expected some disparaging comment from the man who sat across from me and was quite skilled at them. He said nothing as Elizabeth returned to the table with coffee and warm cakes that she placed between us.
“Me husband said that I should open a bake shop,” she commented, with a look at my cheek. “He used to say that I made the best cakes, scones, and biscuits. But I was not one to put up with gossipy women and nattering old men.”
I smiled and winced at the same time, as I thought of Rupert the hound, back in London at the Strand. He had a particular fondness for biscuits, usually filled with ham or sausage.
“I have something for yer cheek as well, to keep away the stares, although it is a glorious colour,” she commented, as she returned to the kitchen.
Munro still had not commented on the obvious situation from the day before, or the bruise. Still, I rememberedsomething from the night before, something that was gone just as quickly as it was there.
He did have a habit of getting under my skin with just a look. Still, something had changed.
“I met with the man I told ye about, the man by the name of Campbell,” he said, sparing me his criticism for the moment.
