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He sat back to process that little bit of information.

“What happens now?” Gillie asked.

“I’ll be writing to Home and recommending that the current plan be abandoned.”

Gillie flipped shut the dossier with disgust. “When they told me they were sending a sailor who’d captained his own ship, I thought, ‘Finally, someone with a little backbone rather than all these run-of-the-mill agents I keep getting.’ They’re all soft hands and sneaking manners. I thought you’d be one to get things done.”

“It’s out of my control.”

“How?” she asked.

“The asset doesn’t want anything to do with me,” he said, his voice dropping low. He didn’t know what annoyed him more: the look of unwelcome shock in Lavinia’s eyes when he’d entered her shop, or the fact that Gillie so clearly felt he’d failed.

“Then figure out a way to show her that this has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the safety of this country,” said Gillie.

He shook his head. “She won’t listen. Our history is rather complicated . . .”

“You were engaged to be married. She married another man when you were thought to be lost at sea. You found out two days after her wedding when your homecoming became a confrontation. We’re in the spy game, Andrew. It’s always complicated. But there are always solutions.”

She probably knew every order he’d ever given on his ship and that he liked his toast buttered straight to the edge of the crust.

He sighed. He had a duty, so long as they hadn’t exhausted all avenues of inquiry, to keep barreling along the path Home had set him on.

“What do you suggest we do?” he asked.

Gillie’s smile spread and her eyes twinkled. “Go see the matchmaker.”

Chapter Four

LAVINIA TOSSED AND turned the entire night as sleep eluded her, her mind jammed full of measurements and orders. It was enough to keep any businesswoman awake at night.

And then there was the matter of Andrew.

After walking out on him, she’d gone straight into her shop and thrown herself into her work. The busy pace of the rest of the day had made it easy to ignore him and his proposal, and she’d sewn long after she’d dismissed Siobhan and Kelsie for the day, stopping only for a late bite of supper before resuming her tasks.

All of that activity had kept her mind occupied, and it hadn’t been hard to shove away the memory of Andrew walking into her shop. When she’d retired to bed, however, her thoughts had been free to wander, calling up dangerous memories of times she’d shared with him. Good memories.

Over the course of the night, she’d traversed their entire shared history. She recalled their first meeting, when her brother had hauled his new friend into the vicarage’s kitchen to steal bannocks from Cook and she’d followed them out to play in the kitchen garden. The innocence of childhood interactions had given way to blushing awkwardness when her brother had been sent away to school in Edinburgh but Andrew had continued to return between voyages. Then, at the Hogmanay festivities to mark the New Year, when the streets of Eyemouth had been merry with people celebrating, he’d pulled her behind the vicarage and kissed her. Any awkwardness regarding their youth and their awareness of one another had melted away like butter left on a hearth, and they’d been inseparable ever since.

Her parents had been convinced that his career would separate them and that young love would fade for lack of proximity, but the absences had only strengthened their bond. The night he’d proposed to her had been the happiest of her life. She’d believed with absolute certainty that he was the man she’d spend the rest of her life with. Until she’d thought she’d lost him.

And now he’d reappeared, a ghost from her past, to remind her of what her life could’ve been if only she’d been strong enough to choose her own path. But, like all ghosts who haunt dreams, he’d be gone by morning. This was her life: dressmaker, seamstress, widow. Her choices had brought her to this spot, and she’d do well to remember that no matter how handsome she still found him. No matter how much her body ached for him.

A banging at her front door broke the silence of her quiet house, rattling her nerves.

“Livy!”

Oh Lord, it was Caleb, and by the sound of it he was so deep in his cups he couldn’t see out.

“Livy!”

She leapt out of bed, pulling her dressing gown on as she swept down the two flights of stairs to the street. Caleb was still pounding away, and when she pulled the door open he nearly toppled over onto her.

“Livy, you’re here,” he slurred.

“Where else would I be, you numpty?” she asked, looping an arm around him and hauling him through the front room into the back kitchen.

“You cook the best breakfast, so I thought, ‘Why not come to Livy’s because it’s breakfast time?’ ”