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“Not one half of them have tolerable arms and as such are a pitiful, ignorant crew.” He lowered the paper long enough to catch her gaze. “Perhaps Andrew should hide his muskets in the same way Mother hides her gold.”
    Elisabeth paused, her brush in midstroke. “Is her money not safely in the bank?”
    “Nae.” He tapped his bare foot on the carpet. “’Tis under the floor of her bedchamber. Have you not heard her in the wee hours of the morn, tiptoeing about, prying up boards, and counting guineas?”
    “You know how soundly I sleep.” Elisabeth gazed at the adjoining door, thinking of the many times she’d walked through her mother-in-law’s room, unaware of the fortune beneath her feet. “Donald, what if the servants learn of it?”
    He chuckled. “’Twas Gibson who first alerted me.” Her husband returned to his broadsheet, clearly unconcerned. “You’ve seen how the staff jumps to do Mother’s bidding. Rest assured, they’ll not breathe a word of her secret to anyone. Nor, my pet, shall we, for ’tis our fortune as well.”
    Hearing a light tapping at the door, Elisabeth straightened the neckline of her thin chemise. “’Tis Peg, come to dress me.”
    “Ah.” Donald lifted his newspaper a bit higher, concealing his face. “I can assure you, I’ll not look.”

Five
The Sabbath-day is the savings-bank of humanity.
FREDERICK SAUNDERS
    J anet Kerr plucked at the Brussels lace on Elisabeth’s new gown while the family gathered in the entrance hall. “This color was quite fashionable last season.”
    “So it was,” Elisabeth agreed, dodging the pointed barb. “How fortunate Lord Kerr enjoys lavender whatever the season.”
    Janet said no more, busily smoothing back a few stray wisps of hair. Small in stature, her sister-in-law piled her auburn locks high on her head, adding a light dusting of powder. People of quality called Janet handsome, and rightly so. Her style and manner were impeccable, her wit sharp. But they did not call Janet beautiful.
    “The first bell has tolled,” Marjory announced, then started down the turnpike stair.
    Elisabeth touched her corseted waist, grateful she’d had only tea and a pinch of bannock to break her fast. She could hardly breathe, so tightly had Peg laced her stays. “We must show your new gown to best advantage,” her mother-in-law had insisted earlier. “And your waist is uncommonly small.”
    A rare compliment, Elisabeth wondered, or yet another reminder of her childless state? “Let us away,” she said, pulling on her gloves. “The dowager does not like to be kept waiting.”
    “Indeed she does not,” Janet murmured.
    Donald, poised on the threshold to the stair, glanced over his shoulder. “Mere months in the family and already our sister-in-law knows the way of things.”
    “Oh, my husband has divulged all your secrets,” Janet remarked coyly, taking Andrew’s arm. “And doesn’t he look handsome this morning in his peacock blue waistcoat?”
    Slender and fair like his brother, though not so tall, Andrew thrustout his chin as if striving to appear worthy of the woman on his arm. “After you, Lady Kerr.”
    Elisabeth turned sideways, navigating her whalebone hoops through the narrow doorway. By fashion’s decree, oval panniers had grown more slender from front to back yet broader on each side. Sitting gracefully required an entire sofa.
    When she joined her husband on the stair, Donald eyed her gown with obvious pleasure. “Just as I’d imagined, the color flatters your skin.”
    “So you always say,” Elisabeth reminded him, smiling. Donald had complimented every gown in her clothes press with precisely the same words. “But they cannot all flatter my skin,” she’d once protested. To which he’d replied, “My dear, ’tis your lovely skin that flatters the fabric.”
    No wonder every woman in Edinburgh found Lord Kerr appealing. No wonder every gossip whispered his name. They were jealous, Elisabeth decided. Wasn’t she