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fearful of interrupting her tirade in order to tell her how seriously Jane’s hand had been injured.
    Jane’s eyes fluttered slightly and she began to whimper. Lady Maxwell’s fervent relief that her child was conscious soon gave way to exasperation.
    “What the neighbors must think of us,” she muttered.
    She studied Thomas’s profile as he gazed worriedly down at Jane who was moaning softly. ’Twas a pity he’d never be called Sir, like his dead da, and hadn’t two farthings of his own to rub together. She noted how tenderly his gaze lingered on her daughter’s still form. At ten, Jane was still only a madcap child. But Thomas was nearly fourteen… Thomas would soon…
    Jane groaned loudly and tried to raise her hand, bound in a ball of linen stained a reddish hue. Lady Maxwell began to pull absently at Jane’s filthy linen petticoat, when she suddenly realized that Thomas, who had always seemed to her simply like another of her boisterous sons, was gazing at her partially clad daughter. Her eyes narrowed. The pair’s childhood camaraderie must be ended forthwith and Thomas be made aware that her plans for Jane stretched far beyond the hopeless dreams of a landless, titleless orphan who had a penchant for causing mischief such as this current calamity.
    Lady Maxwell called to her maid with irritation.
    “ Will you hurry, Fiona! Where’s that water? Thomas,” she added crisply, “I’ve not time to deal with your part in this, but I will instruct you to desist from such folly in future. ’Tis no longer suitable, lad, that you should engage in such pranks with my daughters. They’re proper young ladies now, and I shall not permit them to roam the city like urchins. Especially Jane. Now please go and see what’s become of Fiona and then wait for the physic downstairs,” she finished, dismissing him with a wave of her hand.
    Shocked at the harshness of her words, Thomas manfully attempted to mask his hurt. He turned to leave. A faint voice halted his progress to the door.
    “Thomas?”
    It was Jane, sounding weak with fear. He had almost never seen her cry since she was a toddler and her brother Hamilton would torment her by depriving her of some toy or frippery. But real tears now swelled silently over Jane’s dark eyelashes and rolled down her cheeks.
    “Where’s Thomas?” she whispered hoarsely.
    “He’s just going to find Fiona,” her mother said impatiently.
    “Thomas!” Jane cried out.
    Lady Maxwell nodded to the lad, reluctantly granting him permission to return to Jane’s bedside.
    “Jenny, lass, you’re safe in your mother’s house now—not to worry, pet,” he said. He suddenly felt painfully self-conscious in Lady Maxwell’s presence.
    “My hand… Thomas… my hand hurts so much!”
    “I know, Jenny girl… I know. But the physic is coming to help, and you’ll be fine, lassie… I know you will.”
    “Hold my good hand,” Jane gulped between uneven breaths.
    With that, he gave her unbandaged left hand a soft squeeze, transferring it gently to Lady Maxwell’s waiting grasp and quietly left the room.
    “Don’t go,” Jane said in a whisper only her mother could hear. “Please, Thomas, don’t leave me.”

Two

    S EPTEMBER 1763
    S IMON F RASER SHIFTED HIS MASSIVE BULK UNCOMFORTABLY IN HIS favorite chair. He was unaccustomed to entertaining female visitors in his down-at-the-heels Edinburgh townhouse, save for the occasional wench whom he spirited up the servants’ stairs to his private bedchamber. In any event, he was certainly not used to serving tea.
    “A drop of brandy, perhaps, to ward off the chill, your ladyship?” he inquired hopefully.
    “I find it quite warm for a September morn, Master Simon,” Magdalene Maxwell replied evenly. Her estranged husband’s perpetual drunkenness had given her a horror of spirits, and she nodded in the direction of a chipped teapot and cracked cup that sat on a scratched silver tray. “A bit of that tea would serve splendidly.