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once? That's damnable."
    As he paced across the room, his first reaction was shock and grief, and it took time to grasp what the news meant to him personally. Falkirk was the Cameron family seat, but Ian's late father had been Andrew's younger brother, and Ian had never imagined that he might inherit the estate and title. He had been raised to make his own way in the world, yet now, through a senseless tragedy, he was Lord Falkirk.
    Realizing something else, he stopped pacing and looked narrowly at his brother. "With me reported dead, you were next in line to inherit."
    "Yes and no." David leaned back in his chair. "Of course the lawyers notified me, but in the same post there was a letter from Mother ordering me not to start thinking I was Lord Falkirk, because you were still alive."
    For a moment Ian's mood eased. "Did I mention that it was Mother who found Ross in Constantinople and bullied him into going to Bokhara?"
    "I'm not surprised to hear it. She was determined to make the lawyers wait the full seven years before declaring you dead." David grinned. "She's gotten much more forceful over the years. Widowhood seems to suit her."
    Ian rubbed at his aching temple. "How much do you mind not inheriting Falkirk? In spite of Mother, you must have begun to think of it as yours."
    "Oh, I wouldn't have minded being Lord Falkirk, drafty castle and all," David admitted a little wistfully. "But I'd rather have you alive. Besides, I'm not ready to leave India yet. I'll earn my own piece of Scotland in my own time."
    At least his brother didn't hate him for having survived. Ian resumed his pacing, finally coming to a halt by a window. As he stared out at the dark velvet night, he tested the idea of returning to the land of his birth. As a diplomat, Ian's father had spent most of his life abroad, so Falkirk had been his children's British home. Ian had lived there as a small child, spent his school holidays exploring the wild hills and swimming in the beautiful, treacherous sea loch.
    Scotland, the land of his fathers, cool and green, as familiar as his own bones. In his present state of turbulence, the idea of Falkirk shimmered like a distant beacon on a stormy night. Losing Georgina had left a huge hole in the middle of his spirit, but Falkirk could fill some of that emptiness. It gave him a place to go, and a reason to make the effort.
    He turned and leaned against the window frame, arms folded across his chest. "I guess I'll be going back to Scotland."
    "I hope you'll stay a few days before you start back," David said. "Lord knows when I'll see you again. It will be years before I'll be able to visit home."
    Having decided to leave India, Ian would have liked nothing better than to do so immediately, but that was impossible. "Before I leave, I've an errand to perform in Baipur. When I'm done, I'll stop in Cambay on the way back to Bombay."
    "What kind of errand?"
    Ian thought of darkness and cold and despair, and the man who in worldly terms had been an enemy, but who had become as close as Ian's own shadow. "For a year I shared my cell with a Russian colonel, until he was executed. He kept a journal in a small Bible, and I promised that if possible, I'd send it to his closest relative, his niece. As of three or four years ago, the girl lived at Baipur. Since I'm this close, I'll take the journal in person rather than send it through official channels."
    David's brows rose. "What on earth is a Russian girl doing living at an Indian district station?"
    Ian cast his mind back to what Pyotr had said. During the monotonous months, they had learned much about each other's lives. "The child's mother was the colonel's younger sister, Tatyana, and her father was a Russian cavalry officer. After Tatyana's first husband died, she went to a Swiss spa to bury her grief. There she met a Company administrator called Kenneth Stephenson, who was on his way home to teach at the Company training college at Haileybury. They married and lived at