Jennet's mouth fell open in surprise and then shut with an audible click. Elizabeth might have laughed at the sight, if she were not herself so surprised.

"Does Jennet call you Carryck?"

She laughed out loud at the idea. "Ma mither wad beat me for sic an impertinence," she said. "And I wadn't be allowed tae visit the greenhouse." Something occurred to her, and she turned to Elizabeth, flashing her dimples.

"Wad ye like tae see the smelly tree?" she asked. "It stinks for aa the werld like a dog twa days deid in the sun."

Elizabeth did not know what to make of this offer, but the earl resolved the dilemma for her.

"The lady dinna come here tae see the conservatory, lass. I expect she wants a word wi' me."

Elizabeth inclined her head. "If it is not too much of an imposition, my lord."

"Och, ye canna talk tae the laird when he's putterin' aboot the greenhouse," Jennet said, brushing a curl out of her eyes. "Ye might as weel try tae get a song oot of Admiral Liefken here." And she wrinkled her nose at a tulip just on the verge of opening.

"Wheest, Jennet." The earl's mouth jerked at one corner, but his tone was stern. "Dinna forget your manners. I can weel spare time for our guest."

"Ye'll no' want us here, then. Do ye care tae see the rest o' the castle, Squirrel?"

"Jennet," said Carryck, and the little girl drew up suddenly, as if she knew what he might say, and did not care to hear it.

"Ye'll no' be snoopin' where ye dinna belong."

She bobbed a quick curtsy. "Ne, my lord."

"Verra weel. Awa' wi' the baith o' ye."

Hannah hesitated, but Elizabeth waved her on with a smile and then stood watching until the girls had disappeared into the rose garden. When they were gone she waited still, unsure where to begin now that she had the earl's attention. Everything that she might say to him seemed suddenly too obvious for words.

He said, "I've had no word o' the Leopard, if that's what ye want tae hear."

Elizabeth composed her face before she turned to him. "I was hoping you had, yes."

"I've sent word tae Dundas, and tae the Admiralty, as weel. If there's aught tae learn o' the ship, it willna be lang."

"Then you do not know if the Leopard was involved in this recent battle with the French?" It was a fear she had not yet spoken aloud, one she had not even shared with Nathaniel.

The earl's expression was unreadable. "I canna say."

"Then perhaps I might ask another question, my lord."

He worked his thumbs against the edge of his leather apron. "Wad it no' be better tae wait wi' this conversation until your guidman is recovered?"

"I am quite capable of asking questions without my husband's assistance, my lord."

"O' that I ha' nae doubt," he said dryly.

She clasped her hands together before her to keep them from shaking. "Perhaps you could tell me why it is that you have gone to such trouble and expense to bring us here, against our will and inclination."

His eyes narrowed. "Ye ken full weel, madam." Something hard had come into his tone, and he looked now more like the man she had met last night, the one who had commanded his men with so few words. But if she let him intimidate her at the beginning of these negotiations for their freedom, they would be here a very long time.

She said, "My lord. Neither my husband nor his father have any interest in claiming Carryck. And even if they were interested, why should they be given precedence over your own daughter?"

His neck flushed a mottled red. "I have no daughter." The earl spoke unaccented English for the first time, keen-edged and stark.

"Really? As I understand it, your daughter Lady Isabel married one Walter Campbell." And even as she said that name aloud, she recalled the confusion at the inn while Nathaniel lay bleeding on the floor. The earl had said the same name: Walter's men are behind this. And then he had sent his own men out to find the dragoons who had come so close to killing Nathaniel.

Walter's men are behind this. Surely there were many men named Walter in Scotland; the earl could not have been speaking of that Walter Campbell who was married to his only daughter. And yet she saw on his face that this was exactly whom he meant.

All the warnings of the past few months came back to her: the Campbells wanted Carryck, and they would do anything to achieve that end. The dragoons who had kidnapped Mac Stoker and shot Nathaniel were Walter Campbell's men, and acting on his orders.

"My lord!"

The young man called Lucas was at the door, hesitating there as if the greenhouse were forbidden territory.

"My lord, Davie and the others are come, and they've brung the men ye wanted wi' them." He sent Elizabeth a nervous glance.

"The dragoons," Carryck said to Elizabeth, taking off his apron.

Lucas swallowed hard to catch his breath. "Will ye come, my lord?"

"Aye. Where's Moncrieff?"

"Still doon the village, my lord."

"Send for him."

Elizabeth said, "My lord, I would like to be there when you question the dragoons."

He glanced down at her. "That's no' possible, madam. Unless ye've got the gift o' communin' wi' the deid."

Coming out of the sun into the shadows of the Great Hall, Hannah shivered. It was the biggest room she had ever seen, as long and more than twice as wide as the longhouse of the Wolf clan where her mother had been born, a space where eighty and sometimes as many as a hundred people worked and ate and slept. This Great Hall was empty but for tables and chairs, and more surprising still, it had colored glass windows that threw great patches of deep red and blue and gold down on the flagstone floor.