The keen brown eyes turned to him, and examined Nathaniel's features closely and without apology. "There's proof," he said. "I see what I see. The lairds of Carrick have always marked their get, and you're the verra likeness of Jamie Scott."

"And how would you know that?" Nathaniel said testily. "You would not have been born when he set sail for the Americas."

Moncrieff seemed not at all perturbed by Nathaniel's irritation. From a purse he wore under his arm he drew a pendant which he opened with small snap. Then he held it up by its chain so that it spun lazily, catching the light to cast it out again, before it came to a stop.

Elizabeth inhaled sharply, for it might as well have been Hawkeye as a young man: the same strong bones and coloring, piercing dark eyes under straight brows. And because it might have been Hawkeye, it was enough like Nathaniel to make him look away.

"James Scott?" She heard her voice crack.

"No," said Angus Moncrieff, snapping the pendant shut again to tuck it away. "Roderick, Earl of Carrick. Jamie's twin. They were born ten minutes apart.

"That proves nothing," Nathaniel said, the muscle in his cheek fluttering in a distinctly disturbing way.

"Let me ask you this, then. Have you nivver heard your grandfather's name spoke by your faither

"My grandfather's name was Chingachgook," said Nathaniel, his eyes flashing a warning that Elizabeth hoped Mr. Moncrieff could read. "We buried him on the rise at the back of the gorge in the late summer, near my mother."

There was a small silence.

"O' course. But have you no knowledge of your fait her natural parents?"

"They had a farm on the Hudson. They were killed in a raid, is all know. A French trapper by the name of Bonner picked up my father wandering around afterward. Chingachgook offered to take the boy and raise him up, and the trapper was glad of it."

"He called himself Daniel when—Chingachgook, have I got that right?  when Chingachgook adopted him?" asked Moncrieff.

Nathaniel stood suddenly, and walked out of the light into the shadows, where he stood motionless.

"His name is Dan'l Bonner, called Hawkeye by the Mahican people who raised him. Longue Carabine by the French and the Huron. Those are the only names he has ever had or needed. Why worry him with lands and titles at this point in his life?"

Robbie had been quiet for all of this, but he spoke up, finally. "Because if he doesna find Laird Carrick's richtfu' heir, the title and the lands will revert to the English crown."

"And you're still enough of a Scot, after all these years here, to care?"

"Aye, and mair than that, laddie. There's muny a Scot who wad travel tae hell and dance withe deil tae keep what's left of the border counties oot o' English hands."

"I want to talk to my wife," Nathaniel said from the shadows. "Alone."

* * *

She went to bed while Nathaniel showed the Scotsmen where they could sleep. For a long while Elizabeth lay with her head pillowed on her arm, listening to the murmur of his soft, low voice rising and falling in contrast to Robbie's. They were talking in the workroom; Moncrieff had been given a pallet under the sleeping loft.

In near full dark Elizabeth lay listening to that soothing music, and tracing the arc of the moon as it made ready to set. The confusion of thoughts in her head made it throb slightly—she was prone to headaches since her fall—and so she tried not to dwell on Angus Moncrieff and the incredible but increasingly obvious fact that she had somehow managed to marry into a Scots earldom.

Aunt Merriweather would choke to hear it told. Elizabeth, who had scorned the very concept of a good match, had made the best match of all: if Moncrieff was right, Nathaniel would one day be the Earl of Carrick. It was almost enough to make her laugh out loud, the idea of it, but then Elizabeth remembered the tension in his face and the urge left her.

She sat up and lit a candle to brush her hair, afraid that otherwise she would fall asleep before he came in, and sleep uneasily for want of the rest of the news.

Nathaniel came in, and sat behind her on the bed to take the brush from her hands. The mattress crackled as he moved closer. With the steady movement of the brush over and over again through the length of her hair, she arched her back in pleasure.

"What of Otter?" she asked finally, when it seemed that he would never talk.

Nathaniel's voice at her ear, soft and close. "He got tangled up with the wrong woman. My father went to set him straight on the path home."

"What do you mean by 'wrong woman'?"

The movement of the brush paused, and he leaned forward to kiss her cheek. "One who doesn't want him."

"Ah. Otter may be of a different opinion. Do you think Hawkeye will have any success with a young man as strong—minded as he is?"

He went back to his work, drawing the brush down and down. "Aye, well. So was I at that age, and he managed to shift me out of Montreal, under pretty much the same circumstances."

"The same circumstances?" Elizabeth asked, all thought of Moncrieff and the Earl of Carrick suddenly eclipsed.

The steady motion of the brush never faltered, but Nathaniel cleared his throat. "The woman is not unknown to me. She collects backwoodsmen as a kind of hobby, I guess you might say, in international relations. I was one of her first trophies. This was before I knew Sarah," he added hastily.

A vague sense of familiarity with this story washed over Elizabeth. "Her name is not Giselle, by any chance?"