Which was, in Anna’s view, a very large point in his favour.
She moved closer to him, wondering if she could trust him just enough to ask him where the monks lived in Calais, when someone called out, ‘Anna!’
Without thinking, she turned round. She’d hoped it might be Father Graeme, but she did not see him, and her gaze began to dart around in panic as she looked for the two Englishmen, who must by now, along with Mrs Ogilvie, have noticed she was missing from the inn. She did not see them, either, but she did see the old man who had just chased her from the church, and with him two priests dressed exactly like the priest who’d been the nuns’ confessor at the convent.
The old man studied Anna, gave a nod and made a comment to the priests before he shuffled off again, and wearing smiles the priests approached her.
‘Anna Moray!’ called the tallest one again, ‘we have been looking for you. God be thanked, we’ve found you safe.’
She saw his eyes, and she did not believe him. And apart from that, he’d called her ‘Anna Moray’. No one seeking her who had been sent by anyone she trusted would have ever used that name.
She backed away a step, and then another, looking round one final time in hopes she might glimpse Father Graeme or his father in the vast confusing ebb and flow of unfamiliar faces.
One more backward step and she had bumped against the side of Captain Gordon, who said, ‘Steady,’ in a voice that, while surprised, was not unkind. It was that hint of kindness, she thought afterwards, that gave her the idea, and the courage.
As the two priests drew yet nearer, Anna spoke up in a clear voice, with the ladylike and proper words that she’d been taught: ‘I do not know these men.’ And then she turned and tilted up her head to look at Captain Gordon. ‘Do you know them, Father?’
He said nothing, staring down at her, and Anna held her breath.
If he denied her, if he did not play along, then she was lost. No one would stop two priests from taking charge of any child, no matter how that child might scream and weep.
She saw the smallest flicker of what might have been astonishment disturb the blue depths of the captain’s eyes. It seemed to Anna that he stood and looked at her a long time, as though he were seeing something he had not expected and could not believe.
She raised her chin a trifle higher, and allowed her eyes to mutely ask him, Please.
He told her, ‘No.’ And then, his eyes still on her upturned face, he said, ‘I do not know them, either.’
Then he raised his head and told the priests, ‘Good Fathers, I’m afraid you do mistake my child for someone else, for my name is not Moray.’ With a firm hand he laid claim to her, and turned her so her back was to the strength of him, his one arm laid with fatherly possession on her shoulder.
Neither priest could stand against the calm ice of the captain’s gaze. The bolder one said, ‘Do excuse us, sir, we meant no harm.’
‘No, I am sure that you did not. Come, child,’ the captain said, ‘get you in the carriage, for we must be on our way.’
She let him lift her, numb, onto the seat, and there she sat, her little cloth-wrapped bundle clasped against her, while the priests bowed to the captain and backed off a step.
The searcher standing nearest to the captain drew a paper from his coat and read it over with a frown, and told the captain, ‘But this pass is for—’
‘My daughter and myself,’ the captain told him, in a sure tone that left no room for an argument, and drawing out his purse again he paid the searcher two more silver coins before he climbed into the carriage, too, and settled on the long seat beside Anna.
She was shaking as they rode out through the gate.
He angled in his seat to look at her. ‘Are you all right?’
She’d thought to get a lecture. She had not expected gentleness, and coming on the heels of so much turbulence it made her eyes begin to fill with tears she had no wish to shed.
He asked, ‘Where are your parents?’
‘Dead.’ A half-lie only, she consoled herself.
‘Where do you live? How came you to Calais?’
She did not answer him, because she could not think of any way to twist the truth, and when a moment had gone by in silence, Captain Gordon tried again.
‘Well, have you any family left?’
Her eyes stung as she thought of Colonel Graeme and his son, and of her uncles, and the mother she would never know, because she could do nothing but endanger them. No matter what she did, or where she went, she knew now she could never let the truth of who she was be known to anyone, or else the people she loved most would suffer for it.
Fighting back the tears, she shook her head. ‘No. I have no one.’
She could feel his gaze upon her face, as though he, too, were making a decision. He asked quietly, ‘Is your name truly Anna?’
Anna thought, and then decided that much of herself was safe to keep, and so she nodded.
‘Anna Moray?’
‘No.’ She could not ever claim that name, she knew. Nor could she any longer be the Anna Logan who had lived at Ypres, and been betrayed by Christiane, and who was being searched for now by those who meant to hurt her uncle. She must evermore be no one’s child.
And yet, if all her dreams were thus to shatter, Anna thought, she could at least pick up the brightest shard of them, and cling to it, however much it cut, and take it with her into the unknown.
She drew a breath, and said, ‘My name is Anna Jamieson.’