The Winter Sea

‘What, now? Outside?’

She nodded.

With his eyebrow lifting on a note of resignation, Colonel Graeme took a last look at the warming fire and closed his book. ‘Aye, lass. I’ll come and walk with ye. Where to?’

The snow was not so deep along the cliff top, where the wind had blown inland into low drifts that lay soft and melting from a long day in the sun. It was late afternoon, and shadows tangled thickly with each other on the ground beneath the snowy branches of the trees that edged the flowing stream. The scent of burning wood fires from the chimneys of the cottages smelled homely to Sophia, and the smoke that curled to whiten in the air above the wood appeared to mirror her own misting breath.

They walked between the cottages, and up the windy hill beyond, and down onto the wide fawn-colored beach. The sand felt firm beneath her feet, not soft and shifting as it had been in the summer, and the dunes were dusted white with snow through which the tufted golden grass still rose to bow and bend before the wind that tossed the waves ashore.

In all that long, broad curve of sand there was no other person to be seen. No other person who could hear them. Yet Sophia went on walking, looking not for privacy but inspiration.

All the while that they’d been on the path, she had been trying to decide how best to tell him that she thought his friend, the captain, might be more than he appeared. There were no easy words, she knew, for such a thing, and she might not have mentioned it at all if she had not felt such a strongly warning sense that what was happening had happened once before. She set her mind, and chose to take that for her starting-place, and ventured, ‘When your nephew was at Slains, he told me once of his adventures in the company of Simon Fraser.’

Colonel Graeme’s eyes sought out her face with sudden interest. ‘Did he, now? What did he tell ye of the matter?’

‘That the king did send him here with Simon Fraser to enquire how many men might rise if there were a rebellion, and to meet with all the well-affected nobles in the Highlands and in Edinburgh.’

‘It was the queen, King Jamie’s mother Mary, who did send him, for she does esteem him highly. Did he tell ye that?’

She shook her head.

‘Aye, well, he’s not a lad to give himself much credit, but ’tis true. In fact, when Fraser did return to France without John it distressed the queen so greatly she said Fraser was a murderer, and did her best to see him thrown in prison. She’s a very loyal woman is Queen Mary, and she’ll not forget her favorites.’

She had not known that Moray was a favorite of the queen, and it gave her pride, but still she did not wish to be distracted from her purpose, and she would have moved to speak if Colonel Graeme had not said, ‘The queen was wrong about the murder, mind. ’Twas only that Fraser had scuttled away like a rat without sending John word of his leaving, so John was left stranded in hiding some months afore he could find a safe passage to France for himself. I’d gone earlier, else I’d have been there to help, for the business was all in the wind then and he was in danger.’

Distracted again, she looked over and echoed, ‘You’d gone earlier?’

‘Aye,’ he said, and then as if it were a well-known fact he added, ‘I was here, too, sent with Fraser as John was, by orders from Saint-Germain. Did he not tell ye his uncle came with him?’ The answer was plain on her face for he smiled and said, ‘No, he’d not say. He’s a close man with words, John. A rare one for keeping things secret.’ He looked away, toward the rolling sea, and missed the change in her expression. ‘Did he tell ye Simon Fraser was a traitor?’

‘Yes.’

‘A blow to John, that was, for he did hold the man in high regard. I had a sense of it myself when we came over. Something was not right with Fraser from the start. But John…’ He paused, and gave a shrug. ‘Well, John was younger then and counted Fraser as his friend. He found it very hard.’

Sophia said, ‘All men, I think, would be surprised at such betrayal by a friend.’

He caught her tone and turned again as if to question it. ‘Ye did not bring me all this way to speak of Fraser, lass. What’s on your mind?’

She took a breath. ‘I do suspect that Captain Ogilvie might be a spy.’

She’d feared that he might laugh, or even answer her with anger. He did neither; only asked her, ‘Why is that?’

And so she told him what she’d seen, and what she thought she’d seen—the little packet that had passed from Captain Ogilvie to Billy Wick. ‘I think that it may have been money.’

‘Lass.’ He gave her an indulgent sideways look.

‘The gardener is an evil-minded man, and not well thought of by the other servants. He is not a man to trust. I could not think of any reason Captain Ogilvie might speak with him, except to gain some knowledge of the house and its affairs.’ She kept her eyes upon the sand and said, ‘I hope I’ll not offend you, Colonel Graeme, if I say I find you much like Mr Moray, and I would not wish to see you suffer as he suffered at the hands of someone who does not deserve your friendship.’

There was no sound for a moment but the breaking of the waves against the frozen shore. And then the colonel asked her, ‘Do ye worry for my welfare, lass?’

He sounded quite as moved by that as Moray had when he had made a similar discovery, all those months ago. That moment too, Sophia thought, had happened here, on this same beach, but then the blowing wind had been a warmer one and underneath a bluer sky the sea had seemed a place of hope and promise.