Page 3

“It’s measured. I’m tired.”

Olivia passed a closed bakery, its windows reflecting her in fragments. Dark hair that needed a trim, coat buttoned all the way up, face average with excellent skin, courtesy of her Grandmother. “He wasn’t terrible.”

“Worse. He was boring.”

She sighed and turned away from her reflection. “That’s a matter of opinion.”

“No, darling. Terrible men are memorable. Boring men make you question your own judgment.”

“That sounds like it should be embroidered on a pillow.”

“It should be printed in big red letters on a warning label.” Grandma’s voice softened around the edges. In the background, Olivia heard the pub’s old ice machine clatter, a man laughing too loudly, and someone calling for another round as if the fate of the neighborhood depended on it. “You sound tired.”

“I’m fine.” Olivia stepped around a puddle. “Okay, maybe I’m a bit bored.”

“Good. Bored women do dramatic things. Your Aunt Maureen cut her hair into bangs and dyed it burgundy after a man bored her.”

As she reached the corner, Olivia slowed. The street ahead was empty except for an old woman standing beneath the streetlamp, a dark cloak gathered around her narrow shoulders. The woman’s silver hair was loose and moved around her face, though there wasn’t any wind. Boston, which could usually be relied upon to supply a breeze, a siren, or at least a stranger arguing with a parking meter, had gone peculiarly quiet.

“Grandma,” Olivia murmured, “there’s a woman down the street that looks like she walked out of a fairy tale.”

“Is she buying vodka?”

“No, she’s not doing anything, I don’t know why I even mentioned it.”

“Then keep walking. Strange women are only interesting if they have money.”

Olivia smiled and took another step as the old woman turned her head. For an instant, the streetlamp caught her eyes, and Olivia had the impression that they weren’t gray or blue but the color of deep water beneath ice. The cloak shifted, and tiny points of light moved in the dark fabric, not sequins, but something colder and farther away. The back of her neck prickled as the woman raised one hand. Not waving. Pointing, perhaps, though Olivia couldn’t tell at what.

“Grandma, I’ll call you back.”

“You’d better. And Olivia?”

“Yes?”

“Never let a man choose your whisky.”

The line went dead.

Olivia looked down at the phone, then back toward the woman. The pavement was empty beneath the lamps. There was no cloak, no silver hair, no old woman at all. Only a black feather turning slowly along the gutter, though there wasn’t any wind.

She stared at it for several seconds before tucking her phone away.

“Bad dates,” she muttered. “I’m blaming bad dates and too much whisky.”

Chapter 2

Jamie

Glenbrae, Scotland

1786

Jamie Campbell heard the excisemen before he saw them, not because the king’s men made that much noise but because the glen had gone quiet.

The burn still rushed over the stones below the track, swollen from two days of rain, and the dun mare beneath him breathed warm against the bit. But the night birds had stopped calling, and the sheep on the far slope had gathered close to the wall. Somewhere beyond the brush, a dog barked once and then went silent.

Jamie raised one hand, and the men behind him reined in without a word, their ponies shifting beneath the weight of the small casks hidden under rough wool covers.