I was up all night but the children slept, thanks be to the Blessed Virgin. I kept tiptoeing back and forth to their rooms to pull the covers over them, kiss their damp foreheads and brush back their curls. But they never stirred. Elspeth had dried tear tracks on her cheeks, though she had not cried in my presence.

I believe my agony at knowing I must leave them would have been unbearable, had I not been so intent on saving Gavin. My first duty to them was to ensure that they did not lose their father to the executioner’s axe.

The next morning, after a quick breakfast before dawn, I tried to explain to the children that McClaren would take them to their aunt and uncle, Mairi and Dougal Carruthers at Talla Mathan. Talla Mathan meant “Bear Hall.” The Prestwick manor bore this name because of the upright iron bears above the gates. Mairi was Gavin’s sister: we knew that she and her good husband, the Earl of Prestwick, would take our children in without question and would protect them against any danger that might come.

Dougal was taking no part in the Rebellion. He had been to no gatherings that plotted war and had entertained no renegades in his home. Many families like ours left someone at home, to safeguard people and lands, who could not be accused of any action against the government.

I say I tried to explain. In the dark, torchlit hall, Gareth was affecting nonchalance, leaning against a wall with one long leg crossed over the other, apparently absorbed in cleaning his fingernails with his penknife, a habit I deplored. He knew I would not bother him with trifles that day. I choked on my words. He was so young, and, as I could see in the stiffness of his pose, so determined not to cry.

Looking at the girls was even worse. Moira and Elspeth were holding hands and staring at me, big-eyed. It struck me then suddenly that Moira, at ten, was truly beginning to come into herself as a young woman, with her enormous, dark eyes and long trails of heavy curls, only lightly bound with a blue ribbon.

She was standing erect, trying not to show her fear and worry me further. She had always wanted to be the steady child, the child I could rely on in any trouble, the child who seldom complained. Her ability to lose herself in books, her reveries, had never made her unreliable. If only she had been a little older, she could have come with me, but, young as she was, I had to entrust other duties to her. I needed her to be Gareth’s wise friend and Elspeth’s proxy mother, under the guidance of Aunt Mairi, for who knows how long.

Little Elspeth, now five, simply looked confused and bereft. I believe she was the one who missed her father the most. She was the youngest and he had indulged her, carrying her around the house and grounds on his shoulders for hours. When she was very small, I had to remind him on occasion that the child needed to learn how to walk on her own!

Elspeth’s hair was my bane—so fine and fluffy that it never would lie smooth, no matter how many pomades and ribbons and bonnets Lucy and I applied. How foolish of me, it seemed at that moment, to have worried about something so insignificant. What did it matter if she had a head of wild golden fuzz, as long as she was well cared for and could grow comfortably to womanhood?

I didn’t want to frighten them with my own fears, but I could not restrain myself from embracing each one with all my might for a minute or two, hiding my tears in their curls. How long might it be before we embraced again? When we did, would they still have a father to love and protect them?

I wanted to bless each with words of motherly wisdom, but if I attempted anything beyond, “Mind your lessons,” and “Do as your Aunt Mairi tells you,” I felt the tears rise and had to stop.

“They should go soon,” said Lucy, with a gentle arm over my shoulder. “The weather is going to turn hard.” I nodded. We knew without speaking that Lucy would go with me. Whatever transpired in London, I would have need of her.

Last night’s snow had already melted and the day would dawn bright but much colder than it had been. As the sky began to lighten, I could see clouds flying eastward in long streamers. More snow would be coming. The wind blew so fiercely that it knocked down loose branches and scattered them over the grass, along with a fine shower of little sticks and kindling.

“Tell the maids to see to the packing,” I said. “But I need Gareth and McClaren with me for the moment. And Moira.” I nodded at the children and told the two eldest to wait for me while we sent Elspeth upstairs with her nurse. Lucy and I went into the library and began to gather Gavin’s most important documents to be placed in a leatherbound oak chest McClaren had brought down from upstairs.

There was no conversation between us. We knew that if the family was gone for a prolonged period, Covenanters—or common thieves—might break into Heath Hall and seize whatever they could lay their hands on. I needed to travel as fast as I could to London and could not take all the important documents needed to maintain our claim to Gavin’s estate, nor the valuable jewels, silver, and plate. Some could go with the children to Talla Mathan, but not all.

With the long years of fighting in Scotland, how many stories had I heard of fortunes buried deep and then forgotten? Or perhaps the master was lost and never returned to claim them. Or came back and could not remember where they were buried. To hear the gossips tell it, the lands of Scotland’s lords were littered with caches of buried treasure, if one only knew where to look.

Our people were good souls, but who knew what kind of pressure might be applied to force them to betray us? I trusted only McClaren to help us fill the chest with documents and heavy valuables, coat it with pine tar to protect the wood against moisture, and bury it before the soil under the rosemary bushes got too frozen to yield to the shovel.

Even if the bushes were neglected and overgrown, or killed by a deep frost, I could certainly identify them. In case they were completely uprooted by marauders, I made notes on a scrap of paper that only I would understand—so many paces from the kitchen and the birch grove, and the like.

Alistair came to bid us farewell and promised to look after Heath Hall as best he could. A skeleton staff under McClaren was to stay on duty at the Hall; many of the men had already left with Gavin. But Alistair assured me that those who had been released from our service for the time being would still be on half pay. They were as good as our family.

I noticed again the odd glance between Lucy and Alistair. I saw them conversing very quietly and earnestly at the window, but when Lucy came to me and I looked at her inquiringly, she did not explain. I had no time then to pursue the matter.

Always in my thoughts was the image of Gavin, trussed on a horse and riding to prison as if he were an ordinary outlaw. It made me shudder and then my mind would run on to that great Tower of London that had loomed with almost palpable malice over my childhood—where my father and even my mother had spent brief periods of time, accused of ludicrous crimes only because they were faithful Catholics. Every charge, brought forth by the lowest rank of informers in the pay of lapsed Catholic Titus Oates, that they had threatened the life of King Charles II in some fantastical way—that they were planning to shoot the king with silver bullets, for instance, or poison his daily posset—all these charges had been laughed out of court. But each time another accusation would follow.

I refused to think of a headsman’s block in Gavin’s future because, if I indulged myself in horror so far as that, I would scream or go mad. If I did seem to glimpse it for a moment in my mind, I would busy myself rushing upstairs or down to direct the remaining servants to cover the new furniture with cloths or to lock all the windows and pull the draperies closed.

Soon after full light we stood in the entryway as Lucy kept admonishing the servants to bring more blankets for the carriage. The children were already wrapped in so many cloaks and woolens that they hardly managed to totter across the flagstones.

I now had to speak seriously to Gareth, even if it brought us both to tears. I could delay no longer. I put both hands on his shoulders and looked in his eyes, making sure I had his full attention before I spoke. Though he was only fourteen, we had completed documents transferring the entire Clarencefield estate to him a few days before Gavin left, to allow for just this kind of emergency.

“The estate is yours now,” I said. “Your father may soon be under a bill of attainder and you will be, in effect, the Earl of Clarencefield. All your papers are in order. You have had no part in this uprising.

“I fear the Covenanters may come against you. Be stern. Show them at once that you will not be moved from this land. Alistair will help you, as will your Uncle Prestwick. Alistair is witness to all.

“That means you will be responsible for us, as well as for your sisters. I am so sorry to lay this burden on you, my son. You are too young, but I believe you will manage as your father did when he inherited his title at a very young age.”

I almost thought to apologize for what we had done to him in remaining faithful to the Stuarts. It seemed our cause would always be swamped by folly. But how could I deny my whole life and my parents’ lives? Young James Stuart was the true king. How could we not fight for him? When the Stuarts had need of us, we had always been loyal to them.

“Live always within your means, for our sakes as well as your own,” I said to Gareth. He nodded. I had little fear for Gareth on this score. Like Gavin, he had very little interest in cards and was moderate in his love of whisky. His best days were spent in the saddle and on foot with dogs and horses and a few retainers, stalking the red deer and occasionally a boar, wolf or wildcat. Customarily he was a boy of few words, but he could tell stories of his hunting expeditions with great detail and excitement.

I thought of Gareth coming in at evening and sitting by the fire in his muddy boots and damp coat, face all aglow, as he recounted his adventures in the forest. Meanwhile, McClaren would direct the huntsmen to take the remains of the gutted deer to the kitchen for Ainslie and her kitchen maids to prepare. I had drawn the line, however, at hanging the heads of wolves and boars on the walls of the Great Hall. This was Heath Hall, I said, not the rustic manor of some clan laird.

As I kissed and embraced my son, his expression was appropriately solemn, yet I saw a shine in his ice-blue eyes that suggested he was looking forward to this new experience. Gareth had known very little of hardship.

But what he said was, “Don’t fear for me, Mother. I will be mindful of my duty to you and Father and the girls.”

Then he grinned—a fine, open, guileless smile that I rejoiced to see. My heart twisted for a moment. It was so odd to see the very image of my sister Aelwen come again into my life with the same coloring and features but graced with a generous heart.

I then kissed and embraced my girls and admonished Moira in a soft voice to be ever her brother’s good companion and to care for her little sister always, as tenderly as I knew she would.

“I entrust Elspeth to you,” I said. “And I am sorry because you are young, but you are wiser than your years, my dear.”

There was something of my gentle sister Glynis in Moira, though I hoped Moira would marry and have children of her own and not follow my beloved Glynis to the convent.

“We will pray every day for you and for Father,” she said. Such an odd disparity between her womanly words and the childish timbre of her voice. “May the Blessed Virgin grant you success.”

I wanted to give them rosaries to keep them safe, but I was afraid a rosary from our hidden hoard, still prohibited, could put them in danger if it was exposed on the road. Prayers could not be excised from their minds, though, so we recited the Ave Maria and the Paternoster together, with Moira helping little Elspeth over the difficult passages.

Having tied the last trunk onto the carriage, McClaren, who spoke so little, came and stood at my shoulder, and I knew he was trying to tell me they must leave. I saw, as we went outside, that snow was falling again. The bright early sunlight was being snuffed out by an advancing white shroud. Talla Mathan, where my sister-in-law and her husband lived, was at least fifteen leagues away. The longer they delayed, the harder the going would be.

I had given a letter to McClaren to hand to Mairi and Dougal, thanking them for taking in our children, and telling them that I was off to London with Lucy, in the hopes of rescuing Mairi’s brother. I also begged them to send money to me in Newcastle to help pay for the expenses of the journey, a London lawyer to draw up petitions to plead Gavin’s case, and the cost of Gavin’s keep in the Tower. All that I had I would take with me. But so much of the funds we had on hand had already gone with Gavin to war. Alistair had even given me twenty-five pounds from his own savings.

As the carriage set off, I did not linger outside to watch them go. Seeing that heavy-laden carriage, bearing away my darlings, slowly dissolve and disappear into the curtain of snow would have been unbearable.

All sentiment must be suppressed, I told myself. Grieving is an indulgence. I swallowed down the glut of tears that rose in my throat. I tried not to think that there would be plenty of reason and time for grief and weeping with my children later if my mission failed.