“You’ve changed so much. You used to be so arrogant.”

Lizzie laughed softly. “I think the same about you!”

“I was arrogant?”

“Of course! Standing up in church and reading a letter out to the laird!”

“I suppose I was.”

“Perhaps we’ve both changed.”

“I’m glad we have.” Mack touched her cheek. “I think that was when I fell in love with you—outside the church, when you told me off.”

“I loved you for a long time without knowing it. I remember the prizefight. Every blow that landed on you hurt me. I hated to see your beautiful body being damaged. Afterward, when you were still unconscious, I caressed you. I touched your chest. I must have wanted you even then, before I got married. But I didn’t admit it to myself.”

“I’ll tell you when it started for me, Down the pit, when you fell into my arms, and I accidentally felt your breast and realized who you were.”

She chuckled. “Did you hold me a bit longer than you really needed to?”

He looked bashful in the firelight. “No. But afterward I wished I had.”

“Now you can hold me as much as you like.”

“Yes.” He put his arms around her and drew her to him. They lay silent for a long while, and in that position they went to sleep.

Next day they crossed a mountain range by a pass then dropped down into the plain beyond. Lizzie and Peg rode the wagon downhill while Mack ranged ahead on one of the spare horses. Lizzie ached from sleeping on the ground, and she was beginning to feel the lack of good food. But she would have to get used to it: they had a long way to go. She gritted her teeth and thought of the future.

She could tell that Peg had something on her mind. Lizzie was fond of Peg. Whenever she looked at the girl she thought of the baby who had died. Peg had once been a tiny baby, loved by her mother. For the sake of that mother, Lizzie would love and care for Peg.

“What’s troubling you?” Lizzie asked her.

“These hill farms remind me of Burgo Marler’s place.”

It must be dreadful, Lizzie thought, to have murdered someone; but she felt there was something else, and before long Peg came out with it. “Why did you decide to run away with us?”

It was hard to find a simple answer to that question. Lizzie thought about it and eventually replied: “Mainly because my husband doesn’t love me anymore, I suppose.” Something in Peg’s expression made her add: “You seem to wish I had stayed at home.”

“Well, you can’t eat our food and you don’t like sleeping on the ground, and if we didn’t have you we wouldn’t have the wagon and we could go faster.”

“I’ll get used to the conditions. And the supplies on the wagon will make it a lot easier for us to set up home in the wilderness.”

Peg still looked sulky, and Lizzie guessed there was more to come. Sure enough, after a silence Peg said: “You’re in love with Mack, aren’t you?”

“Of course!”

“But you’ve only just got rid of your husband—isn’t it a bit soon?”

Lizzie winced. She herself felt this was true, in moments of self-doubt; but it was galling to hear the criticism from a child. “My husband hasn’t touched me for six months—how long do you think I should wait?”

“Mack loves me.”

This was becoming complicated. “He loves us both, I think,” Lizzie said. “But in different ways.”

Peg shook her head. “He loves me. I know it.”

“He’s been like a father to you. And I’ll try to be like a mother, if you’ll let me.”

“No!” Peg said angrily. “That’s not how it’s going to be!”

Lizzie was at a loss to know what to say to her. Looking ahead, she saw a shallow river with a low wooden building beside it. Obviously the road crossed the river by a ford just here, and the building was a tavern used by travelers. Mack was tying his horse to a tree outside the building.

She pulled up the wagon. A big, roughly dressed man came out wearing buckskin trousers, no shirt, and a battered three-cornered hat. “We need to buy oats for our horses,” Mack said.

The man replied with a question. “You folks going to rest your team and step inside and take a drink?”

Suddenly Lizzie felt a tankard of beer was the most desirable thing on earth. She had brought money from Mockjack Hall—not much, but enough for essential purchases on the journey. “Yes,” she said decisively, and she swung down from the wagon.

“I’m Barney Tobold—they call me Baz,” said the tavern keeper. He looked quizzically at Lizzie. She was wearing men’s clothing, but she had not completed the disguise and her face was obviously female. However, he made no comment but led the way inside.

When her eyes adjusted to the gloom Lizzie saw that the tavern was one bare earth-floored room with two benches and a counter, and a few wooden tankards on a shelf. Baz reached for a rum barrel, but she forestalled him, saying: “No rum—just beer, please.”

“I’ll take rum,” Peg said eagerly.

“Not if I’m paying, you won’t,” Lizzie contradicted her. “Beer for her, too, please, Baz.”

He poured beer from a cask into wooden mugs. Mack came in with his map in his hand and said: “What river is this?”

“We call it South River.”

“Once you cross over, where does the road lead to?”

“A town called Staunton, about twenty miles away. After that there’s not much: a few trails, some frontier forts, then real mountains, that nobody’s ever crossed. Where are you people headed, anyway?”

Mack hesitated so Lizzie answered. “I’m on my way to visit a cousin.”

“In Staunton?”

Lizzie was flustered by the question. “Uh … near there.”

“Is that so? What name?”

She said the first name that came into her head. “Angus … Angus James.”

Baz frowned. “That’s funny. I thought I knew everyone in Staunton, but I don’t recognize that name.”

Lizzie improvised. “It may be that his farm is some way from town—I’ve never been there.”

The sound of hoofbeats came from outside. Lizzie thought of Jay. Could he have caught up with them so soon? The sound made Mack uneasy too, and he said: “If we want to make Staunton by nightfall …”

“We don’t have time to linger,” Lizzie finished. She emptied her tankard.

“You’ve hardly wet your throats,” Baz said. “Drink another cup.”

“No,” Lizzie said decisively. She took out her pocketbook. “Let me pay you.”

Two men walked in, blinking in the dim light. They appeared to be local people: both were dressed in buckskin trousers and homemade boots. Out of the corner of her eye Lizzie saw Peg give a start, then turn her back on the newcomers, as if she did not want them to see her face.

One of them spoke cheerily. “Hello, strangers!” He was an ugly man with a broken nose and one closed eye. “I’m Chris Dobbs, known as Deadeye Dobbo. A pleasure to meet you. What news from the East? Them burgesses still spending our taxes on new palaces and fancy dinners? Let me buy you a drink. Rum all round, please, Baz.”

“We’re leaving,” Lizzie said. “Thanks all the same.”

Dobbo looked more closely at her and said: “A woman in buckskin pants!”

She ignored him and said: “Good-bye, Baz—and thanks for the information.”

Mack went out and Lizzie and Peg moved to the door. Dobbs looked at Peg and registered surprise. “I know you,” he said. “I’ve seen you with Burgo Marler, God rest his soul.”

“Never heard of him,” Peg said boldly, and walked past.

In the next second the man drew the logical conclusion. “Jesus Christ, you must be the little bitch that killed him!”

“Wait a minute,” Lizzie said. She wished Mack had not gone out so quickly. “I don’t know what crazy idea you’ve got into your head, Mr. Dobbs, but Jenny has been a maid in my family since she was ten years old and she’s never met anyone called Burgo Marler, let alone killed him.”

He was not to be put off so easily. “Her name isn’t Jenny, though it’s something like that: Betty, or Milly, or Peggy. That’s it—she’s Peggy Knapp.”