And so the diary we had feared would disappoint him had instead surpassed his hopes by shining new light on the efforts of the Jacobites to find a steady source of income for King James’s court in exile.

“He had no way,” so Alistair had said, “of raising money like most kings. He had a crown but not the country or the taxes to go with it, only subjects who were landless like himself, and looked to him for their support. And having to rely upon the pope to give him money was humiliating. So…”

And he’d been off again, explaining all the details of the silver mines and lead mines and attempts at trade, and efforts that went well beyond what Thomson and his cohorts did, or didn’t do, depending on one’s view of things. But I’d been watching Jacqui’s face, while Alistair had talked, and I had asked her later on why she’d been smiling.

“Because when a writer gets like that,” she’d said, “so fired up, I know the book they write for me will be amazing.”

He was still fired up.

I reassured my cousin of this now, while she was watching him in conversation with Luc’s mother. “He’s decided to use Mary’s diary, Mary’s story, to tie all the parts together and give readers someone personal to root for, to connect with.”

“Well, he always likes the little people best himself, does Alistair. The kings don’t hold his interest like the commoners.”

I had to side with Alistair. In all that I had read about—the great financial scandal and the treachery and intrigue and betrayal—what had captured me the most was the small story of two people who’d been caught in the machinery of politics and history without knowing it, and brought together for a little while before the wheels had turned to separate them once again.

My cousin said, “It’s too bad Mary’s diary doesn’t have a proper ending.”

“Well,” I said, “I think she just stopped writing. She was sad. And Thomson did go back to Paris when they let him out of prison, so I think they very probably sent Mary with him. Maybe that was why he sent to ask her to come visit him. To tell her they were going back.”

My cousin agreed that made sense.

“Yes, I know,” I said. “Alistair thinks there’s a whole other diary. He thinks that they went into Spain.”

“Why Spain?”

“He says the Earl Marischal went to Spain later on that year, and he thinks Mr. MacPherson went with him, and both Luc and Alistair think that MacPherson had fallen for Mary, so they think he married her and took her with him.”

“I see. So your husband’s a romantic, then.”

“A hopeless one.” I watched as Claudine came to sit with Alistair, her hand linking so naturally with his. I added, “One of us is right, or maybe neither of us is and she went somewhere else entirely, or stayed in Rome. We’ll never know for certain.”

We both pondered this in silence for a while. And then I said, in case my cousin hadn’t heard, “Claudine and Alistair are going to take a road trip in the autumn, traveling the same path Mary took, so Claudine can take photographs of all the places Mary wrote about, from Paris all the way to Rome. We’re going to watch the dog,” I told her, “while they’re gone.”

“Diablo won’t be happy.”

“He’ll adapt.”

They had declared a brief truce for my wedding day, apparently, the cat keeping watch from the terrace while Alistair’s dog Hector ran with the children.

My cousin said, “Hang on. If Alistair thinks that they all went to Spain…”

“Yes?”

“He hasn’t roped you in to doing research on your honeymoon, I hope?”

“No. We’re not going to the part of Spain that interests him. We’re going to the north,” I said. “Luc’s boss has a house there he’s letting us have for the fortnight.”

Jacqui looked at the dark-haired man who sat on the far side of Alistair. “Luc’s boss,” she told me, “is rather incredibly hot.”

“Yes, I know.” He was not, to my eyes, as good-looking as Luc, but I saw the appeal. “He is also incredibly married.”

“But happily?”

“Yes. Very happily.”

Jacqui pronounced that a shame. “I could use the male companionship,” she said. “I’ve been abandoned.” She nodded to where her assistant, the gorgeous and affable Humphrey, was standing beside Denise, chatting and helping her set out the glassware.

“He’ll have to get in line,” I said. “Denise’s current boyfriend is quite fierce.”

“She didn’t bring him?”

“He’s in Canada,” I told her. “Climbing something, I believe.” Still, watching Humphrey now in action I decided I should give him even odds. Denise did like a man who wore a suit with style.

“Oh well,” Jacqui said, “it will do Humphrey good, getting out a bit. He’s worked long hours these past few weeks. We’ve got the fairy tales scheduled to come out next spring, did I tell you? You want to see some of the paintings that Julia’s done for them. Simply amazing. She’s done this incredible cage with a songbird to put on the cover—you know, from the tale with the wolf and the huntsman who’s really the prince, where the princess is turned to a bird.”

I said quietly, “That one’s my favorite.”

It spoke to me on a deep personal level, that tale of the princess who’d rescued her brother and father when they had been lost in the forest of thorns.