Page 54 of Highland Jewel
Her throat burned as she thought of Niall. His handsome face. His smile. How happy she’d imagined their future together would be. All lost now. He’d intended their last night together would be a memory, but it was his departing words that were engrained in her. He was lost to her. He was never coming back.
Maisie leaned over the bowl and splashed water on her face so Morrigan wouldn’t see the tears springing to her eyes.
“I think they want Isabella so they can collect names from her.” Morrigan sat on a stool, waiting to wash next. “They want all the leaders. The radical reformers. The people who gathered with my father at the house. They think Isabella knows the people who attended all those meetings.”
“They’re trying to crush what is left of the resistance.”Maisie stepped back from the bowl and used a towel to dry her face. The sadness lingered.
Morrigan planted an elbow on her knee and stared up at her. “You know my secret.”
“That’s true. But have no fear. I’ll never speak of it to anyone. Never breathe a word of it. I would have killed the villain myself if I’d had enough wit to carry a knife.”
“Do you have one now?”
Maisie smiled and reached into the pocket of her dress and flashed the small surgical knife she’d borrowed from Isabella’s medical instruments.
“Do you know how to use it?”
“Straight into the heart.” She made a stabbing motion in the air.
“I like this new you.” Morrigan smiled and stood.
“The feeling is mutual.”
Morrigan moved to the basin and reached for the pitcher of water but stopped. “I wasn’t fooled by you, you know. At least, not for the past few months.”
They’d moved past the lies and rebuffs. Maisie tried to speak, but the breath hitched in her chest.
“I learned that you were someone else outside of the house, but you didn’t trust the rest of us to understand.”
Decades seemed to have passed since the two of them had faced off in the stairwell, since the day she’d come back after speaking at the protest in the Grassmarket. She’d known then that Morrigan was paying attention to what she did. “That was my way of surviving without being judged.”
“You weren’t only surviving. You were thriving. You started the Female Reform Society.”
“How did you find out?”
“The day after the Grassmarket protest, when you claimed the bloodstains from your clothes weren’t because of a man, I sneaked into your room and readthe flyers you had lying around. You had a collection of every article and speech you’d written.”
Maisie glared at her. “You spied on me?”
“I decided to help you. How do you think you got away with being absent so much? How was it that Isabella and my father never asked questions about the late nights and early mornings when you were gone?”
Maisie had just assumed that they weren’t paying attention.
“At first, I thought I was lying for you so you could go meet a man. But after I saw the flyers, I knew you were protesting, so I covered for you even more.” Morrigan pointed a finger at her. “I lied for you. Often. I made up stories, came up with imaginary friends, made excuses. I protected you.”
For months now, she had a champion under the same roof, and she’d never realized it. It all made sense. She was never questioned the way Morrigan was. The source of much of the trouble Morrigan faced had to do with Archibald’s intrusive probing and second-guessing. They called her fiery and short-tempered, but Maisie had always felt Morrigan’s outbursts were a reaction to how she was treated.
“Thank you.” Her words were a whisper, and her emotions claimed her. Still, she didn’t realize any tears had escaped until she tasted saltiness on her lips.
“And since we’re now talking, I want you to know that I was angry with you for not asking me.”
“Asking you?”
“To join your society. To be one of you. You knew my politics.”
Maisie did know her politics. They were the same as Archibald’s.
She went to Morrigan and wrapped her arms around her. A long overdue gesture. They held onto each otherfor the first time since they’d been thrown together as “sisters.” Neither spoke for the longest time, but both understood what had gone wrong. Isabella and Archibald’s marriage had been a business arrangement. The two young women assumed their relationship should operate on the same basis.
