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“That’s what ye said before ye relieved Lord Crawley of a purse large enough to purchase a castle.”

“His loss, our gain.”

He would have answered, but Ewan appeared through the crowd and beckoned them toward the cooper’s yard. They’d come to retrieve a small parcel of imported cloth and spices from a trader wanting Glenbrae whisky in exchange, and the plan was simple. Ewan would take the parcel up the back lane while Jamie and Olivia kept the quay in view.

The trader emerged from behind a stack of empty barrels, spotted a mounted patrol at the end of the street, and thrust the parcel into a fisherman’s basket before bolting. The fisherman, startled, left it on the quay and followed him. Ewan slipped back into the yard rather than approach it in full view of the officers.

“Leave it,” Jamie said. “We’ll come another day.”

Olivia looked at the abandoned basket. “I can fetch it.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“I could have it in my hands before that officer finishes arguing with the cart driver.”

“I said leave it.”

She pressed her lips together, but nodded. Jamie turned to speak to Ewan about the safest way out of town, and by the time he looked back she was walking toward the basket as naturally as any woman bound for market.

Jamie swore. Ewan caught his sleeve before he could charge after her and draw every eye on the quay.

Olivia stopped beside the fisherman, who had returned and was looking bewilderedly at the unattended goods. Jamie saw her say something, saw the man laugh, and then watched in helpless disbelief as she took the basket on her arm. She made it halfway to the alley before the customs officer called to her.

She turned with a smile so composed that Jamie almost believed she might talk her way clear again.

It might have even worked if a boy pushing a handcart hadn’t struck a loose cobble, jolting the wheel into the officer’s horse. The animal shied, the officer shouted, and the boy fell beneath the cart with one leg caught against the spokes.

Olivia dropped the basket and went straight to him. In the commotion she didn’t see Robertson step toward the parcels she’d so confidently carried away.

Jamie saw Robertson bend toward the goods as soon as the commotion drew Olivia away.

He reached the cart in time to lift its weight while Olivia pulled the boy clear. Ewan seized the reins of the frightened horse, calling to the officer to hold still before the beast trampled someone, and the quay erupted with advice from every person who’d been doing nothing useful a moment earlier. The boy was bruised and frightened, but he could stand. His mother arrived breathless, weeping as she caught him against her skirts.

Robertson stood beside the abandoned basket, examining the parcels while he questioned the trader, who’d been caught before reaching the street. The man glanced toward Jamie, then toward Ewan, and Robertson followed his gaze.

His expression changed, and Jamie knew the look. He’d seen it often enough when the officer believed he’d finally discovered something useful, and this time Robertson had good reason to be pleased. He’d found the same American woman who’d helped make a fool of him at the harbor, and now she’d been caught carrying goods belonging to a suspicious trader.

Robertson said something to the man and pointed toward the inland road. The goods were the least of their problems.

“Go,” Jamie told Olivia quietly.

“Jamie—”

“Back lane. Now.”

They got out through the cooper’s yard, though only because the patrol was too occupied with the trader to follow at once. Ewan rode ahead to warn the men holding their hidden whisky inland. By the time Jamie and Olivia reached the first stretch of open road, the sun was sinking behind the hills and Jamie’s temper had settled into something cold enough to frighten him.

He stopped beside a low stone wall where the horses could drink from a burn. Olivia swung down, her boots landing firmly on the damp grass. She was still carrying a length of the boy’s torn sleeve where she’d used it to wipe blood from his knee.

“I was wrong to go for the basket after you told me to leave it,” she said before he could speak.

That took some of the force out of the argument he’d been rehearsing.

“Aye,” he said. “Ye were.”

“But the boy⁠—”

“Ye did right by the lad. That doesna change what happened before he fell.”