Kieran would have made it home safely, yet I worried for the boy. He was far too adventurous for his own health. I resolved to report back to Colonel Manners, his letter prompting news from me aside. I needed to be sharp in order to present recent circumstances in a respectable light. The current mysteries in Markinch did not warrant a whole militia, the less military involvement the better for everyone. Finishing the cup of tea, I took up my travelling writing case. The battered wood as familiar to my eyes as my own hands. I ran my thumb over the small brass plate with my father’s initials, JD, carved into the metal in script, as I had hundreds of times before. Opening the lid on paper, ink and goose quills. Using a small knife, I sharpened the end of one of the new quills. I closed the lid of the wooden box, set my paper in place and stared at the blank sheet. One of my last letters had been to Mr Wick, informing him of my purchase of a great swath of land to the north of Boston.
