“Now then,” he said sharply, “tell me in your own words, and no lies mark you, I want the truth – what you’re doing in Scotland?”
“As you have doubtless been informed,” Iona said quietly, “I came here but a short while ago from Paris with papers which sought to prove that I was the Duke’s half sister, the Lady Elspeth MacCraggan.”
“And did they believe you?” the Major asked. “Not on your life! You damned Jacobites are up to any trick and always ready to pretend to something or other like those rascally Stuarts! We’ve had the Old Pretender, the Young Pretender, and now they have got a Woman Pretender. Who the hell is going to believe you? Not me, at any rate.”
“It would, of course, be impossible for you, sir, to come to any decision on the matter without seeing the proofs that I brought
