A familiar footstep sounded in the passage outside, and Keith raised his head and turned round. Ewen was standing in the doorway, one hand upon the half-open door, watching him with very blue eyes. Without deliberate effort Keith found his own eyes creasing into a smile in response.
‘Is anything the matter?’ he enquired.
‘I thought I’d come and see how you’re settling in,’ said Ewen, stepping into the room and pulling the door to behind him. He went over to Keith and without further ceremony or any awkwardness folded him in his arms; Keith, relaxing into his warm hold, was struck—not for the first time—with a sort of quiet marvelling wonder at how easy and simple a thing it was to be with him. The last few years had been filled with so much trouble and tumult—the almost incredible wrench of his own decision to resign his commission; the blank misery of his life in London, bereft of what had once been his sole purpose; Ewen’s exile in France while Keith’s heart, newly open to his own love for Ewen, yearned for him—that it seemed a little miracle that it should all end, at last, in this reunion and this happiness. ‘But I see you’re getting on very well,’ continued Ewen. He was resting his head upon Keith’s—bare of his wig for the moment—and regarding the open door of the great oak wardrobe, which was half-filled with Keith’s coats, waistcoats and other garments, while at his feet the contents of an open trunk lay ready to join their fellows.
‘So I am,’ said Keith, and moved his head out from under Ewen’s in order to reach up and kiss his cheek.
‘You’ve plenty of room?’ asked Ewen, looking round the room at the chest, shelves and other pieces of furniture which were likewise filling up with Keith’s belongings.
‘Plenty,’ said Keith. Then, letting go his hold of Ewen, he bent down to retrieve the next item from the trunk. ‘You’ve chosen a good time to come in,’ he remarked. ‘’Twas you gave me this... one night, long ago, in Edinburgh. Do you remember?’
‘Did I give you my cloak?’ said Ewen, taking a fold of the thick, soft black wool in his hand. ‘Oh, of course I did—to hide your uniform; yes, I remember....’
‘I confess I still harboured quite a prejudice against the Highlander in those days,’ mused Keith, ‘for I recall I thought this cloak remarkably fine to belong to a clan chieftain who was almost a barbarian—and it has certainly proved its quality since, for it’s kept me warm in many another cold night since Edinburgh.... Why, what’s the matter?’ He dropped the clasp of the cloak, which he had been turning over in his hands—it was ornate, delicately-worked and yet sturdy, a really fine piece of craftsmanship—and looked with concern at Ewen, who had turned suddenly red.
‘Keith, I fear that cloak was too fine for my own,’ he said hesitantly. ‘The fact is, ’twas not mine at all. I was lent it that evening... by the Prince, in order that I might accompany him on his excursion.’
Keith stared at the cloak in his hands, consternation and dismay rising up within him. Had he really, all this time, been carrying about and wearing (for it really had become a useful part of his wardrobe) and, yes, occasionally regarding with just a touch of sentimental fondness as something that Ewen had given him—a garment which had originally belonged to... quite another person?
Ewen must have sensed his feelings, for his expression had changed from simple embarrassment to real concern. Hesitantly he placed his hand on Keith’s arm. ‘Oh, my sorrow, Keith! I had quite forgotten that I ever gave it to you, or I would have told you before now.’
Keith looked at Ewen, and then at the cloak, for a few moments more. Differing impulses contended in his mind; but Ewen was looking at him with his blue eyes serious and intent, and it was not really uncertain which would be the victor. He let the heavy folds of cloth fall from his hands, turned back to Ewen and said, the corner of his mouth turning upwards, ‘Well, I own I’m glad I did not know. I would never have got so much useful service out of it if I had.’
And then his smile turned to laughter, and Ewen, relief joining the amusement in his eyes, laughed with him.
‘I am afraid,’ said Keith, ‘that I shall never be able to regard that garment in quite the same light, now that I know... who was really its original owner.’
He looked at Ewen carefully as he spoke this likewise careful circumlocution. He had rejected his old allegiance to the Army, when the months after Culloden had shown him what the honour of his commanders was really worth... and when Ewen had brought him back to a full awareness of how much better a man he was than what they demanded he should be... but a Jacobite he never would be, and it was beyond the limits of his power to call the cloak’s original owner by anything like the epithet which Ewen had used. But neither was this the time or the place to speak of ‘the Pretender’s son’. And Ewen, meeting his eyes, silently acknowledged the diplomatic compromise—for it was the sort of thing which would probably always be required from time to time, in the life which they intended to make together.
‘But I think,’ continued Keith, ‘though not every aspect of that night is very pleasant to remember—I can still value it as your gift to me. ’Twas a most generous one, after all.’
Ewen took Keith in his arms again, and Keith leaned into the embrace. ‘Keith, my heart,’ said Ewen quietly, ‘’twas nothing to the gift you have given me in coming here.... I hope you’ll always be happy at Ardroy.’
‘Do you know,’ said Keith, pulling back just far enough to look up at Ewen, ‘I think I shall be....’
And he moved back towards Ewen again; and for a little while after that they both quite forgot the trunk at their feet, and the cloak of such interesting history which lay in disarranged folds across it.