For behind the Duke’s shoulder, I had seen a round, leathery object, shaped like a pumpkin, framed by the green velvet draperies like one of the Duke’s exotic art objects. I opened my eyes, peering cautiously through the petals, and the wide, snaggle-toothed mouth split in a grin like a jack-o’-lantern’s.
I was torn between terror and relief. I had been right, then, about the beggar near the gate. It was Hugh Munro, an old companion from Jamie’s days as a Highland outlaw. A one-time schoolmaster, he had been captured by the Turks at sea, disfigured by torture, and driven to beggary and poaching—professions he augmented by successful spying. I had heard he was an agent of the Highland army, but hadn’t realized his activities had brought him so far south.
How long had he been there, perched like a bird on the ivy outside the second-story window? I didn’t dare try to communicate with him; it was all I could do to keep my eyes fixed on a point just above the Duke’s shoulder, gazing with apparent indifference into space.
The Duke was regarding me with interest. “Really? Not Gerstmann, surely? I shouldn’t have thought he had a sufficiently devious mind.”
“And you think I do? I’m flattered.” I kept my nose in the flowers, speaking distractedly into a peony.
The figure outside released his grip on the ivy long enough to bring one hand up into view. Deprived of his tongue by his Saracen captors, Hugh Munro’s hands spoke for him. Staring intently at me, he pointed deliberately, first at me, then at himself, then off to one side. The broad hand tilted and the first two fingers became a pair of running legs, racing away to the east. A final wink, a clenched fist in salute, and he was gone.
I relaxed, trembling slightly with reaction, and took a deep, restorative breath. I sneezed, and put the flowers down.
“So you’re a Jacobite, are you?” I asked.
“Not necessarily,” the Duke answered genially. “The question is, my dear—are you?” Completely unselfconscious, he took off his wig and scratched his fair, balding head before putting it back on.
“You tried to stop the effort to restore King James to his throne when you were in Paris. Failing at that, you and your husband appear now to be His Highness’s most loyal supporters. Why?” The small blue eyes showed nothing more than a mild interest, but it wasn’t a mild interest that had tried to have me killed.
Ever since finding out who my host was, I had been trying as hard as I could to remember what it was that Frank and the Reverend Mr. Wakefield had once said about him. Was he a Jacobite? So far as I could recall, the verdict of history—in the persons of Frank and the Reverend—was uncertain. So was I.
“I don’t believe I’m going to tell you,” I said slowly.
One blond brow arched high, the Duke took a small enameled box from his pocket and abstracted a pinch of the contents.
“Are you sure that’s wise, my dear? Danton is still within call, you know.”
“Danton wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole,” I said bluntly. “Neither would you, for that matter. Not,” I added hastily, seeing his mouth open, “on that account. But if you want so badly to know which side I’m on, you aren’t going to kill me before finding out, now, are you?”
The Duke choked on his pinch of snuff and coughed heavily, thumping himself on the chest of his embroidered waistcoat. I drew myself up and stared coldly down my nose at him as he sneezed and spluttered.
“You’re trying to frighten me into telling you things, but it won’t work,” I said, with a lot more confidence than I felt.
Sandringham dabbed gently at his streaming eyes with a handkerchief. At last he drew a deep breath, and blew it out between plump, pursed lips as he stared at me.
“Very well, then,” he said, quite calmly. “I imagine my workmen have finished their alterations to your quarters by now. I shall summon a maid to take you to your room.”
I must have gawped foolishly at him, for he smiled derisively as he hoisted himself out of his chair.
“To a point, you know, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Whatever else you may be or whatever information you may possess, you have one invaluable attribute as a houseguest.”
“And what’s that?” I demanded. He paused, hand on the bell, and smiled.
“You’re Red Jamie’s wife,” he said softly. “And he is fond of you, my dear, is he not?”
* * *
As prisons go, I had seen worse. The room measured perhaps thirty feet in each dimension, and was furnished with a lavishness exceeded only by the sitting room downstairs. The canopied bed stood on a small dais, with baldachins of ostrich feathers sprouting from the corners of its damask drapes, and a pair of matching brocaded chairs squatted comfortably before a huge fireplace.
The maidservant who had accompanied me in set down the basin and ewer she carried, and hurried to light the ready-laid fire. The footman laid his covered supper-tray on the table by the door, then stood stolidly in the doorway, dishing any thoughts I might have had of trying a quick dash down the hall. Not that it would do me much good to try, I thought gloomily; I’d be hopelessly lost in the house after the first turn of the corridor; the bloody place was as big as Buckingham Palace.
“I’m sure His Grace hopes as you’ll be comfortable, ma’am,” said the servant, curtsying prettily on her way out.
“Oh, I’ll bet he does,” I said, ungraciously.
The door closed behind her with a depressingly solid thud, and the grating sound of the big key turning seemed to scrape away the last bit of insulation covering my raw nerves.
Shivering in the chill of the vast room, I clutched my elbows and walked to the fire, where I subsided into one of the chairs. My impulse was to take advantage of the solitude to have a nice private little fit of hysterics. On the other hand, I was afraid that if I allowed my tight-reined emotions any play at all, I would never get them in check again. I closed my eyes tight and watched the red flicker of the firelight on my inner eyelids, willing myself to calmness.
After all, I was in no danger for the moment, and Hugh Munro was on his way to Jamie. Even if Jamie had lost my trail over the course of the week’s travel, Hugh would find him and lead him right. Hugh knew every cottar and tinker, every farmhouse and manor within four parishes. A message from the speechless man would travel through the network of news and gossip as quickly as the wind-driven clouds passed over the mountains. If he had made it down from his lofty perch in the ivy and safely off the Duke’s grounds without being apprehended, that was.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said aloud, “the man’s a professional poacher. Of course he made it.” The echo of my words against the ornate white-plaster ceiling was somehow comforting.
“And if so,” I continued firmly, still talking to hear myself, “then Jamie will come.”
Right, I thought suddenly. And Sandringham’s men will be waiting for him, when he does. You’re Red Jamie’s wife, the Duke had said. My one invaluable attribute. I was bait.
“I’m a salmon egg!” I exclaimed, sitting up straight in my chair. The sheer indignity of the image summoned up a small but welcome spurt of rage that pushed the fear back a little way. I tried to fan the flames of anger by getting up and striding back and forth, thinking of new names to call the Duke next time we met. I’d gotten as far in my compositions as “skulking pederast,” when a muffled shouting from outside distracted my attention.
Pushing back the heavy velvet drapes from the window, I found that the Duke had been as good as his word. Stout wooden bars crisscrossed the window frame, latticed so closely together that I could scarcely thrust an arm between them. I could see, though.
Dusk had fallen, and the shadows under the park trees were black as ink. The shouting was coming from there, matched by answering cries from the stables, where two or three figures suddenly appeared, bearing lit torches.
The small, dark figures ran toward the wood, the fire of their pine torches streaming backward, flaring orange in the cold, damp wind. As they reached the edge of the park, a
knot of vaguely human shapes became visible, tumbling onto the grass before the house. The ground was wet, and the force of their struggle left deep gashes of black in the winter-dead lawn.
I stood on tiptoe, gripping the bars and pressing my head against the wood in an effort to see more. The light of the day had failed utterly, and by the torchlight, I could distinguish no more than the occasional flailing limb in the riot below.
It couldn’t be Jamie, I told myself, trying to swallow the lump in my throat that was my heart. Not so soon, not now. And not alone, surely he wouldn’t have come alone? For I could see by now that the fight centered on one man, now on his knees, no more than a hunched black shape under the fists and sticks of the Duke’s gamekeepers and stable-lads.
Then the hunched figure sprawled flat, and the shouting died, though a few more blows were given for good measure before the small gang of servants stood back. A few words of conversation were exchanged, inaudible from my vantage point, and two of the men stooped and seized the figure beneath the arms. As they passed beneath my third-floor window on their way toward the back of the house, the torchlight illuminated a pair of dragging, sandal-shod feet, and the tatters of a grimy smock. Not Jamie.
One of the stable-lads scampered alongside, triumphantly carrying a thick leather wallet on a strap. I was too far above to hear the clink of the tiny metal ornaments on the strap, but they glittered in the torchlight, and all the strength went from my arms in a rush of horror and despair.
They were coins and buttons, the small metal objects. And gaberlunzies. The tiny lead seals that gave a beggar license to plead his poverty through a given parish. Hugh Munro had four of them, a mark of favor for his trials at the hands of the Turk. Not Jamie, but Hugh.
I was shaking so badly that my legs would hardly carry me, but I ran to the door and pounded on it with all my strength.
“Let me out!” I shrieked. “I have to see the Duke! Let me out, I say!”
There was no response to my continued yelling and pounding, and I dashed back to the window. The scene below was eminently peaceful now; a boy stood holding a torch for one of the gardeners, who was kneeling at the edge of the lawn, tenderly replacing the divots of turf dug up by the fight.
“Hoy!” I roared. Covered as they were by bars, I couldn’t crank the casements outward. I ran across the room to fetch one of the heavy silver candlesticks, dashed back, and smashed a pane of glass, heedless of the flying fragments.
“Help! Ahoy, down there! Tell the Duke I want to see him! Now! Help!” I thought one of the figures turned its head toward me, but neither made any motion toward the house, going on with their work as though no more than a night bird’s cry disturbed the darkness around them.
Back to the door I ran, hammering and shouting, and back to the window, and back to the door again. I shouted, pleaded, and threatened until my throat was raw and hoarse, and beat upon the unyielding door until my fists were red and bruised, but no one came. I might have been alone in the great house, for all I could hear. The silence in the hallway was as deep as that of the night outside; as silent as the grave. All check on my fear was gone, and I sank at last to my knees before the door, sobbing without restraint.
* * *
I woke, chilled and stiff, with a throbbing headache, to feel something wide and solid shoving me across the floor. I came awake with a jerk as the opening edge of the heavy door pinched my thigh against the floor.
“Ow!” I rolled clumsily, then scrabbled to my hands and knees, hair hanging in my face.
“Claire! Oh, do be quiet, p-please! Darling, are you hurt?” With a rustle of starched lawn, Mary dropped to her knees beside me. Behind her, the door swung shut and I heard the click of the lock above.
“Yes—I mean, no. I’m all right,” I said dazedly. “But Hugh …” I clamped my lips shut and shook my head, trying to clear it. “What in bloody hell are you doing here, Mary?”
“I b-bribed the housekeeper to let me in,” she whispered. “Must you talk so loudly?”
“It doesn’t matter much,” I said, in a normal tone of voice. “That door’s so thick, nothing short of a football match could be heard through it.”
“A what?”
“Never mind.” My mind was beginning to clear, though my eyes were sticky and swollen and my head still throbbed like a drum. I pushed myself to my feet and staggered to the basin, where I splashed cold water over my face.
“You bribed the housekeeper?” I said, wiping my face with a towel. “But we’re still locked in, aren’t we? I heard the key turn.”
Mary was pale in the dimness of the room. The candle had guttered out while I slept on the floor, and there was no light but the deep red glow of the fireplace embers. She bit her lip.
“It was the b-best I could do. Mrs. Gibson was too afraid of the Duke to give me a key. All she would do was agree to lock me in with you, and let me out in the morning. I thought you m-might like company,” she added timidly.
“Oh,” I said. “Well … thank you. It was a kind thought.” I took a new candle from the drawer and went to the fireplace to light it. The candlestick was clotted with wax from the burned-out candle; I tipped a small puddle of melted wax onto the tabletop and set the fresh candle in it, heedless of damage to the Duke’s intaglio.
“Claire,” Mary said. “Are you … are you in trouble?”
I bit my lip to prevent a hasty reply. After all, she was only seventeen, and her ignorance of politics was probably even more profound than her lack of knowledge of men had been.
“Er, yes,” I said. “Rather a lot, I’m afraid.” My brain was starting to work again. Even if Mary was not equipped to be of much practical help in escaping, she might at least be able to provide me with information about her godfather and the doings of his household.
“Did you hear the racket out by the wood earlier?” I asked. She shook her head. She was beginning to shiver; in such a large room, the heat of the fire died away long before it reached the bed dais.
“No, but I heard one of the cookmaids saying the keepers had caught a poacher in the park. It’s awfully cold. Can’t we get into b-bed?”
She was already crawling across the coverlet, burrowing beneath the bolster for the edge of the sheet. Her bottom was round and neat, childlike under the white nightdress.
“That wasn’t a poacher,” I said. “Or rather it was, but it was also a friend. He was on his way to find Jamie, to tell him I was here. Do you know what happened after the keepers took him?”
Mary swung around, face a pale blur within the shadows of the bed hangings. Even in this light, I could see that the dark eyes had grown huge.
“Oh, Claire! I’m so sorry!”
“Well, so am I,” I said impatiently. “Do you know where the poacher is, though?” If Hugh had been imprisoned somewhere accessible, like the stables, there was a bare chance that Mary might be able to release him somehow in the morning.
The trembling of her lips, making her normal stutter seem comprehensible by comparison, should have warned me. But the words, once she got them out, struck through my heart, sharp and sudden as a thrown dirk.
“Th-they h-h-hanged him,” she said. “At the p-park g-gate.”
* * *
It was some time before I was able to pay attention to my surroundings. The flood of shock, grief, fear, and shattered hope washed over me, swamping me utterly. I was dimly conscious of Mary’s small hand timidly patting my shoulder, and her voice offering handkerchiefs and drinks of water, but remained curled in a ball, not speaking, but shaking, and waiting for the relaxation of the wrenching despair that clenched my stomach like a fist. Finally I exhausted the panic, if not myself, and opened my eyes blearily.
“I’ll be all right,” I said at last, sitting up and wiping my nose inelegantly on my sleeve. I took the proffered towel and blotted my eyes with it. Mary hovered over me, looking concerned, and I reached out and squeezed her hand reassuringly.
“Really,” I said. “I’m all righ
t now. And I’m very glad you’re here.” A thought struck me, and I dropped the towel, looking curiously at her.
“Come to think of it, why are you here?” I asked. “In this house, I mean.”
She looked down, blushing, and picked at the coverlet.
“The D-Duke is my godfather, you know.”
“Yes, so I gathered,” I said. “Somehow I doubt that he merely wanted the pleasure of your company, though.”
She smiled a little at the remark. “N-no. But he—the Duke, I mean—he thinks he’s found another h-h-husband for me.” The effort to get out “husband” left her red-faced. “Papa brought me here to meet him.”
I gathered from her demeanor that this wasn’t news requiring immediate congratulations. “Do you know the man?”
Only by name, it turned out. A Mr. Isaacson, an importer, of London. Too busy to travel all the way to Edinburgh to meet his intended, he had agreed to come to Bellhurst, where the marriage would take place, all parties being agreeable.
I picked up the silver-backed hairbrush from the bed table and abstractedly began to tidy my hair. So, having failed to secure an alliance with the French nobility, the Duke was intending to sell his goddaughter to a wealthy Jew.
“I have a new trousseau,” Mary said, trying to smile. “Forty-three embroidered petticoats—two with g-gold thread.” She broke off, her lips pressed tight together, staring down sightlessly at her bare left hand. I put my own hand over it.
“Well.” I tried to be encouraging. “Perhaps he’ll be a kind man.”
“That’s what I’m af-fraid of.” Avoiding my questioning look, she glanced down, twisting her hands together in her lap.
“They didn’t tell Mr. Isaacson—about P-Paris. And they say I mustn’t, either.” Her face crumpled miserably. “They brought a horrible old woman to tell me how I must act on my w-w-wedding night, to—to pretend it’s the first time, but I … oh, Claire, how can I do it?” she wailed. “And Alex—I didn’t tell him; I couldn’t! I was such a coward, I d-didn’t even say goodbye!”
The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle Page 185
