“She did,” I said. “I saw her.”
He nodded without looking up. “So did any number of other people. But if she led him to think she meant more than she maybe did, and then perhaps she put him off, maybe laughed at him … and him fu’ as a puggie wi’ drink, and knives to hand on every wall of the place …” He sighed and sat up.
“God knows,” he said bleakly. “I don’t.” He ran a hand backward through his hair, smoothing it.
“There’s something else about it. I had to tell them that I scarcely knew Willoughby—that we’d met him on the packet boat from Martinique, and thought it kindly to introduce him about, but didna ken a thing of where he came from, or the sort of fellow he truly was.”
“Did they believe it?”
He glanced at me wryly.
“So far. But the packet boat comes in again in six days—at which point, they’ll question the captain and discover that he’s never laid eyes on Monsieur Etienne Alexandre and his wife, let alone a wee yellow murdering fiend.”
“That might be a trifle awkward,” I observed, thinking of Fergus and the militiaman. “We’re already rather unpopular on Mr. Willoughby’s account.”
“Nothing to what we will be, if six days pass and they havena found him,” he assured me. “Six days is also maybe as long as it will take for gossip to spread from Blue Mountain House to Kingston about the MacIvers’ visitors—for ye ken the servants there all know who we are.”
“Damn.”
He smiled briefly at that, and my heart turned over to see it.
“You’ve a nice way wi’ words, Sassenach. Aye, well, all it means is that we must find Ian within six days. I shall go to Rose Hall at once, but I think I must just have a wee rest before setting out.” He yawned widely behind his hand and shook his head, blinking.
We didn’t speak again until after we had arrived at Blue Mountain House and made our way on tiptoe through the slumbering house to our room.
I changed in the dressing room, dropping the heavy stays on the floor with relief, and taking out the pins to let my hair fall free. Wearing only a silk chemise, I came into the bedroom, to see Jamie standing by the French door in his shirt, looking out over the lagoon.
He turned when he heard me, and beckoned, putting a finger to his lips.
“Come see,” he whispered.
There was a small herd of manatees in the lagoon, big gray bodies gliding under the dark crystal water, rising gleaming like smooth, wet rocks. Birds were beginning to call in the trees near the house; besides this, the only sound was the frequent whoosh of the manatees’ breath as they rose for air, and now and then an eerie sound like a hollow, distant wail, as they called to each other.
We watched them in silence, side by side. The lagoon began to turn green as the first rays of sun touched its surface. In that state of extreme fatigue where every sense is preternaturally heightened, I was as aware of Jamie as though I were touching him.
John Grey’s revelations had relieved me of most of my fears and doubts—and yet there remained the fact that Jamie had not told me about his son. Of course he had reasons—and good ones—for his secrecy, but did he not think he could trust me to keep his secret? It occurred to me suddenly that perhaps he had kept quiet because of the boy’s mother. Perhaps he had loved her, in spite of Grey’s impressions.
She was dead; could it matter if he had? The answer was that it did. I had thought Jamie dead for twenty years, and it had made no difference at all in what I felt for him. What if he had loved this young English girl in such a way? I swallowed a small lump in my throat, trying to find the courage to ask him.
His face was abstracted, a small frown creasing his forehead, despite the dawning beauty of the lagoon.
“What are you thinking?” I asked at last, unable to ask for reassurance, fearing to ask for the truth.
“It’s only that I had a thought,” he answered, still staring out at the manatees. “About Willoughby, aye?”
The events of the night seemed far away and unimportant. Yet murder had been done.
“What was that?”
“Well, I couldna think at first that Willoughby could do such a thing—how could any man?” He paused, drawing a finger through the light mist of condensation that formed on the windowpanes as the sun rose. “And yet …” He turned to face me.
“Perhaps I can see.” His face was troubled. “He was alone—verra much alone.”
“A stranger, in a strange land,” I said quietly, remembering the poems, painted in the open secrecy of bold black ink, sent flying toward a long-lost home, committed to the sea on wings of white paper.
“Aye, that’s it.” He stopped to think, rubbing a hand slowly through his hair, gleaming copper in the new daylight. “And when a man is alone that way—well, it’s maybe no decent to say it, but making love to a woman is maybe the only thing will make him forget it for a time.”
He looked down, turning his hands over, stroking the length of his scarred middle finger with the index finger of his left hand.
“That’s what made me wed Laoghaire,” he said quietly. “Not Jenny’s nagging. Not pity for her or the wee lassies. Not even a pair of aching balls.” His mouth turned up briefly at one corner, then relaxed. “Only needing to forget I was alone,” he finished softly.
He turned restlessly, back to the window.
“So I am thinking that if the Chinee came to her, wanting that—needing that—and she wouldna take him …” He shrugged, staring out across the cool green of the lagoon. “Aye, maybe he could have done it,” he said.
I stood beside him. Out in the center of the lagoon, a single manatee drifted lazily to the surface, turning on her back to hold the infant on her chest toward the sunlight.
He was silent for several minutes, and I was as well, not knowing how to take the conversation back to what I had seen and heard at Government House.
I felt rather than saw him swallow, and he turned from the window to face me. There were lines of tiredness in his face, but his expression was filled with a sort of determination—the sort of look he wore facing battle.
“Claire,” he said, and at once I stiffened. He called me by my name only when he was most serious. “Claire, I must tell ye something.”
“What?” I had been trying to think how to ask, but suddenly I didn’t want to hear. I took half a step back, away from him, but he grabbed my arm.
He had something hidden in his fist. He took my unresisting hand and put the object into it. Without looking, I knew what it was; I could feel the carving of the delicate oval frame and the slight roughness of the painted surface.
“Claire.” I could see the slight tremor at the side of his throat as he swallowed. “Claire—I must tell ye. I have a son.”
I didn’t say anything, but opened my hand. There it was; the same face I had seen in Grey’s office, a childish, cocky version of the man before me.
“I should ha’ told ye before.” He was searching my face for some clue to my feelings, but for once, my giveaway countenance must have been perfectly blank. “I would have—only—” He took a deep breath for strength to go on.
“I havena ever told anyone about him,” he said. “Not even Jenny.”
That startled me enough to speak.
“Jenny doesn’t know?”
He shook his head, and turned away to watch the manatees. Alarmed by our voices, they had retreated a short distance, but then had settled down again, feeding on the water weed at the edge of the lagoon.
“It was in England. It’s—he’s—I couldna say he was mine. He’s a bastard, aye?” It might have been the rising sun that flushed his cheeks. He bit his lip and went on.
“I havena seen him since he was a wee lad. I never will see him again—except it might be in a wee painting like this.” He took the small picture from me, cradling it in the palm of his hand like a baby’s head. He blinked, head bent over it.
“I was afraid to tell ye,” he said, low-voiced. “For fear ye
would think that perhaps I’d gone about spawning a dozen bastards … for fear ye’d think that I wouldna care for Brianna so much, if ye kent I had another child. But I do care, Claire—a great deal more than I can tell ye.” He lifted his head and looked directly at me.
“Will ye forgive me?”
“Did you—” The words almost choked me, but I had to say them. “Did you love her?”
An extraordinary expression of sadness crossed his face, but he didn’t look away.
“No,” he said softly. “She … wanted me. I should have found a way—should have stopped her, but I could not. She wished me to lie wi’ her. And I did, and … she died of it.” He did look down then, long lashes hiding his eyes. “I am guilty of her death, before God; perhaps the more guilty—because I did not love her.”
I didn’t say anything, but put up a hand to touch his cheek. He pressed his own hand over it, hard, and closed his eyes. There was a gecko on the wall beside us, nearly the same color as the yellow plaster behind it, beginning to glow in the gathering daylight.
“What is he like?” I asked softly. “Your son?”
He smiled slightly, without opening his eyes.
“He’s spoilt and stubborn,” he said softly. “Ill-mannered. Loud. Wi’ a wicked temper.” He swallowed. “And braw and bonny and canty and strong,” he said, so softly I could barely hear him.
“And yours,” I said. His hand tightened on mine, holding it against the soft stubble of his cheek.
“And mine,” he said. He took a deep breath, and I could see the glitter of tears under his closed lids.
“You should have trusted me,” I said at last. He nodded, slowly, then opened his eyes, still holding my hand.
“Perhaps I should,” he said quietly. “And yet I kept thinking—how should I tell ye everything, about Geneva, and Willie, and John—will ye know about John?” He frowned slightly, then relaxed as I nodded.
“He told me. About everything.” His brows rose, but he went on.
“Especially after ye found out about Laoghaire. How could I tell ye, and expect ye to know the difference?”
“What difference?”
“Geneva—Willie’s mother—she wanted my body,” he said softly, watching the gecko’s pulsing sides. “Laoghaire needed my name, and the work of my hands to keep her and her bairns.” He turned his head then, dark blue eyes fixed on mine. “John—well.” He lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “I couldna give him what he wanted—and he is friend enough not to ask it.
“But how shall I tell ye all these things,” he said, the line of his mouth twisting. “And then say to you—it is only you I have ever loved? How should you believe me?”
The question hung in the air between us, shimmering like the reflection from the water below.
“If you say it,” I said, “I’ll believe you.”
“You will?” He sounded faintly astonished. “Why?”
“Because you’re an honest man, Jamie Fraser,” I said, smiling so that I wouldn’t cry. “And may the Lord have mercy on you for it.”
“Only you,” he said, so softly I could barely hear him. “To worship ye with my body, give ye all the service of my hands. To give ye my name, and all my heart and soul with it. Only you. Because ye will not let me lie—and yet ye love me.”
I did touch him then.
“Jamie,” I said softly, and laid my hand on his arm. “You aren’t alone anymore.”
He turned then and took me by the arms, searching my face.
“I swore to you,” I said. “When we married. I didn’t mean it then, but I swore—and now I mean it.” I turned his hand over in both mine, feeling the thin, smooth skin at the base of his wrist, where the pulse beat under my fingers, where the blade of his dirk had cut his flesh once, and spilled his blood to mingle with mine forever.
I pressed my own wrist against his, pulse to pulse, heartbeat to heartbeat.
“Blood of my blood …” I whispered.
“Bone of my bone.” His whisper was deep and husky. He knelt quite suddenly before me, and put his folded hands in mine; the gesture a Highlander makes when swearing loyalty to his chieftain.
“I give ye my spirit,” he said, head bent over our hands.
“ ’Til our life shall be done,” I said softly. “But it isn’t done yet, Jamie, is it?”
Then he rose and took the shift from me, and I lay back on the narrow bed naked, pulled him down to me through the soft yellow light, and took him home, and home, and home again, and we were neither one of us alone.
60
THE SCENT OF GEMSTONES
Rose Hall was ten miles out of Kingston, up a steep and winding road of reddish dust that led into blue mountains. The road was overgrown, so narrow that we must ride in single file most of the way. I followed Jamie through the dark, sweet-scented caverns of cedar boughs, under trees nearly a hundred feet high. Huge ferns grew in the shade below, the fiddleheads nearly the size of real violin necks.
Everything was quiet, save for the calling of birds in the shrubbery—and even that fell silent as we passed. Jamie’s horse stopped dead, once, and backed up, snorting; we waited as a tiny green snake wriggled across the path and into the undergrowth. I looked after it, but could see no farther than ten feet from the edge of the road; everything beyond was cool green shadow. I half-hoped that Mr. Willoughby had come this way—no one would ever find him, in a place like this.
The Chinaman had not been found in spite of an intensive search of the town by the island militia. The special detachment of marines from the barracks on Antigua was expected to arrive tomorrow. In the meantime, every house in Kingston was shut up like a bank vault, the owners armed to the teeth.
The mood of the town was thoroughly dangerous. Like the naval officers; it was the militia colonel’s opinion that if the Chinaman were found, he would be lucky to survive long enough to be hanged.
“Be torn to pieces, I expect,” Colonel Jacobs had said as he escorted us from the Residence on the night of the murder. “Have his balls ripped off and thrust down his stinking throat, I daresay,” he added, with obvious grim satisfaction at the thought.
“I daresay,” Jamie had murmured in French, assisting me into the carriage. I knew that the question of Mr. Willoughby was still troubling him; he had been quiet and thoughtful on the ride through the mountains. And yet there was nothing we could do. If the little Chinese was innocent, we could not save him; if he was guilty, we could not give him up. The best we might hope for was that he would not be found.
And in the meantime, we had five days to find Young Ian. If he were indeed at Rose Hall, all might be well. If he were not …
* * *
A fence and small gate marked the division of the plantation from the surrounding forest. Inside, the ground had been cleared, and planted in sugarcane and coffee. Some distance from the house, on a separate rise, a large, plain, mud-daub building stood, roofed with palm thatch. Dark-skinned people were going in and out, and the faint, cloying scent of burnt sugar hung over the place.
Below the refinery—or so I assumed the building to be—stood a large sugar press. A primitive-looking affair, this consisted of a pair of huge timbers crossed in the shape of an X, set on an enormous spindle, surmounting the boxlike body of the press. Two or three men were clambering over the press, but it was not working at present; the oxen who drove it were hobbled some distance away, grazing.
“How do they ever get the sugar down from here?” I asked curiously, thinking of the narrow trail we had come up. “On mules?” I brushed cedar needles off the shoulders of my coat, making myself presentable.
“No,” Jamie answered absently. “They send it down the river on barges. The river’s just over there, down the wee pass ye can see beyond the house.” He pointed with his chin, reining up with one hand, and using the other to beat the dust of travel from the skirts of his coat.
“Ready, Sassenach?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Rose H
all was a two-storied house; long and graciously proportioned, with a roof laid in expensive slates, rather than in the sheets of tin that covered most of the planters’ residences. A long veranda ran all along one side of the house, with long windows and French doors opening on to it.
A great yellow rosebush grew by the front door, climbing on a trellis and spilling over the edge of the roof. The scent of its perfume was so heady that it made breathing difficult; or perhaps it was only excitement that made my breath come short and stick in my throat. I glanced around as we waited for the door to be answered, trying to catch a glimpse of any white-skinned figure near the sugar refinery above.
“Yes, sah?” A middle-aged slave woman opened the door, looking out curiously at us. She was wide-bodied, dressed in a white cotton smock, with a red turban wrapped round her head, and her skin was the deep, rich gold in the heart of the flowers on the trellis.
“Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm, to call upon Mrs. Abernathy, if ye please,” Jamie said politely. The woman looked rather taken aback, as though callers were not a common occurrence, but after a moment’s indecision, she nodded and stepped back, swinging the door wide.
“You be waitin’ in the salon, please, sah,” she said, in a soft lilt that made it “sallong.” “I be askin’ the mistress will she see you.”
It was a large room, long and graciously proportioned, lit by huge casement windows all down one side. At the far end of the room was the fireplace, an enormous structure with a stone overmantel and a hearth of polished slates that occupied nearly the whole wall. You could have roasted an ox in it without the slightest difficulty, and the presence of a large spit suggested that the owner of the house did so on occasion.
The slave had shown us to a wicker sofa and invited us to be seated. I sat, looking about, but Jamie strolled restlessly about the room, peering through the windows that gave a view of the cane fields below the house.
It was an odd room; comfortably furnished with wicker and rattan furniture, well-equipped with fat, soft cushions, but ornamented with small, uncommon curios. On one window ledge sat a row of silver handbells, graduated from small to large. Several squat figures of stone and terra-cotta sat together on the table by my elbow; some sort of primitive fetishes or idols.
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