An echo in the bone - Gabaldon Diana - Страница 267

Mandy was asleep, surprisingly unworried by the chaos of her parents’ feelings. Of course, she was used to Roger’s occasional absences, gone to London or to Oxford, lodge nights in Inverness. Would she remember him if he never came back? Brianna thought with a pang.

Unable to bear that thought, she got up and prowled restlessly round the office, seeking the unfindable. She hadn’t been able to eat anything and was feeling lightheaded and friable.

She took up the little snake, finding a minimal comfort in its smooth sinuosity, its pleasant face. She glanced up at the box, wondering whether she should seek solace in her parents’ company—but the thought of reading letters that Roger might never read with her… She put the snake down and stared blindly at the books on the lower shelves.

Beside the books on the American Revolution that Roger had ordered were her father’s books, the ones from his old office. Franklin W. Randall, the neat spines said, and she took one out and sat down, holding it to her chest.

She’d asked him once before for help—to look after Ian’s lost daughter. Surely he would look after Jem.

She thumbed the pages, feeling a little soothed by the friction of the paper.

Daddy, she thought, finding no words beyond that, and needing no more. The folded sheet of paper tucked among the leaves came as no surprise at all.

The letter was a draft—she could see that at once from the crossings-out, the marginal additions, words circled with question marks. And being a draft, it had neither date nor salutation but was plainly intended for her.You’ve just left me, dearest deadeye, after our wonderful afternoon at Sherman’s (the clay pigeon place—will she remember the name?). My ears are still ringing. Whenever we shoot, I’m torn between immense pride in your ability, envy of it, and fear. I don’t know quite when you will read this, or if you will. Maybe I’ll have the courage to tell you before I die (or I’ll do something so unforgivable that your mother will—no, she won’t. I’ve never met anyone so honorable as Claire, notwithstanding. She’ll keep her word).What a queer feeling it is, writing this. I know that you’ll eventually learn who—and perhaps what—you are. But I have no idea how you’ll come to that knowledge. Am I about to reveal you to yourself, or will this be old news when you find it? I can only hope that I’ve succeeded in saving your life, either way. And that you will find it, sooner or later.I’m sorry, sweetheart, that’s terribly melodramatic. And the last thing I want to do is alarm you. I have all the confidence in the world in you. But I am your father and thus prey to the fears that afflict all parents—that something dreadful and unpreventable will happen to your child, and you powerless to protect them. And the truth is that through no fault of your own, you are…

Here he had changed his mind several times, writing a dangerous person, amending that to always in some danger, then crossing that out in turn, adding in a dangerous position, crossing that out, and circling a dangerous person, though with a question mark.

“I get the point, Daddy,” she muttered. “What are you talking about? I—”

A sound froze the words in her throat. Footsteps were coming down the hall. Slow, confident steps. A man’s. Every hair on her body rose.

The light was on in the hall; it darkened briefly as a shape took form in the door to the study.

She stared at him, dumbfounded.

“What are you doing here?” Even as she spoke, she was rising from the chair, groping for something that might be used as a weapon, her mind lagging far behind her body, not yet able to penetrate the fog of horror that gripped her.

“I came for you, hen,” he said, smiling. “And for the gold.” He laid something on the desk: her parents’ first letter. “Tell Jem the Spaniard guards it,” Rob Cameron quoted, tapping it. “I thought maybe it’s best you tell Jem that. And tell him to show me where this Spaniard is. If ye’d like to keep him alive, I mean. Up to you, though.” The smile widened. “Boss.”

INDEPENDENCE DAY, II

Brest

SEEING JENNY DEAL with it all was disturbing his own presence of mind considerably. He could see her heart in her throat the first time she spoke French to a real Frenchman; her pulse fluttered in the hollow of her neck like a trapped hummingbird. But the boulanger understood her—Brest was full of foreigners, and her peculiar accent roused no particular interest—and the sheer delight on her face when the man took her penny and handed her a baguette filled with cheese and olives made Jamie want to laugh and cry at the same time.

“He understood me!” she said, clutching him by the arm as they left. “Jamie, he understood me! I spoke French to him, and he kent what I said, clear as day!”

“Much more clearly than he would have had ye spoken to him in the Gaididhlig,” he assured her. He smiled at her excitement, patting her hand. “Well done, a nighean.”

She was not listening. Her head turned to and fro, taking in the vast array of shops and vendors that filled the crooked street, assessing the possibilities now open to her. Butter, cheese, beans, sausage, cloth, shoes, buttons … Her fingers dug into his arm.

“Jamie! I can buy anything! By myself!”

He couldn’t help sharing her joy at thus rediscovering her independence, even though it gave him a small twinge. He’d been enjoying the novel sensation of having her rely on him.

“Well, so ye can,” he agreed, taking the baguette from her. “Best not to buy a trained squirrel or a longcase clock, though. Be difficult to manage on the ship.”

“Ship,” she repeated, and swallowed. The pulse in her throat, which had subsided momentarily, resumed its fluttering. “When will we … go on the ship?”

“Not yet, a nighean,” he said gently. “We’ll go and ha’ a bite to eat first, aye?”

THE EUTERPE WAS meant to sail on the evening tide, and they went down to the docks in mid-afternoon to go aboard and settle their things. But the slip at the dock where the Euterpe had floated the day before was empty.

“Where the devil is the ship that was here yesterday?” he demanded, seizing a passing boy by one arm.

“What, the Euterpe?” The boy looked casually where he was pointing, and shrugged. “Sailed, I suppose.”

“You suppose?” His tone alarmed the boy, who pulled his arm free and backed off, defensive.

“How would I know, Monsieur?” Seeing Jamie’s face, he hastily added, “Her master went into the district a few hours ago; probably he is still there.”

Jamie saw his sister’s chin dimple slightly and realized that she was near to panic. He wasn’t so far off it himself, he thought.

“Oh, is he?” he said, very calm. “Aye, well, I’ll just be going to fetch him, then. Which house does he go to?”

The boy shrugged helplessly. “All of them, Monsieur.”

Leaving Jenny on the dock to guard their baggage, he went back into the streets that adjoined the quay. A broad copper halfpenny secured him the services of one of the urchins who hung about the stalls, hoping for a half-rotten apple or an unguarded purse, and he followed his guide grimly into the filthy alleys, one hand on his purse, the other on the hilt of his dirk.

Brest was a port city, and a bustling port, at that. Which meant, he calculated, that roughly one in three of its female citizenry was a prostitute. Several of the independent sort hailed him as he passed.

It took three hours and several shillings, but he found the master of the Euterpe at last, dead drunk. He pushed the whore sleeping with him unceremoniously aside and roused the man roughly, slapping him into semiconsciousness.

“The ship?” The man stared at him blearily, wiping a hand across his stubbled face. “Fuck. Who cares?”

“I do,” Jamie said between clenched teeth. “And so will you, ye wee arse-wipe. Where is she, and why are ye not on her?”