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A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander #6) Page 212
Author: Diana Gabaldon

The sight of it stopped Martin in mid-sentence. He blinked, once, his long-nosed face going almost comically blank. He rubbed a finger slowly across his upper lip, considering.

Having seen a great deal of the Governor’s private correspondence and accounts by now, I was well aware that he had few private means, and was obliged to live far beyond his modest income in order to maintain the appearances necessary for a Royal Governor.

The Governor in turn was well aware that in the current state of unrest, there was little chance of my being brought to trial in any sort of timely manner. It could be months—and possibly years—before the court system was restored to anything like routine function. And for however long it took, he would have the diamond. He couldn’t in honor simply sell the thing—but could most assuredly borrow a substantial sum against it, in the reasonable expectation that he might redeem it later.

I saw his eyes flicker toward the sooty marks on Jamie’s coat, narrowing in speculation. There was also a good possibility of Jamie’s being killed or arrested for treason—and I saw the impulse to do just that pop momentarily into his mind—which would leave the diamond perhaps in legal limbo, but certainly in Martin’s possession. I had to force myself to keep on breathing.

But he wasn’t stupid, Martin—nor was he venal. With a small sigh, he pushed the stone back toward Jamie.

“No, sir,” he said, though his voice had now lost its earlier outrage. “I will not accept this as bond for your wife. But the notion of surety . . .” His gaze went to the stack of papers on his desk, and returned to Jamie.

“I will make you a proposition, sir,” he said abruptly. “I have an action in train, an operation by which I hope to raise a considerable body of the Scottish Highlanders, who will march from the backcountry to the coast, there to meet with troops sent from England, and in the process, to subdue the countryside on behalf of the King.”

He paused for breath, eyeing Jamie closely to assess the effect of his speech. I was standing close behind Jamie, and couldn’t see his face, but didn’t need to. Bree, joking, called it his “brag face”; no one looking at him would ever know whether he held four aces, a full house, or a pair of threes. I was betting on the pair of threes, myself—but Martin didn’t know him nearly as well as I did.

“General Hugh MacDonald and a Colonel Donald McLeod came into the colony some time ago, and have been traversing the countryside, rallying support—which they have gained in gratifying numbers, I am pleased to say.” His fingers drummed briefly on the letters, then stopped abruptly as he leaned forward.

“What I propose, then, sir, is this: you will return to the backcountry, and gather such men as you can. You will then report to General MacDonald and commit your troops to his campaign. When I receive word from MacDonald that you have arrived—with, let us say, two hundred men—then, sir, I will release your wife to you.”

My pulse was beating fast, and so was Major’s; I could see it throbbing in his neck. Definitely a pair of threes. Obviously, MacDonald hadn’t had time to tell the Governor—or hadn’t known—just how widespread and acrimonious the response had been to Malva Christie’s death. There were still men on the Ridge who would follow Jamie, I was sure—but many more who would not, or who would, but only if he repudiated me.

I was trying to think logically about the situation, as a means of distracting myself from the crushing disappointment of realizing that the Governor was not going to let me go. Jamie must go without me, leave me here. For an overwhelming instant, I thought I could not bear it; I would run mad, scream and leap across the desk to claw Josiah Martin’s eyes out.

He glanced up, caught a glimpse of my face, and started back, half-rising from his chair.

Jamie put back a hand and gripped my forearm, hard.

“Be still, a nighean,” he said softly.

I had been holding my breath without realizing it. Now I let it out in a gasp, and made myself breathe slowly.

Just as slowly, the Governor—a wary gaze still fixed on me—lowered himself back into his seat. Clearly, the accusation against me had just become a lot more likely, in his mind. Fine, I thought fiercely, to keep from crying. See how easily you sleep, with me never more than a few feet away from you.

Jamie drew a long, deep breath, and his shoulders squared beneath his tattered coat.

“You will give me leave, sir, to consider your proposal,” he said formally, and letting go of my arm, rose to his feet.

“Do not despair, mo chridhe,” he said to me in Gaelic. “I will see you when the morning comes.”

He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it, then, with the barest of nods to the Governor, strode out, without looking back.

There was an instant’s silence in the cabin, and I heard his feet going away, climbing the ladder of the companionway. I didn’t pause to consider, but reached down into my stays and withdrew the small knife I had taken from the surgeon’s kit.

I jabbed it down with all my strength, so that it stuck in the wood of the desk and stood there, quivering before the Governor’s astonished eyes.

“You f**king bastard,” I said evenly, and left.

97

FOR THE SAKE OF

ONE WHO IS

I WAS WAITING AT THE RAIL again before dawn the next day. The smell of ashes was strong and acrid on the wind, but the smoke had gone. An early-morning haze still shrouded the shore, though, and I felt a small thrill of déjà vu, mingled with hope, as I saw the small boat come out of the mist, pulling slowly toward the ship.

As it grew closer, though, my hands tightened on the rail. It wasn’t Jamie. For a few moments, I tried to convince myself that it was, that he had merely changed his coat—but with each stroke of the oars, it became more certain. I closed my eyes, stinging with tears, all the while telling myself that it was absurd to be so upset; it meant nothing.

Jamie would be here; he’d said so. The fact that someone else was coming early to the ship had nothing to do with him or me.

It did, though. Opening my eyes and wiping them on my wrist, I looked again at the rowboat, and felt a start of disbelief. It couldn’t be. It was, though. He looked up at the watch’s hail, and saw me at the rail. Our eyes met for an instant, then he bowed his head, reaching to the oars. Tom Christie.

The Governor was not amused at being roused from his bed at dawn for the third day running; I could hear him below, ordering one of the Marines to tell the fellow, whoever he was, to wait to a more reasonable hour—this followed by a peremptory slam of the cabin door.

I was not amused, either, and in no mood to wait. The Marine at the head of the companionway refused to allow me below, though. Heart pounding, then, I turned and made my way to the stern, where they had put Christie to wait the Governor’s pleasure.

The Marine there hesitated, but after all, there were no orders to prevent me speaking with visitors; he let me pass.

“Mr. Christie.” He was standing at the rail, staring back at the coast, but turned at my words.

“Mrs. Fraser.” He was very pale; his grizzled beard stood out nearly black. He had trimmed it, though, and his hair, as well. While he still looked like a lightning-blasted tree, there was life in his eyes once more when he looked at me.

“My husband—” I began, but he cut me off.

“He is well. He awaits you on the shore; you will see him presently.”

“Oh?” The boil of fear and fury inside me reduced itself slightly, as though someone had turned down the flame, but a sense of impatience was still steaming. “Well, what in bloody hell is going on, will you tell me that?”

He looked at me for a long moment in silence, then licked his lips briefly, and turned to look over the rail at the smooth gray swell. He glanced back at me and drew a deep breath, obviously bracing himself for something.

“I have come to confess to the murder of my daughter.”

I simply stared at him, unable to make sense of his words. Then I assembled them into a sentence, read it from the tablet of my mind, and finally grasped it.

“No, you haven’t,” I said.

The faintest shadow of a smile seemed to stir in his beard, though it vanished almost before I had seen it.

“You remain contrary, I see,” he said dryly.

“Never mind what I remain,” I said, rather rudely. “Are you insane? Or is this Jamie’s latest plan? Because if so—”

He stopped me with a hand on my wrist; I started at the touch, not expecting it.

“It is the truth,” he said very softly. “And I will swear to it by the Holy Scriptures.”

I stood looking at him, not moving. He looked back, directly, and I realized suddenly how seldom he had ever met my eyes; all through our acquaintance, he had glanced away, avoided my gaze, as though he sought to escape any real acknowledgment of me, even when obliged to speak to me.

Now that was gone, and the look in his eyes was nothing I had ever seen before. The lines of pain and suffering cut deep around them, and the lids were heavy with sorrow—but the eyes themselves were deep and calm as the sea beneath us. That sense he had carried through our nightmare journey south, that atmosphere of mute horror, numb pain, had left him, replaced by resolve and something else—something that burned, far down in his depths.

“Why?” I said at last, and he let go his grip on my wrist, stepping back a pace.

“D’ye remember once”—from the reminiscent tone of his voice, it might have been decades before—“ye asked me, did I think ye a witch?”

“I remember,” I replied guardedly. “You said—” Now I remembered that conversation, all right, and something small and icy fluttered at the base of my spine. “You said that you believed in witches, all right—but you didn’t think I was one.”

He nodded, dark gray eyes fixed on me. I wondered whether he was about to revise that opinion, but apparently not.

“I believe in witches,” he said with complete matter-of-fact seriousness. “For I’ve kent them. The girl was one, as was her mother before her.” The icy flutter grew stronger.

“The girl,” I said. “You mean your daughter? Malva?”

He shook his head a little, and his eyes took on a darker hue. “No daughter of mine,” he said.

“Not—not yours? But—her eyes. She had your eyes.” I heard myself say it, and could have bitten my tongue. He only smiled, though, grimly.

“And my brother’s.” He turned to the rail, put his hands on it, and looked across the stretch of sea, toward land. “Edgar was his name. When the Rising came, and I declared for the Stuarts, he would have none of it, saying ’twas folly. He begged me not to go.” He shook his head slowly, seeing something in memory, that I knew was not the wooded shore.

“I thought—well, it doesna matter what I thought, but I went. And asked him, would he mind my wife, and the wee lad.” He drew a deep breath, let it slowly out. “And he did.”

“I see,” I said very quietly. He turned his head sharply at the tone of my voice, gray eyes piercing.

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Diana Gabaldon's Novels
» Written in My Own Heart's Blood (Outlander #8)
» An Echo in the Bone (Outlander #7)
» A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander #6)
» Drums of Autumn (Outlander #4)
» Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander #2)
» Voyager (Outlander #3)
» A Trail of Fire (Lord John Grey #3.5)
» Outlander (Outlander #1)
» The Fiery Cross (Outlander #5)
» The Custom of the Army (Lord John Grey #2.75)
» A Plague of Zombies