Jamie made a Scottish noise indicating deep skepticism but willingness to listen.
John nodded and took a breath before continuing. “You once mentioned to me, my dear, that—”
“Dinna be calling her that.”
“Mrs. Fraser,” John amended, and, with a polite bow to me, turned his attention to Jamie, “once mentioned that she—and you, I would imagine—had some acquaintance with General Arnold.”
Jamie and I exchanged puzzled looks. He shrugged and folded his arms.
“Aye, we do.”
“Good. What I—and my brother”—I felt, rather than saw, Jamie’s start at mention of Hal—“would ask of you is a note of introduction to Arnold, with your personal request that the general allow us official entrance into the city—and whatever aid he might find it convenient to give us—for the purpose of making a search for my son.”
John let out the rest of his breath and sat, head down, not moving. Nobody moved.
At last, Jamie let out a long sigh and sat down on the room’s other stool.
“Tell me,” he said, resigned. “What’s the wee bastard done now?”
THE STORY FINISHED, John inhaled, made to rub his bad eye, and luckily stopped in time.
“I’ll put a bit more honey in that before you leave,” I told him. “It will ease the grittiness.” This non sequitur helped to bridge the awkward gap in the conversation left by Jamie’s being struck momentarily speechless.
“Jesus,” he said, and rubbed a hand hard over his face. He was still wearing the bloodstained shirt and breeches in which he’d fought; he hadn’t shaved in three days, had barely slept or eaten, and looked like something you wouldn’t want to meet in broad daylight, let alone a dark alley. He took a deep breath and shook his head like a dog shedding water.
“So ye think the two of them have gone to Philadelphia—William and this Richardson?”
“Probably not together—or at least not to begin with,” John said. “William’s groom said he left to find a couple of . . . er . . . girls who had gone from the camp. But we strongly suspect that this was a ploy by Richardson, to decoy William out of camp and intercept him on the road.”
Jamie made an irascible noise.
“I should like to think the lad’s no such a fat-heided gomerel as to go off wi’ this Richardson. Not after the man sent him into the Great Dismal last year and nearly killed him.”
“He told you that?”
“Oh. He didna tell ye that?” Jamie’s voice might possibly have held a shade of scorn, had one been listening closely.
“I’m damned sure he didn’t tell you anything,” John replied, with an edge. “He hadn’t seen you for years before he met you at Chestnut Street, I’d bet money he hasn’t seen you since, and I’m reasonably sure I would have noticed had he mentioned Richardson in the hallway there.”
“No,” Jamie said briefly. “He told my nephew, Ian Murray. Or at least,” he amended, “Ian got it from what he said, raving wi’ fever when Ian got him out of the swamp. Richardson sent him wi’ a message for some men in Dismal Town—men he said were Loyalists. But half the men in Dismal Town are named Washington.”
John’s appearance of pugnacity had vanished. He looked pale, and the fading bruises stood out like leprosy against his skin. He took a deep breath, glanced round the room, and, seeing a half-empty bottle of claret on the table, picked it up and drank a quarter of it without stopping.
He set it down, stifled a belch, rose with a brief nod and a “wait a moment,” and went out, leaving Jamie and me staring at each other in bafflement.
This was not significantly assuaged by the reappearance of John, followed by the Duke of Pardloe. Jamie said something remarkably creative in Gàidhlig, and I gave him a look of startled appreciation.
“And a good day to you, too, General Fraser,” Hal said, with a correct bow. Like John, he was dressed in civvies, though with a rather loud mulberry striped waistcoat, and I did wonder where he’d got it from.
“I have resigned my commission,” Jamie said coldly. “ ‘Mr. Fraser’ will do. May I ask to what we owe the honor of your presence, Your Grace?”
Hal’s lips pressed tight together, but, with a glance at his brother, he obliged with a brief précis of his personal concern with Captain Richardson.
“And I do, of course, wish to retrieve my nephew, William—should he in fact be with Richardson. My brother informs me that you have doubts as to the probability of this being the case?”
“I do,” Jamie said shortly. “My son is not a fool, nor a weakling.” I caught the faint emphasis on “my son,” and so did both Greys, who stiffened slightly. “He wouldna go off on some feeble pretext, nor would he allow someone of whom he was suspicious to take him captive.”
“You have a bloody lot of faith in a boy you haven’t seen since he was six,” Hal observed conversationally.
Jamie smiled, with considerable rue.
“I had the making of him until he was six,” he said, and turned his gaze on John. “I ken what he’s made of. And I ken who shaped him after that. Tell me I’m wrong, my lord.”
There was a marked silence, broken only by Lieutenant Macken’s voice below, calling plaintively to his wife about the location of his clean stockings.
“Well, then,” Hal said with a sigh. “Where do you think William’s gone, if he’s not with Richardson?”