“Tell me how I came to be.”
The whites of Fraser’s eyes flashed in brief astonishment, then disappeared as his eyes narrowed.
“I want to know what happened,” William said. “When you lay with my mother. What happened that night? If it was night,” he added, and then felt foolish for doing so.
Fraser eyed him for a moment.
“Ye want to tell me what it was like, the first time ye lay with a woman?”
William felt the blood rush into his head, but before he could speak, the Scot went on.
“Aye, exactly. A decent man doesna speak of such things. Ye dinna tell your friends such things, do ye? No, of course not. So much less would ye tell your . . . father, or a father his . . .”
The hesitation before “father” was brief, but William caught it, no trouble. Fraser’s mouth was firm, though, and his eyes direct.
“I wouldna tell ye, no matter who ye were. But being who ye are—”
“Being who I am, I think I have a right to know!”
Fraser looked at him for a moment, expressionless. He closed his eyes for an instant and sighed. Then opened them and drew himself up, straightening his shoulders.
“No, ye haven’t. But that’s not what ye want to know, in any case,” he said. “Ye want to know, did I force your mother. I did not. Ye want to know, did I love your mother. I did not.”
William let that lie there for a moment, controlling his breathing ’til he was sure his voice would be steady.
“Did she love you?” It would have been easy to love him. The thought came to him unbidden—and unwelcome—but with it, his own memories of Mac the groom. Something he shared with his mother.
Fraser’s eyes were cast down, watching a trail of tiny ants running along the scuffed floorboards.
“She was verra young,” he said softly. “I was twice her age. It was my fault.”
There was a brief silence, broken only by their breathing and the distant shouts of men working on the river.
“I’ve seen the portraits,” William said abruptly. “Of my—of the eighth earl. Her husband. Have you?”
Fraser’s mouth twisted a little, but he shook his head.
“You know, though—knew. He was fifty years older than she was.”
Fraser’s maimed hand twitched, fingers tapping lightly against his thigh. Yes, he’d known. How could he not have known? He dipped his head, not quite a nod.
“I’m not stupid, you know,” William said, louder than he’d intended.
“Didna think ye were,” Fraser muttered, but didn’t look at him.
“I can count,” William went on, through his teeth. “You lay with her just before her wedding. Or was it just after?”
That went home; Fraser’s head jerked up and there was a flash of dark-blue anger.
“I wouldna deceive another man in his marriage. Believe that of me, at least.”
Oddly enough, he did. And in spite of the anger he still struggled to keep in check, he began to think he perhaps understood how it might have been.
“She was reckless.” He made it a statement, not a question, and saw Fraser blink. It wasn’t a nod, but he thought it was acknowledgment and went on, more confident.
“Everyone says that—everyone who knew her. She was reckless, beautiful, careless . . . she took chances . . .”
“She had courage.” It was said softly, the words dropped like pebbles in water, and the ripples spread through the tiny room. Fraser was still looking straight at him. “Did they tell ye that, then? Her family, the folk who kent her?”
“No,” William said, and felt the word sharp as a stone in his throat. For just an instant, he’d seen her in those words. He’d seen her, and the knowledge of the immensity of his loss struck through his anger like a lightning bolt. He drove his fist into the table, striking it once, twice, hammering it ’til the wood shook and the legs juddered over the floor, papers flying and the inkwell falling over.
He stopped as suddenly as he’d started, and the racket ceased.
“Are you sorry?” he said, and made no effort to keep his voice from shaking. “Are you sorry for it, damn you?”
Fraser had turned away; now he turned sharply to face William but didn’t speak at once. When he did, his voice was low and firm.
“She died because of it, and I shall sorrow for her death and do penance for my part in it until my own dying day. But—” He compressed his lips for an instant, and then, too fast for William to back away, came round the table and, raising his hand, cupped William’s cheek, the touch light and fierce.
“No,” he whispered. “No! I am not sorry.” Then he whirled on his heel, threw open the door, and was gone, kilt flying.
PART NINE
“Thig crioch air an t-saoghal ach mairidh ceol agus gaol.”
“The world may come to an end, but love and music will endure.”
IN THE WILDERNESS A LODGING PLACE
ICOULDN’T STOP BREATHING. From the moment we left the salt-marsh miasma of Savannah, with its constant fog of rice paddies, mud, and decaying crustaceans, the air had grown clearer, the scents cleaner—well, putting aside the Wilmington mudflats, redolent with their memories of crocodiles and dead pirates—spicier, and more distinct. And as we reached the summit of the final pass, I thought I might explode from simple joy at the scent of the late-spring woods, an intoxicating mix of pine and balsam fir, oaks mingling the spice of fresh green leaves with the must of the winter’s fallen acorns, and the nutty sweetness of chestnut mast under a layer of wet dead leaves, so thick that it made the air seem buoyant, bearing me up. I couldn’t get enough of it into my lungs.