“Lord Melton,” Jenny said, moving slightly so as to have him silhouetted against the dim light that filtered through the shutters. “My good-sister said that you’re Lord Melton—or were. Is that so?”
“Yes,” Pardloe said. He wasn’t moving, but Jamie saw that he had sat down with his legs flexed under him; he could be out of the chair in one lunge, if he chose. Very quietly, Jamie edged to the side. He was close enough that Jenny should have sensed him behind her, but he could see why she didn’t; her shoulder blades were pressed together in concentration, sharp-edged under the cloth as a pair of hawk’s wings.
“It was your men who came to my house,” she said, her voice low. “Came more than once, to loot and destroy, to take the food from our mouths. Who took my husband away”—for an instant, the barrel trembled, but then steadied again—“away to the prison where he took the ill that killed him. Move one inch, my lord, and I’ll shoot ye in the guts. Ye’ll die quicker than he did, but I daresay ye willna think it fast enough.”
Pardloe didn’t say a word but moved his head a fraction of an inch to indicate that he’d understood her. His hands, which had been clutching the arms of the chair, relaxed. His eyes left the pistol—and saw Jamie. His mouth fell open, his eyes sprang wide, and Jenny’s finger whitened on the trigger.
Jamie got a hand under the gun just as it went off in a puff of black smoke, the crack of the firing simultaneous with the explosion of a china figure on the mantelpiece.
Pardloe sat frozen for an instant, then—very carefully—reached up and removed a large shard of porcelain from his hair.
“Mr. Fraser,” he said, in a voice that was almost steady. “Your servant, sir.”
“Your most obedient, Your Grace,” Jamie replied, suffering an insane urge to laugh, and kept from it only by the sure knowledge that his sister would immediately reload and shoot him at point-blank range if he did. “I see ye’re acquainted with my sister, Mrs. Murray.”
“Your—dear lord, she is.” Pardloe’s eyes had flicked back and forth between their faces, and he now drew a long, slow breath. “Is your entire family given to irascibility?”
“We are, Your Grace, and I thank ye for the compliment,” Jamie said, and laid a hand on Jenny’s back. He could feel her heart going like a trip-hammer, and her breath was coming in shallow pants. Putting the pistol aside, he took her hand in both of his. It was cold as ice in spite of the temperature in the room, which was slightly hotter than Hades, with the window shuttered and boarded over.
“Would ye be so amiable as to pour out a dram of whatever’s in that decanter, Your Grace?”
Pardloe did and approached warily, holding out the glass—it was brandy; Jamie could smell the hot fumes.
“Don’t let him out,” Jenny said, getting hold of herself. She glared at Pardloe and took the brandy, then glared at Jamie. “And where in the name of St. Mary Magdalene have you been these three days past?”
Before he could answer, heavy footsteps came hastily down the hallway and the black housekeeper appeared in the doorway, breathing audibly and holding a silver-inlaid fowling piece in a manner suggesting that she knew what to do with it.
“The two of you can just sit yourselves down this minute,” she said, moving the barrel of the gun back and forth between Pardloe and Jamie in a businesslike fashion. “If you think you’re going to take that man out of here, you—”
“I told you—I beg your pardon, madam, but would ye honor me with your name?”
“You—what?” The housekeeper blinked, disconcerted. “I—Mrs. Mortimer Figg, if it’s any of your business, and I doubt that.”
“So do I,” Jamie assured her, not sitting down. The duke, he saw, had. “Mrs. Figg, as I said to ye downstairs, I’ve come for my wife and nothing more. If ye’ll tell me where she is, I’ll leave ye to your business. Whatever that may be,” he added, with a glance at Pardloe.
“Your wife,” Mrs. Figg repeated, and the barrel swiveled toward him. “Well, now. I’m thinking that perhaps you ought just to sit down and wait until his lordship comes and we see what he has to say about all this.”
“Dinna be daft, Jerusha,” said Jenny, rather impatiently. “Ye ken Claire’s my brother’s wife; she told ye that herself.”
“Claire?” exclaimed Pardloe, standing up again. He had been drinking from the decanter and still held it carelessly in one hand. “My brother’s wife?”
“She’s no such thing,” Jamie said crossly. “She’s mine, and I’ll thank someone to tell me where the devil she is.”
“She’s gone to a place called Kingsessing,” Jenny said promptly. “To pick herbs and the like. We’ve been doctoring this mac na galladh—” She scowled at Pardloe. “Had I kent who ye were, a mh’ic an diabhail, I’d ha’ put ground glass in your food.”
“I daresay,” Pardloe murmured, and took another gulp from the decanter. He turned his attention to Jamie. “I don’t suppose that you know where my brother is at the moment?”
Jamie stared at him, a sudden feeling of unease tickling the back of his neck. “Is he not here?”
Pardloe made a wide gesture round the room, wordlessly inviting Jamie to look. Jamie ignored him and turned to the housekeeper. “When did ye see him last, madam?”
“Just before he and you skedaddled out the attic window,” she replied shortly, and prodded him in the ribs with the barrel of the fowling piece. “What have you done with him, fils de salope?”