Jamie edged the barrel gingerly aside with one finger. The fowling piece was primed but not yet cocked.
“I left him in the woods outside the city, two days ago,” he said, a sudden feeling of disquiet tightening the muscles at the base of his spine. He backed against the wall, discreetly pressing his arse into it to ease his back. “I expected to find him here—with my wife. Might I inquire how you come to be here, Your Grace?”
“Claire kidnapped him,” Jenny said, before Pardloe could speak. The duke’s eyes bulged slightly, though whether at the remark or at the fact that Jenny was reloading her pistol, Jamie couldn’t tell.
“Oh, aye? What did she want him for, did she say?”
His sister gave him a look.
“She was afraid he’d turn the city upside down looking for his brother and you’d be taken up in the kerfuffle.”
“Aye, well, I think I’m safe enough now,” he assured Jenny. “Ought ye to turn him loose, d’ye think?”
“No,” she said promptly, pounding home her ball and patch. She reached into her apron and came out with a tiny powder horn. “We canna do that; he might die.”
“Oh.” He considered this for a moment, watching the duke, whose face had assumed a slight purple tinge. “Why is that?”
“He canna breathe properly, and she was afraid if she let him loose before he was quite over it, he’d die in the street, and her conscience wouldna let her do that.”
“I see.” The urge to laugh was back, but he controlled it manfully. “So ye were about to shoot him in the house, in order to keep him from dyin’ in the street.”
Her dark-blue eyes narrowed, though she kept her gaze fixed on the powder she was pouring into the priming pan.
“I wouldna really have shot him in the guts,” she said, though from the press of her lips it was apparent that she’d have liked nothing more. “I’d just have winged him in the leg. Or maybe shot off a couple o’ toes.”
Pardloe made a sound that might have been outrage, but, knowing the man as he did, Jamie recognized it as smothered laughter. He hoped his sister wouldn’t. He opened his mouth to ask just how long Pardloe had been held captive, but before he could speak, there was a knock at the door below. He glanced at Mrs. Figg, but the housekeeper was still regarding him with narrowed eyes and made no move either to lower the fowling piece or to go downstairs and answer the door.
“Come in!” Jamie shouted, sticking his head out into the hall, then jerking back into the room before Mrs. Figg should take it into her head that he was attempting to escape and discharge a load of buckshot into his backside.
The door opened, closed, and there was a pause as the caller apparently looked around the devastated entry, then light, quick steps came up the stairs.
“Lord John!” breathed Mrs. Figg, her stern face lightening.
“In here!” called the duke, as the steps reached the landing. An instant later, the slight, bespectacled form of Denzell Hunter appeared in the doorway.
“Merde!” said Mrs. Figg, bringing her shotgun to bear on the newcomer. “I mean, Shepherd of Judea! Who in the name of the Holy Trinity are you?”
HUNTER WAS NEARLY as pale as Jenny, Jamie thought. Nonetheless, he didn’t blink or pause but walked up to Pardloe and said, “I am Denzell Hunter, Friend Grey. I am a physician, come at the request of Claire Fraser to attend thee.”
The duke dropped the decanter, which fell over and disgorged the few drops it still contained onto the braided hearth rug.
“You!” he said, drawing himself abruptly to his full height. He was in fact no taller than Hunter, but it was obvious that he had the habit of command. “You are the skulking fellow who has had the temerity to seduce my daughter, and you dare come here and offer to physic me? Get out of my sight, before I—” At this point, it dawned on Pardloe that he was in his nightshirt and unarmed. Nothing daunted, he seized the decanter from the floor and swung it at Denzell’s head.
Denzell ducked, and Jamie got hold of Pardloe’s wrist before he could try again. Denny straightened up, fire glinting behind his spectacles.
“I take issue both with thy description of my behavior and thy slur upon thy daughter’s reputation,” he said sharply. “I can only conceive that the order of thy mind is deranged by illness or drugs, for surely the man who sired and reared such a person as Dorothea could not speak so meanly of her or have so little faith in her strength of character and her virtue as to think that anyone might seduce her.”
“I’m sure His Grace didna mean physical seduction,” Jamie said hastily, twisting Pardloe’s wrist to make him let go of the decanter.
“Is it the act of a gentleman, sir, to induce a young woman to run away with him? Ow! Let go, damn you!” he said, dropping the decanter as Jamie jerked his arm up behind his back. It fell to the hearth and burst in a shower of glass, but the duke disregarded this entirely.
“A gentleman would have sought the approval of the young lady’s father, sir, before ever venturing to speak to her!”
“I did,” Denzell said more mildly. “Or, rather, I did write to thee at once, apologizing for having been unable to speak with thee in person beforehand, and explaining that Dorothea and I wished to become betrothed and sought thy blessing upon our desire. I doubt thee received my letter before embarking for America, though.”
“Oh, thee did, did thee? Your desire?” Pardloe snorted, tossing a hank of loosened hair out of his face. “Will you let go of me, you bloody Scotchman! What do you think I’m going to do, strangle him with his own neckcloth?”