"That isn't what I mean! Jamie—"
"Fortunately," he went on, as though not hearing me, "Randall has proof that he was at the Duke's residence all during the evening of the rape. As soon as the police finish interviewing the guests who were present, and satisfy themselves that Randall is innocent—of that charge, at least—then he'll be let go. I shall stay at the inn until he's free. And then I shall find him." His eyes were fixed on the wardrobe, but plainly he was seeing something else. "He'll be waiting for me," he said softly.
He stuffed the shirts and linen into a traveling-bag and slung his cloak over his arm. He was turning to go through the door when I sprang up from the bed and caught him by the sleeve.
"Jamie! For God's sake, Jamie, listen to me! You can't kill Jack Randall because I won't let you!"
He stared down at me in utter astonishment.
"Because of Frank," I said. I let go of his sleeve and stepped back.
"Frank," he repeated, shaking his head slightly as though to clear a buzzing in his ears. "Frank."
"Yes," I said. "If you kill Jack Randall now, then Frank…he won't exist. He won't be born. Jamie, you can't kill an innocent man!"
His face, normally a pale, ruddy bronze, had faded to a blotchy white as I spoke. Now the red began to rise again, burning the tips of his ears and flaming in his cheeks.
"An innocent man?"
"Frank is an innocent man! I don't care about Jack Randall—"
"Well, I do!" He snatched up the bag and strode toward the door, cloak streaming over one arm. "Jesus God, Claire! You'd try to stop me taking my vengeance on the man who made me play whore to him? Who forced me to my knees and made me suck his cock, smeared with my own blood? Christ, Claire!" He flung the door open with a crash and was in the hallway by the time I could reach him.
It had grown dark by now, but the servants had lit the candles, and the hallway was aglow with soft light. I grasped him by the arm and yanked at him.
"Jamie! Please!"
He jerked his arm impatiently out of my grasp. I was almost crying, but held back the tears. I caught the bag and pulled it out of his hand.
"Please, Jamie! Wait, just for a year! The child—Randall's—it will be conceived next December. After that, it won't matter. But please—for my sake, Jamie—wait that long!"
The candelabra on the gilt-edged table threw his shadow huge and wavering against the far wall. He stared up at it, hands clenched, as though facing a giant, blank-faced and menacing, that towered above him.
"Aye," he whispered, as though to himself, "I'm a big chap. Big and strong. I can stand a lot. Yes, I can stand it." He whirled on me, shouting.
"I can stand a lot! But just because I can, does that mean I must? Do I have to bear everyone's weakness? Can I not have my own?"
He began to pace up and down the hall, the shadow following in silent frenzy.
"You cannot ask it of me! You, you of all people! You, who know what…what…" He choked, speechless with rage.
He hit the stone wall of the passage repeatedly as he walked, smashing the side of his fist viciously into the limestone wall. The stone swallowed each blow in soundless violence.
He turned back and came to a halt facing me, breathing heavily. I stood stock-still, afraid to move or speak. He nodded once or twice, rapidly, as though making up his mind about something, then drew the dirk from his belt with a hiss and held it in front of my nose. With a visible effort, he spoke calmly.
"You may have your choice, Claire. Him, or me." The candle flames danced in the polished metal as he turned the knife slowly. "I cannot live while he lives. If ye wilna have me kill him, then kill me now, yourself!" He grabbed my hand and forced my fingers around the handle of the dirk. Ripping the lacy jabot open, he bared his throat and yanked my hand upward, fingers hard around my own.
I pulled back with all my strength, but he forced the tip of the blade against the soft hollow above the collarbone, just below the livid cicatrice that Randall's own knife had left there years before.
"Jamie! Stop it! Stop it right now!" I brought my other hand down on his wrist as hard as I could, jarring his grip enough to jerk my fingers free. The knife clattered to the floor, bouncing from the stones to a quiet landing on a corner of the leafy Aubusson carpet. With that clarity of vision for small details that afflicts life's most awful moments, I saw that the blade lay stark across the curling stem of a bunch of fat green grapes, as though about to sever it and cut them free of the weft to roll at our feet.
He stood frozen before me, face white as bone, eyes burning. I gripped his arm, hard as wood beneath my fingers.
"Please believe me, please. I wouldn't do this if there were any other way." I took a deep, quivering breath to quell the leaping pulse beneath my ribs.
"You owe me your life, Jamie. Not once, twice over. I saved you from hanging at Wentworth, and when you had fever at the Abbey. You owe me a life, Jamie!"
He stared down at me for a long moment before answering. When he did, his voice was quiet again, with an edge of bitterness.
"I see. And ye'll claim your debt now?" His eyes burned with the clear, deep blue that burns in the heart of a flame.
"I have to! I can't make you see reason any other way!"
"Reason. Ah, reason. No, I canna say that reason is anything I see just now." He folded his arms behind his back, gripping the stiff fingers of his right hand with the curled ones of his left. He walked slowly away from me, down the endless hall, head bowed.
The passage was lined with paintings, some lighted from below by torchere or candelabra, some from above by the gilded sconces; a few less favored, skulked in the darkness between. Jamie walked slowly between them, glancing up now and again as though in converse with the wigged and painted gallery.
The hall ran the length of the second floor, carpeted and tapestried, with enormous stained-glass windows set into the walls at either end of the corridor. He walked all the way to the far end, then, wheeling with the precision of a soldier on parade, all the way back, still at a slow and formal pace. Down and back, down and back, again and again.
My legs trembling, I subsided into a fauteuil near the end of the passage. Once one of the omnipresent servants approached obsequiously to ask if Madame required wine, or perhaps a biscuit? I waved him away with what politeness I could muster, and waited.
At last he came to a halt before me, feet planted wide apart in silver-buckled shoes, hands still clasped behind his back. He waited for me to look up at him before he spoke. His face was set, with no twitch of agitation to betray him, though the lines near his eyes were deep with strain.
"A year, then" was all he said. He turned at once and was several feet away by the time I struggled out of the deep green-velvet chair. I had barely gained my feet when he suddenly whirled back past me, reached the huge stained-glass window in three strides, and smashed his right hand through it.
The window was made up of thousands of tiny colored panes, held in place by strips of melted lead. Though the entire window, a mythological scene of the Judgment of Paris, shuddered in its frame, the leading held most of the panes intact; in spite of the crash and tinkle, only a jagged hole at the feet of Aphrodite let in the soft spring air.
Jamie stood a moment, pressing both hands tight into his midriff. A dark red stain grew on the frilled cuff, lacy as a bridal shirt. He brushed past me once again as I moved toward him, and stalked away unspeaking.
I collapsed once more into the armchair, hard enough to make a small puff of dust rise from the plush. I lay there limp, eyes closed, feeling the cool night breeze wash over me. The hair was damp at my temples, and I could feel my pulse, quick as a bird's, racing at the base of my throat.
Would he ever forgive me? My heart clenched like a fist at the memory of the knowledge of betrayal in his eyes. "How could you ask it?" he had said. "You, you who know…" Yes, I knew, and I thought the knowing might tear me from Jamie as I had been torn from Frank.
But whether Jamie could forgive me or not, I could never forgive myself, if I condemned an innocent man—and one I had once loved.
"The sins of the fathers," I murmured to myself. "The sins of the fathers shall not be visited upon the children."
"Madame?"
I jumped, opening my eyes to find an equally startled chambermaid backing away. I put a hand to my pounding heart, gasping for air.
"Madame, you are unwell? Shall I fetch—"
"No," I said, as firmly as I could. "I am quite well. I wish to sit here for a time. Please go away."
The girl seemed only too anxious to oblige. "Qui, Madame!" she said, and vanished down the corridor, leaving me gazing blankly at a scene of amorous love in a garden, hanging on the opposite wall. Suddenly cold, I drew up the folds of the cloak I had had no time to shed, and closed my eyes again.
It was past midnight when I went at last to our bedroom. Jamie was there, seated before a small table, apparently watching a pair of lacewings fluttering dangerously around the single candlestick which was all the light there was in the room. I dropped my cape on the floor and went toward him.
"Don't touch me," he said. "Go to bed." He spoke almost abstractedly, but I halted in my tracks.