I didn't think she was going to consider an armed Highlander an adequate substitute for her absent lover. I could feel Jamie tense beside me, trying to overcome his scruples against striking a woman. Another instant, and she would turn, see him, and scream the house down.
I stepped out from the wall.
"Er, no," I said apologetically, "I'm afraid it's only me."
The maidservant started convulsively, and I took a swift step past, so that she was facing me, with Jamie still behind her.
"Sorry to alarm you," I said, smiling cheerily. "I couldn't sleep, you see. Thought I'd try a spot of hot milk. Tell me, am I headed right for the kitchens?"
"Eh?" The maid, a plump miss in her early twenties, gaped unbecomingly, exposing evidence of a distressing lack of concern for dental hygiene. Luckily, it wasn't the same maid who had seen me to my room; she might not realize that I was a prisoner, not a guest.
"I'm a guest in the house," I said, driving the point home. Continuing on the principle that the best defense is a good offense, I stared accusingly at her.
"Albert, eh? Does His Grace know that you are in the habit of entertaining men in your room at night?" I demanded. This seemed to hit a nerve, for the woman paled and dropped to her knees, clutching at my skirt. The prospect of exposure was so alarming that she didn't pause to ask exactly why a guest should be wandering about the halls in the wee hours of the morning, wearing not only gown and shoes, but a traveling cloak as well.
"Oh, mum! Please, you won't say nothing to His Grace, will you? I can see you've a kind face, mum, surely you'd not want to see me dismissed from my place? Have pity on me, my lady, I've six brothers and sisters still at home, and I…"
"Now, now," I soothed, patting her on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it. I won't tell the Duke. You just go back to your bed, and…" Talking in the sort of voice one uses with children and mental patients, I eased her, still volubly protesting her innocence, back into the small closet of a room.
I shut the door on her and leaned against it for support. Jamie's face loomed up from the shadows before me, grinning. He said nothing, but patted me on the head in congratulation, before taking my arm and urging me down the hall once more.
Mary was waiting under the window on the landing, her nightrobe glowing white in the moonlight that beamed momentarily through scudding clouds outside. A storm was gathering, from the looks of it, and I wondered whether this would help or hinder our escape.
Mary clutched at Jamie's plaid as he stepped onto the landing.
"Shh!" she whispered. "Someone's coming!"
Someone was; I could hear the faint thud of footsteps coming from below, and the pale wash of a candle lit the stairwell. Mary and I looked wildly about, but there was absolutely no place to hide. This was a back stair, meant for the servants' use, and the landings were simple squares of flooring, totally unrelieved by furniture or convenient hangings.
Jamie sighed in resignation. Then, motioning me and Mary back into the hallway from which we had come, he drew his dirk and waited, poised in the shadowed corner of the landing.
Mary's fingers clutched and twined with mine, squeezing tight in an agony of apprehension. Jamie had a pistol hanging from his belt, but plainly couldn't use it within the house—and a servant would realize that, making it useless for threat. It would have to be the knife, and my stomach quivered with pity for the hapless servant who was just about to come face-to-face with fifteen stone of keyed-up Scot and the threat of black steel.
I was taking stock of my apparel, and thinking that I could spare one of my petticoats to be used for bindings, when the bowed head of the candle-bearer came in sight. The dark hair was parted down the middle and slicked with a stinkingly sweet pomade that at once brought back the memory of a dark Paris street and the curve of thin, cruel lips beneath a mask.
My gasp of recognition made Danton look up sharply, one step below the landing. The next instant, he was grasped by the neck and flung against the wall of the landing with a force that sent the candlestick flying through the air.
Mary had seen him too.
"That's him!" she exclaimed, in her shock forgetting either to whisper or to stutter. "The man in Paris!"
Jamie had the feebly struggling valet squashed against the wall, held by one muscled forearm pressed across his chest. The man's face, fading in and out as the light ebbed and flooded with the passing clouds, was ghastly pale. It grew paler in the next moment, as Jamie laid the edge of his blade against Danton's throat.
I stepped onto the landing, not sure either what Jamie would do, or what I wanted him to do. Danton let out a strangled moan when he saw me, and made an abortive attempt to cross himself.
"La Dame Blanche!" he whispered, eyes starting in horror.
Jamie moved with sudden violence, grasping the man's hair and jerking his head back so hard that it thumped against the paneling.
"Had I time, mo garhe, ye would die slow," he whispered, and his voice lacked nothing in conviction, quiet as it was. "Count it God's mercy I have not." He yanked Danton's head back even further, so I could see the bobbing of his Adam's apple as he swallowed convulsively, his eyes fixed on me in fear.
"You call her ‘Dame Blanche,' " Jamie said, between his teeth. "I call her wife! Let her face be the last that ye see, then!"
The knife ripped across the man's throat with a violence that made Jamie grunt with the effort, and a dark sheet of blood sprayed over his shirt. The stench of sudden death filled the landing, with a wheezing, gurgling sound from the crumpled heap on the floor that seemed to go on for a very long time.
The sounds behind me brought me finally to my senses: Mary, being violently sick in the hallway. My first coherent thought was that the servants were going to have the hell of a mess to clean up in the morning. My second was for Jamie, seen in a flash of the fleeting moon. His face was spattered and his hair matted with droplets of blood, and he was breathing heavily. He looked as though he might be going to be sick, too.
I turned toward Mary, and saw, far beyond her down the hall, the crack of light behind an opening door. Someone was coming to investigate the noise. I grabbed the hem of her nightrobe, wiped it roughly across her mouth, and seized her by the arm, tugging her toward the landing.
"Come on!" I said. "Let's get out of here!" Starting from his dazed contemplation of Danton's corpse, Jamie shook himself suddenly, and returning to his senses, turned to the stair.
He seemed to know where we were going, leading us through the darkened corridors without hesitation. Mary stumbled along beside me, puffing, her breath loud as an engine in my ear.
At the scullery door, Jamie came to a sudden halt, and gave a low whistle. This was returned immediately, and the door swung open on a darkness inhabited by indistinct forms. One of these detached itself from the murk and hastened forward. A few muttered words were exchanged, and the man—whichever it was—reached for Mary and pulled her into the shadows. A cold draft told me there was an open door somewhere ahead.
Jamie's hand on my shoulder steered me through the obstacles of the darkened scullery and some smaller chamber that seemed to be a lumber room of some sort; I barked my shin against something, but bit back the exclamation of pain.
Out in the free night at last, the wind seized my cloak and whirled it out in a exuberant balloon. After the nerve-stretching trek through the darkened house, I felt as though I might take wing, and sail for the sky.
The men around me seemed to share the mood of relief; there was a small outbreak of whispered remarks and muffled laughter, quickly shushed by Jamie. One at a time, the men flitted across the open space before the house, no more than shadows under the dancing moon. At my side, Jamie watched as they disappeared into the woods of the park.
"Where's Murtagh?" he muttered, as though to himself, frowning after the last of his men. "Gone to look for Hugh, I suppose," he said, in answer to his own question. "D'ye ken where he might be, Sassenach?"
I swallowed, feeling the wind bite cold beneath my cloak, memory killing the sudden exhilaration of freedom.
"Yes," I said, and told him the bad news, as briefly as I could. His expression darkened under its mask of blood, and by the time I had finished, his face was hard as stone.
"D'ye mean just to stand there all night," inquired a voice behind us, "or ought we to sound an alarm, so they'll know where to look first?"
Jamie's expression lightened slightly as Murtagh appeared from the shadows beside us, quiet as a wraith. He had a cloth-wrapped bundle under one arm; a joint from the kitchens, I thought, seeing the blotch of dark blood on the cloth. This impression was borne out by the large ham he had tucked beneath the other arm, and the strings of sausages about his neck.
Jamie wrinkled his nose, with a faint smile.
"Ye smell like a butcher, man. Can ye no go anywhere without thinkin' of your stomach?"
Murtagh cocked his head to one side, taking in Jamie's blood-spattered appearance.
"Better to look like the butcher than his wares, lad," he said. "Shall we go?"
The trip through the park was dark and frightening. The trees were tall and widely spaced here, but there were saplings left to grow between them that changed abruptly into the menacing shapes of gamekeepers in the uncertain light. The clouds were gathering thicker, at least, and the full moon made fewer appearances, which was something to be grateful for. As we reached the far side of the park, it began to rain.
Three men had been left with the horses. Mary was already mounted before one of Jamie's men. Plainly embarrassed by the necessity of riding astride, she kept tucking the folds of her nightrobe under her thighs, in a vain attempt to hide the fact that she had legs.
More experienced, but still cursing the heavy folds of my skirt, I plucked them up and set a foot in Jamie's offered hand, swinging aboard with a practiced thump. The horse snorted at the impact and set his ears back.
"Sorry, cully," I said without sympathy. "If you think that's bad, just wait 'til he gets back on."
Glancing around for the "he" in question, I found him under one of the trees, hand on the shoulder of a strange boy of about fourteen.
"Who's that?" I asked, leaning over to attract the attention of Geordie Paul Fraser, who was busy tightening his girth next to me.
"Eh? Oh, him." He glanced at the boy, then back at his reluctant girth, frowning. "His name's Ewan Gibson. Hugh Munro's eldest stepson. He was wi' his da, seemingly, when the Duke's keepers came on 'em. The lad got awa', and we found him near the edge o' the moor. He brought us here." With a final unnecessary tug, he glared at the girth as though daring it to say something, then looked up at me.
"D'ye ken where the lad's da is?" he asked abruptly.
I nodded, and the answer must have been plain in my face, for he turned to look at the boy. Jamie was holding the boy, hugged hard against his chest, and patting his back. As we watched, he held the boy away from him, both hands on his shoulders, and said something, looking down intently into his face. I couldn't hear what it was, but after a moment, the boy straightened himself and nodded. Jamie nodded as well, and with a final clap on the shoulder, turned the lad toward one of the horses, where George McClure was already reaching down a hand to him. Jamie strode toward us, head down, and the end of his plaid fluttering free behind him, despite the cold wind and the spattering rain.
Geordie spat on the ground. "Poor bugger," he said, without specifying whom he meant, and swung into his own saddle.
Near the southeast corner of the park we halted, the horses stamping and twitching, while two of the men disappeared back into the trees. It cannot have been more than twenty minutes, but it seemed twice as long before they came back.
The men rode double now, and the second horse bore a long, hunched shape bound across its saddle, wrapped in a Fraser plaid. The horses didn't like it; mine jerked its head, nostrils flaring, as the horse bearing Hugh's corpse came alongside. Jamie yanked the rein and said something angrily in Gaelic, though, and the beast desisted.
I could feel Jamie rise in the stirrups behind me, looking backward as though counting the remaining members of his band. Then his arm came around my waist, and we set off, on our way north.
We rode all night, with only brief stops for rest. During one of these, sheltering under a horse-chestnut tree, Jamie reached to embrace me, then suddenly stopped.
"What is it?" I said, smiling. "Afraid to kiss your wife in front of your men?"
"No," he said, proving it, then stepped back, smiling. "No, I was afraid for a moment ye were going to scream and claw my face." He dabbed gingerly at the marks Mary had left on his cheek.
"Poor thing," I said, laughing. "Not the welcome you expected, was it?"
"Well, by that time, actually it was," he said, grinning. He had taken two sausages from one of Murtagh's strings, and now handed me one. I couldn't remember when I had last eaten, but it must have been quite some time, for not even my fears of botulism kept the fatty, spiced meat from being delicious.
"What do you mean by that? You thought I wouldn't recognize you after only a week?"
He shook his head, still smiling, and swallowed the bite of sausage.
"Nay. It's only, when I got in the house to start, I kent where ye were, more or less, because of the bars on your windows." He arched one brow. "From the looks of them, ye must have made one hell of an impression on His Grace."
"I did," I said shortly, not wanting to think about the Duke. "Go on."
"Well," he said, taking another bite and shifting it expertly to his cheek while he talked, "I kent the room, but I needed the key, didn't I?"
"Oh, yes," I said. "You were going to tell me about that."
He chewed briefly and swallowed.
"I got it from the housekeeper, but not without trouble." He rubbed himself tenderly, a few inches below the belt. "From appearances, I'd say the woman's been waked in her bed a few times before—and didna care for the experience."
"Oh, yes," I said, entertained by the mental picture this provoked. "Well, I daresay you came as rare and refreshing fruit to her."
"I doubt it extremely, Sassenach. She screeched like a banshee and kneed me in the stones, then came altogether too near to braining me wi' a candle-stick whilst I was doubled up groaning."
"What did you do?"
"Thumped her a good one—I wasna feeling verra chivalrous just at the moment—and tied her up wi' the strings to her nightcap. Then I put a towel in her mouth to put a stop to the things she was callin' me, and searched her room 'til I found the keys."
"Good work," I said, something occurring to me, "but how did you know where the housekeeper slept?"
"I didn't," he said calmly. "The laundress told me—after I told her who I was, and threatened to gut her and roast her on a spit if she didna tell me what I wanted to know." He gave me a wry smile. "Like I told ye, Sassenach, sometimes it's an advantage to be thought a barbarian. I reckon they've all heard of Red Jamie Fraser by now."
"Well, if they hadn't, they will," I said. I looked him over, as well as I could in the dim light. "What, didn't the laundress get a lick in?"
"She pulled my hair," he said reflectively. "Took a clump of it out by the roots. I'll tell ye, Sassenach; if ever I feel the need to change my manner of employment, I dinna think I'll take up attacking women—it's a bloody hard way to make a living."
It was beginning to sleet heavily near dawn, but we rode for some time before Ewan Gibson dragged his pony uncertainly to a stop, rose up clumsily in the stirrups to look around, then motioned up the hillside that rose to the left.
Dark as it was, it was impossible to ride the horses uphill. We had to descend to the ground and lead them, foot by muddy, slogging foot, along the nearly invisible track that zigzagged through heather and granite. Dawn was beginning to lighten the sky as we paused for breath at the crest of the hill. The horizon was hidden, thick with clouds, but a dull gray of no apparent source began to replace the darker gray of the night. Now I could at least see the cold streamlets that I sank in, ankle-deep, and avoid the worst of the foot-twisting snags of rock and bramble that we encountered on the way down the hill.
At the bottom was a small corrie, with six houses—though "house" was an overdignified word for the rude structures crouched beneath the larch trees there. The thatched roofs came down within a few feet of the ground, leaving only a bit of the stone walls showing.
Outside one bothy, we came to a halt. Ewan looked at Jamie, hesitating as though lost for direction, then at his nod, ducked and disappeared beneath the low rooftree of the hut. I drew closer to Jamie, putting my hand on his arm.
"This is Hugh Munro's house," he said to me, low-voiced. "I've brought him home to his wife. The lad's gone in to tell her."
I glanced from the dark, low doorway of the hut to the limp, plaid-draped bundle that two of the men were now unstrapping from the horse. I felt a small tremor run through Jamie's arm. He closed his eyes for a moment, and I saw his lips move; then he stepped forward and held out his arms for the burden. I drew a deep breath, brushed my hair back from my face, and followed him, stooping below the lintel of the door.
It wasn't as bad as I had feared it might be, though bad enough. The woman, Hugh's widow, was quiet, accepting Jamie's soft Gaelic speech of condolence with bowed head, the tears slipping down her face like rain. She reached tentatively for the covering plaid, as though meaning to draw it down, but then her nerve failed, and she stood, one hand resting awkwardly on the curve of the shroud, while the other drew a small child close against her thigh.
There were several children huddled near the fire—Hugh's stepchildren—and a swaddled mass in the rough cradle nearest the hearth. I felt some small comfort, looking at the baby; at least this much of Hugh was left. Then the comfort was overwhelmed with a cold fear as I looked at the children, grimy faces blending with the shadows. Hugh had been their main support. Ewan was brave and willing, but he was no more than fourteen, and the next eldest child was a girl of twelve or so. How would they manage?
The woman's face was worn and lined, nearly toothless. I realized with a shock that she could be only a few years older than I was. She nodded toward the single bed, and Jamie laid the body gently on it. He spoke to her again in Gaelic; she shook her head hopelessly, still staring down at the long shape upon her bed.
Jamie knelt down by the bed; bowed his head, and placed one hand on the corpse. His words were soft, but clearly spoken, and even my limited Gaelic could follow them.
