A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [447]
“Oh, aye, they’re that.” Half-grudgingly, Jocasta leaned out from her chair and located the hound’s head, scratching behind the long, floppy ears. “Though Duncan meant them for my protection, or so he said.”
“A sensible precaution,” Jamie said mildly. It was; we had had no further word of Stephen Bonnet, nor had Jocasta heard the voice of the masked man again. But lacking the concrete reassurance of a corpse, either one could presumably pop up at any time.
“Why would the lassie run, Aunt?” Jamie asked. His tone was still mild, but persistent.
Jocasta shook her head, lips compressed.
“I dinna ken at all, Nephew.”
“Nothing’s happened of late? Nothing out of the ordinary?” he pressed.
“Do ye not think I should have said at once?” she asked sharply. “No. I woke late one morning, and couldna hear her about my room. There was nay tea by my bed, and the fire had gone out; I could smell the ashes. I called for her, and there was no answer. Gone, she was—vanished without a trace.” She tilted her head toward him with a grim sort of “so there” expression.
I raised a brow at Jamie and touched the pocket I wore at my waist, containing the note. Ought we to tell her?
He nodded, and I drew the note from my pocket, unfolding it on the arm of her chair, as he explained.
Jocasta’s look of displeasure faded into one of puzzled astonishment.
“Whyever should she send for you, a nighean?” she asked, turning to me.
“I don’t know—perhaps she was with child?” I suggested. “Or had contracted a—disease of some sort?” I didn’t want to suggest syphilis openly, but it was a possibility. If Manfred had infected Mrs. Sylvie, and she had then passed the infection on to one or more of her customers in Cross Creek, who then had visited River Run . . . but that would mean, perhaps, that Phaedre had had some kind of relationship with a white man. That was something a slave woman would go to great lengths to keep secret.
Jocasta, no fool, was rapidly coming to similar conclusions, though her thoughts ran parallel to mine.
“A child, that would be no great matter,” she said, flicking a hand. “But if she had a lover . . . aye,” she said thoughtfully. “She might have gone off with a lover. But then, why send for you?”
Jamie was growing restive, impatient with so much unprovable speculation.
“Perhaps she might think ye meant to sell her, Aunt, if ye discovered such a thing?”
“To sell her?”
Jocasta broke out laughing. Not her usual social laughter, nor even the sound of genuine amusement; this was shocking—loud and crude, almost vicious in its hilarity. It was her brother Dougal’s laugh, and the blood ran momentarily cold in my veins.
I glanced at Jamie, to find him looking down at her, face gone blank. Not in puzzlement; it was the mask he wore to hide strong feeling. So he’d heard that grisly echo, too.
She seemed unable to stop. Her hands clutched the carved arms of her chair and she leaned forward, face turning red, gasping for breath between those unnerving deep guffaws.
Delilah rolled onto her belly and uttered a low “wuff” of unease, looking anxiously round, unsure what the matter was, but convinced that something wasn’t right. Samson had backed under the settee, growling.
Jamie reached out and took her by the shoulder—not gently.
“Be still, Aunt,” he said. “Ye’re frightening your wee dogs.”
She stopped, abruptly. There was no sound but the faint wheeze of her breathing, nearly as unnerving as the laughter. She sat still, bolt upright in her chair, hands on the arms, the blood ebbing slowly from her face and her eyes gone dark and bright, fixed as though on something that only she could see.
“Sell her,” she murmured, and her mouth creased as though the laughter were about to break out of her again. She didn’t laugh, though, but stood up suddenly. Samson yapped once, in astonishment.
“Come with me.”
She was through the door before either of us could