A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [556]
“I see.” Fergus glanced behind him; his family were all gathered round Ian, pestering and caressing him. Marsali, though, was looking toward the alcove, worry on her face, obviously wanting to come and join the conversation, but detained by Joan, who was tugging on her skirt.
“Who would take her, I wonder?”
“Joanie, a chuisle, will ye not leave go? Help Félicité for a moment, aye?”
“But, Mama—”
“Not now. In a moment, aye?”
“I dinna ken,” Jamie said, the frustration of helplessness welling up like black bile at the back of his throat. A sudden, more horrible thought struck him. “God, d’ye suppose it might have been Stephen Bonnet?”
The woman’s slurred description had not sounded like the pirate—but she had been far from certain in it. Could Forbes have learned of his own escape, and determined simply to reverse the roles in the drama he had conceived—deport Claire forcibly to England, and try to pin the guilt of Malva Christie’s death to Jamie’s coat?
He found it hard to breathe, and had to force air into his chest. If Forbes had given Claire to Bonnet, he would slit the lawyer from wishbone to cock, rip the guts from his belly, and strangle him with them. And the same for the Irishman, once he laid hands upon him.
“Papi, Pa-pee . . .” Joan’s singsong voice penetrated dimly through the red cloud that filled his head.
“What, chérie?” Fergus lifted her with the ease of long practice, balancing her fat little bottom on his left arm, to leave his right hand free.
She put her arms round his neck and hissed something into his ear.
“Oh, did you?” he said, plainly abstracted. “Très bien. Where did you put it, chérie?”
“With the naughty-lady pictures.”
She pointed at the upper shelf, where several volumes lay, leather-bound but discreetly untitled. Glancing in the direction she indicated, Jamie saw a smudged paper sticking out from between two of the books.
Fergus clicked his tongue in displeasure, and smacked her lightly on the bottom with his good hand.
“You know you are not to climb up there!”
Jamie reached over and pulled the paper out. And felt all the blood leave his head, at sight of the familiar writing on it.
“What?” Fergus, alarmed at his appearance, set Joanie down. “Sit, milord! Run, chérie, get the smelling bottle.”
Jamie waved a hand, speechless, trying to indicate that he was all right, and succeeded at last in finding his tongue.
“She’s in the Governor’s Palace,” he said. “Christ be thanked, she’s safe.”
Seeing a stool pushed under the shelf, he pulled it out and sat on it, feeling exhaustion pulse through the quivering muscles of thigh and calf, ignoring the confusion of question and explanation, how Joanie had found the note pushed under the door—anonymous submissions to the newspaper often were delivered in this fashion, and the children knew they were to bring such things to their father’s attention. . . .
Fergus read the note, his dark eyes assuming the expression of interested intent that he always had when contemplating the abstraction of something difficult and valuable.
“Well, that is good,” he said. “We will go and fetch her. But I think first you must eat a little, milord.”
He wished to refuse, to say that there was not a moment to be lost, that he could eat nothing in any case; his wame was knotted, hurting him.
But Marsali was already hurrying the girls back to the kitchen, calling out things about hot coffee and bread, and Ian following her, Henri-Christian still wrapped lovingly about his ears, Germain yapping eagerly at his heels. And he knew that should it come to a fight, he had nothing left to fight with. Then the succulent sizzle and scent of eggs frying in butter reached him, and he was up and moving toward the back, like iron drawn by a magnet.
Over their hasty meal, various plans were offered and rejected. At length, he reluctantly accepted Fergus’s suggestion that either Fergus or Ian should go openly to the palace, asking to see Claire, saying