A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [607]
There was someone in the kitchen; she could hear the movements of pots, and a woman’s voice, muttering something. The smell of food was strong enough to lean against. She pushed open the door and went in, pausing to let the cook see her. Then she saw the cook.
She was so battered by circumstance at this point that she only blinked, certain she was seeing things.
“Phaedre?” she said uncertainly.
The girl swung around, wide-eyed and open-mouthed with shock.
“Oh, sweet Jesus!” She glanced wildly behind Brianna, then, seeing that she was alone, grabbed Brianna’s arm and pulled her out into the yard.
“What you doing here?” she demanded, sounding fierce. “How do you come to be here?”
“Stephen Bonnet,” Brianna said briefly. “How on earth did you—did he kidnap you? From River Run?” She couldn’t think how—or why—but everything from the moment she had learned she was pregnant had had the surreal feel of hallucination, and how much of this was due to pregnancy alone she had no real idea.
Phaedre was shaking her head, though.
“No, miss. That Bonnet, he got me a month ago. From a man name Butler,” she added, mouth twisting in an expression that made clear her loathing of Butler.
The name seemed vaguely familiar to Brianna. She thought it was the name of a smuggler; she had never met him, but had heard the name now and then. He wasn’t the smuggler who provided her aunt with tea and other contraband luxuries, though—she had met that man, a disconcertingly effete and dainty gentleman named Wilbraham Jones.
“I don’t understand. But—wait, is there anything to eat?” she asked, the floor of her stomach dropping suddenly.
“Oh. Surely. You wait here.” Phaedre vanished back into the kitchen, light-footed, and was back in an instant with half a loaf of bread and a crock of butter.
“Thank you.” She grabbed the bread and ate some hastily, not bothering to butter it, then put down her head between her knees and breathed for a few minutes, until the nausea subsided.
“Sorry,” she said, raising her head at last. “I’m pregnant.”
Phaedre nodded, plainly unsurprised.
“Who by?” she asked.
“My husband,” Brianna answered. She’d spoken tartly, but then realized, with a small lurch of her unsettled innards, that it could so easily be otherwise. Phaedre had been gone from River Run for months—God only knew what had happened to her in that span of time.
“He’s not had you long, then.” Phaedre glanced at the house.
“No. You said a month—have you tried to get away?”
“Once.” The girl’s mouth twisted again. “You see that man Emmanuel?”
Brianna nodded.
“He an Ibo. Track a haunt through a cypress swamp, and make it sorry when he catch it.” She wrapped her arms around herself, though the day was warm.
The yard was fenced with eight-foot pointed pine stakes, laced with rope. She might get over them, with a foot up from Phaedre . . . but then she saw the shadow of a man pass by on the other side, a gun across his shoulder.
She would have guessed as much, had she been capable of organized thought. This was Bonnet’s hideaway—and judging from the piles of boxes, bundles, and casks stacked haphazardly in the yard, it was also where he kept valuable cargo before selling it. Naturally, it would be guarded.
A faint breeze wafted through the pickets of the fence, carrying the same vile stench she had smelled when they came ashore. She took another quick bite of bread, forcing it down as ballast for her queasy stomach.
Phaedre’s nostrils flared, then pinched at the reek.
“Be a slave ship, anchored past the breakers,” she said very quietly, and swallowed. “Captain come in yesterday, see if Mr. Bonnet have something for him, but he ain’t back yet. Captain Jackson say he come again tomorrow.”
Brianna could feel Phaedre’s fear, like a pale yellow miasma wavering over her skin, and took another bite of bread.
“He won’t—he wouldn’t sell you to this Jackson?” She wouldn’t put anything at all past Bonnet. But she did