A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [652]
“People stare at me anyway,” she finished for him. She pulled down the brim of her hat, drawing it far enough forward to hide not only hair but face, as well, and glowered at him from its shadow. “Then we’d better go where no one who knows him will see me, hadn’t we?”
THE QUAY AND THE market streets were thronged. Every public house in town—and not a few private ones—would soon be full of quartered soldiers. Her father and Jem were with Alexander Lillington, her mother and Mandy at Dr. Fentiman’s, both places centers of business and gossip, and she had declared that she possessed no intention of going near either parent in any case—not until she knew all there was to know. Lord John thought that might be rather more than he was himself prepared to tell her, but this was not a time for quibbles.
Still, the exigencies of privacy left them a choice of graveyard or the deserted racetrack, and Brianna said—a marked edge in her voice—that under the circumstances, she wanted no heavy-handed reminders of mortality.
“These mortal circumstances,” he said carefully, leading her around a large puddle. “You refer to tomorrow’s execution? It is Stephen Bonnet, I collect?”
“Yes,” she said, distracted. “That can wait, though. You aren’t engaged for supper, are you?”
“No. But—”
“William,” she said, eyes on her shoes as they paced slowly round the sandy oval. “William, ninth Earl of Ellesmere, you said?”
“William Clarence Henry George,” Lord John agreed. “Viscount Ashness, Master of Helwater, Baron Derwent, and, yes, ninth Earl of Ellesmere.”
She pursed her lips.
“Which would sort of indicate that the world at large thinks his father is somebody else. Not Jamie Fraser, I mean.”
“Was somebody else,” he corrected. “One Ludovic, eighth Earl of Ellesmere, to be precise. I understand that the eighth earl unfortunately died on the day his . . . er . . . his heir was born.”
“Died of what? Shock?” She was clearly in a dangerous mood; he was interested to note both her father’s manner of controlled ferocity and her mother’s sharp tongue at work—the combination was both fascinating and alarming. He hadn’t any intention of allowing her to run this interview on her own terms, though.
“Gunshot,” he said with affected cheerfulness. “Your father shot him.”
She made a small choking noise and stopped dead.
“That is not, by the way, common knowledge,” he said, affecting not to notice her reaction. “The coroner’s court returned a verdict of death by misadventure—which was not incorrect, I believe.”
“Not incorrect,” she murmured, sounding a trifle dazed. “I guess being shot is pretty misadventurous, all right.”
“Of course there was talk,” he said, offhanded, taking her arm and urging her forward again. “But the only witness, aside from William’s grandparents, was an Irish coachman, who was rather quickly pensioned off to County Sligo, following the incident. The child’s mother having also died that day, gossip was inclined to consider his lordship’s death as—”
“His mother’s dead, too?” She didn’t stop this time, but turned to give him a penetrating glance from those deep blue eyes. Lord John had had sufficient practice in withstanding Fraser cat looks, though, and was not discomposed.
“Her name was Geneva Dunsany. She died shortly after William’s birth—of an entirely natural hemorrhage,” he assured her.
“Entirely natural,” she muttered, half under her breath. She shot him another look. “This Geneva—she was married to the earl? When she and Da . . .” The words seemed to stick in her throat; he could see doubt and repugnance struggling with her memories of William’s undeniable face—and her knowledge of her father’s character.
“He has not told me, and I would in no circumstance ask him,” he said firmly. She gave him another of those looks, which he returned with interest. “Whatever the nature of Jamie’s relations with Geneva Dunsany, I cannot conceive of his committing an act of such dishonor as to deceive another man in his marriage.”
She relaxed fractionally, though her grip on his arm remained.
“Neither can I,” she said, rather grudgingly.