A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [656]
She looked down at that, her thick brows knitted, lips compressed. Christ, he hoped that her husband had succeeded in locating Jamie Fraser in time. Jamie Fraser was the only person who had a hope of being more effectually stubborn than his daughter.
“You don’t understand,” she said finally. She looked up, and he saw that she had come to some decision.
“We’re leaving,” she said abruptly. “Roger and I and the—the children.”
“Oh?” he said cautiously. This might be good news—on several counts. “Where do you propose to go? Will you remove to England? Or Scotland? If England or Canada, I have several social connexions who might be of—”
“No. Not there. Not anywhere you have ‘connexions.’” She smiled painfully at him, then swallowed before continuing.
“But you see—we’ll be gone. For—for good. I won’t—I don’t think I’ll ever see you again.” That realization had just dawned on her; he saw it on her face, and despite the strength of the pang it gave him, he was deeply moved by her obvious distress at the thought.
“I will miss you very much, Brianna,” he said gently. He had been a soldier most of his life, and then a diplomat. He had learned to live with separation and absence, with the occasional death of friends left behind. But the notion of never seeing this odd girl again caused him a most unexpected degree of grief. Almost, he thought with surprise, as though she were his own daughter.
But he had a son, as well, and her next words snapped him back to full alertness.
“So you see,” she said, leaning toward him with an intentness that he would otherwise have found charming, “I have to talk to William, and tell him. We’ll never have another chance.” Then her face changed, and she put a hand to her bosom.
“I have to go,” she said abruptly. “Mandy—Amanda, my daughter—she needs to be fed.”
And with that, she was up and gone, scudding across the sand of the racetrack like a storm cloud, leaving the threat of destruction and upheaval in her wake.
117
SURELY JUSTICE AND MERCY
SHALL FOLLOW ME
July 10, 1776
THE TIDE TURNED FROM THE EBB just before five o’clock in the morning. The sky was fully light, a clear pale color without clouds, and the mudflats beyond the quay stretched gray and shining, their smoothness marred here and there by weed and stubborn sea grass, sprouting from the mud like clumps of hair.
Everyone rose with the dawn; there were plenty of people on the quay to see the small procession go out, two officers from the Wilmington Committee of Safety, a representative from the Merchants Association, a minister carrying a Bible, and the prisoner, a tall, wide-shouldered figure, walking bare-headed across the stinking mud. Behind them all came a slave, carrying the ropes.
“I don’t want to watch this,” Brianna said under her breath. She was very pale, her arms folded over her middle as though she had a stomachache.
“Let’s go, then.” Roger took her arm, but she pulled back.
“No. I have to.”
She dropped her arms and stood straight, watching. People around them were jostling for a better view, jeering and catcalling so loudly that whatever was said out there was inaudible. It didn’t take long. The slave, a big man, grabbed the mooring post and shook it, testing for steadfastness. Then stood back, while the two officers backed Stephen Bonnet up to the stake and wrapped his body with rope from chest to knees. The bastard wasn’t going anywhere.
Roger thought he should be searching his heart for compassion, praying for the man. He couldn’t. Tried to ask forgiveness, and couldn’t do that, either. Something like a ball of worms churned in his belly. He felt as though he were himself tied to a stake, waiting to drown.
The black-coated minister leaned close, his hair whipping in the early morning breeze, mouth moving. Roger didn’t think that Bonnet made any reply, but couldn’t tell for sure. After a few moments, the men doffed their hats, stood while the minister prayed, then put them on again and headed back toward shore, their boots squelching, ankle-deep in the sandy mud.
The moment