Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [159]
Jamie spared no more than a glance at her. “So I see. Where in hell is Murtagh?”
“Over there,” I answered. “Help me up.”
I staggered over to the gutter, where the sack that held Murtagh was heaving to and fro like an agitated caterpillar, emitting a startling mixture of muffled profanities in three languages.
Jamie drew his dirk, and with what seemed to be a rather callous disregard for the contents, slit the sack from end to end. Murtagh popped out of the opening like a Jack out of its box. Half his spiky black hair was pasted to his head by whatever noisome liquid the bag had rested in. The rest stood on end, lending a fiercer cast to a face rendered already sufficiently warlike by a large purple knot on the forehead and a rapidly darkening eye.
“Who hit me?” he barked.
“Well, it wasn’t me,” answered Jamie, raising one eyebrow. “Come along, man, we havena got all night.”
* * *
“This is never going to work,” I muttered, stabbing pins decorated with brilliants at random through my hair. “She ought to have medical care, for one thing. She needs a doctor!”
“She has one,” Jamie pointed out, lifting his chin and peering down his nose into the mirror as he tied his stock. “You.” Stock tied, he grabbed a comb and pulled it hurriedly through the thick, ruddy waves of his hair.
“No time to braid it,” he muttered, holding a thick tail behind his head as he rummaged in a drawer. “Have ye a bit of ribbon, Sassenach?”
“Let me.” I moved swiftly behind him, folding under the ends of the hair and wrapping the club in a length of green ribbon. “Of all the bloody nights to have a dinner party on!”
And not just any dinner party, either. The Duke of Sandringham was to be guest of honor, with a small but select party to greet him. Monsieur Duverney was coming, with his eldest son, a prominent banker. Louise and Jules de La Tour were coming, and the d’Arbanvilles. Just to make things interesting, the Comte St. Germain had also been invited.
“St. Germain!” I had said in astonishment, when Jamie had told me the week before. “Whatever for?”
“I do business with the man,” Jamie had pointed out. “He’s been to dinner here before, with Jared. But what I want is to have the opportunity of watching him talk to you over dinner. From what I’ve seen of him in business, he’s not the man to hide his thoughts.” He picked up the white crystal that Master Raymond had given me and weighed it thoughtfully in his palm.
“It’s pretty enough,” he had said. “I’ll have it set in a gold mounting, so you can wear it about your neck. Toy with it at dinner until someone asks ye about it, Sassenach. Then tell them what it’s for, and make sure to watch St. Germain’s face when ye do. If it was him gave ye the poison at Versailles, I think we’ll see some sign of it.”
What I wanted at the moment was peace, quiet, and total privacy in which to shake like a rabbit. What I had was a dinner party with a duke who might be a Jacobite or an English agent, a Comte who might be a poisoner, and a rape victim hidden upstairs. My hands shook so that I couldn’t fasten the chain that held the mounted crystal; Jamie stepped behind me and snicked the catch with one flick of his thumb.
“Haven’t you got any nerves?” I demanded of him. He grimaced at me in the mirror and put his hands over his stomach.
“Aye, I have. But it takes me in the belly, not the hands. Have ye some of that stuff for cramp?”
“Over there.” I waved at the medicine box on the table, left open from my dosing of Mary. “The little green bottle. One spoonful.”
Ignoring the spoon, he tilted the bottle and took several healthy gulps. He lowered it and squinted at the liquid within.
“God, that’s foul stuff! Are ye nearly ready, Sassenach? The guests will be here any minute.”
Mary was concealed for the moment in a spare room on the second floor. I had checked her carefully for injuries, which seemed limited to bruises and shock,