Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [163]
“Well, milord,” he said, with a wave at the decanter that sat on the white cloth in front of Jamie, “are you going to allow us to taste this famous wine?”
“Yes, of course,” Jamie murmured. He reached mechanically for the first glass.
Louise, who had sat quietly eating through most of the dinner, noted Jamie’s discomfort. A kind friend, she turned to me in an obvious effort to change the course of the conversation to a neutral topic.
“That is a beautiful stone you wear about your neck, ma chère,” she said, gesturing at my crystal. “Where did you get it?”
“Oh, this?” I said. “Well, in fact—”
I was interrupted by a piercing scream. It stopped all conversation, and the brittle echoes of it chimed in the crystals of the chandelier overhead.
“Mon Dieu,” said the Comte St. Germain, into the silence. “What—”
The scream was repeated, and then repeated again. The noise spilled down the wide stairway and into the foyer.
The guests, rising from the dinner table like a covey of flushed quail, also spilled into the foyer, in time to see Mary Hawkins, clad in the shredded remnants of her shift, lurch into view at the top of the stair. There she stood, as though for maximum effect, mouth stretched wide, hands splayed across her bosom, where the ripped fabric all too clearly displayed the bruises left by grappling hands on her breasts and arms.
Her pupils shrunk to pinpoints in the light of the candelabra, her eyes seemed blank pools in which horror was reflected. She looked down, but plainly saw neither stairway nor crowd of gaping onlookers.
“No!” she shrieked. “No! Let me go! Please, I beg you! DON’T TOUCH ME!” Blinded by the drug as she was, apparently she sensed some movement behind her, for she turned and flailed wildly, hands clawing at the figure of Alex Randall, who was trying vainly to get hold of her, to calm her.
Unfortunately, from below, his attempts looked rather like those of a rejected seducer bent on further attack.
“Nom de Dieu,” burst out General d’Arbanville. “Racaille! Let her go at once!” The old soldier leaped for the stair with an agility belying his years, hand reaching instinctively for his sword—which, luckily, he had laid aside at the door.
I hastily thrust myself and my voluminous skirts in front of the Comte and the younger Duverney, who showed symptoms of following the General to the rescue, but I could do nothing about Mary’s uncle, Silas Hawkins. Eyes popping from his head, the wine merchant stood stunned for a moment, then lowered his head and charged like a bull, forcing his way through the onlookers.
I looked wildly about for Jamie, and found him on the edge of the crowd. I caught his eye and raised my brows in silent question; in any case, nothing I said could have been heard above the hubbub in the foyer, punctuated by Mary’s steam-whistle shrieks from above.
Jamie shrugged at me, then glanced around him. I saw his eyes light for a moment on a three-legged table near the wall, holding a tall vase of chrysanthemums. He glanced up, measuring the distance, closed his eyes briefly as though commending his soul to God, then moved with decision.
He sprang from the floor to the table, grasped the banister railing and vaulted over it, onto the stairway, a few feet in advance of the General. It was such an acrobatic feat that one or two ladies gasped, little cries of admiration intermingled with their exclamations of horror.
The exclamations grew louder as Jamie bounded up the remaining stairs, elbowed his way between Mary and Alex, and seizing the latter by the shoulder, took careful aim and hit him solidly on the point of the jaw.
Alex, who had been staring at his employer below in openmouthed amazement, folded gently at the knees and crumpled into a heap, eyes still wide, but gone suddenly blank and empty as Mary’s.
19
AN OATH IS SWORN
The clock on the mantelpiece had an annoyingly loud tick. It was the only sound in the house, other than the creakings of the boards, and the far-off thumps of servants working