Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [185]
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“D’ye want to tell me what you think you’re doing?” Dougal inquired, as the coach bumped around the Cirque du Mireille, narrowly avoiding an oncoming barouche and a cart full of vegetable marrows.
“No,” I said briefly, “but I suppose I’ll have to. Did you know that Jack Randall is still alive?”
“I’d not heard he was dead,” Dougal said reasonably.
That took me up short for a moment. But of course he was right; we had thought Randall dead only because Sir Marcus MacRannoch had mistaken the trampled body of Randall’s orderly for the officer himself, during Jamie’s rescue from Wentworth Prison. Naturally no news of Randall’s death would have gone round the Highlands, since it hadn’t occurred. I tried to gather my scattered thoughts.
“He isn’t dead,” I said. “But he is in Paris.”
“In Paris?” That got his attention; his brows went up, and then his eyes widened with the next thought.
“Where’s Jamie?” he asked sharply.
I was glad to see he appreciated the main point. While he didn’t know what had passed between Jamie and Randall in Wentworth Prison—no one was ever going to know that, save Jamie, Randall, and, to some extent, me—he knew more than enough about Randall’s previous actions to realize exactly what Jamie’s first impulse would be on meeting the man here, away from the sanctuary of England.
“I don’t know,” I said, looking out the window. We were passing Les Halles, and the smell of fish was ripe in my nostrils. I pulled out a scented handkerchief and covered my nose and mouth. The strong, sharp tang of the wintergreen with which I scented it was no match for the reek of a dozen eel-sellers’ stalls, but it helped a bit. I spoke through the spicy linen folds.
“We met Randall unexpectedly at the Duke of Sandringham’s today. Jamie sent me home in the coach, and I haven’t seen him since.”
Dougal ignored both the stench and the raucous cries of fishwives calling their wares. He frowned at me.
“He’ll mean to kill the man, surely?”
I shook my head, and explained my reasoning about the sword.
“I can’t let a duel happen,” I said, dropping the handkerchief in order to speak more clearly. “I won’t!”
Dougal nodded abstractedly.
“Aye, that would be dangerous. Not that the lad couldna take Randall with ease—I taught him, ye ken,” he added with some boastfulness, “but the sentence for dueling…”
“Got it in one,” I said.
“All right,” he said slowly. “But why the police? You dinna mean to have the lad locked up beforehand, do ye? Your own husband?”
“Not Jamie,” I said. “Randall.”
A broad grin broke out on his face, not unmixed with skepticism.
“Oh, aye? And how d’ye mean to work that one?”
“A friend and I were…attacked on the street a few nights ago,” I said, swallowing at the memory. “The men were masked; I couldn’t tell who they were. But one of them was about the same height and build as Jonathan Randall. I mean to say that I met Randall at a house today and recognized him as one of the men who attacked us.”
Dougal’s brows shot up and then drew together. His cool gaze flickered over me. Suddenly there was a new speculation in his appraisal.
“Christ, you’ve the devil’s own nerve. Robbery, was it?” he asked softly. Against my will, I could feel the rage rising in my cheeks.
“No,” I said, clipping the word between my teeth.
“Ah.” He sat back against the coach’s squabs, still looking at me. “Ye’ll have taken no harm, though?” I glanced aside, at the passing street, but could feel his eyes, prying at the neck of my gown, sliding over the curve of my hips.
“Not me,” I said. “But my friend…”
“I see.” He was quiet for a moment, then said meditatively, “Ever heard of ‘Les Disciples,’ have you?”
I jerked my head back around to him. He lounged in the corner like a crouching cat, watching me through eyes narrowed against the sun.
“No. What are they?” I demanded.
He shrugged and sat upright, peering past me at the approaching bulk of the Quai des Orfèvres, hovering gray and dreary above the glitter of the