Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [216]
“Do you think she knows?”
The question, asked in the lowered tones that portended the juiciest of gossip, reached me just as I was about to enter the drawing room. Instead, I paused at the threshold, just out of sight.
It was Marie d’Arbanville who had spoken. Welcome everywhere because of her elderly husband’s position, and gregarious even by French standards, Marie heard everything worth hearing within the environs of Paris.
“Does she know what?” The reply was Louise’s; her high, carrying voice had the perfect self-confidence of the born aristocrat, who doesn’t care who hears what.
“Oh, you haven’t heard!” Marie pounced on the opening like a kitten, delighted to find a new mouse to play with. “Goodness! Of course, I only heard myself an hour ago.”
And raced directly over here to tell me about it, I thought. Whatever “it” was. I thought I stood a better chance of hearing the unexpurgated version from my position in the hallway.
“It is my lord Broch Tuarach,” Marie said, and I didn’t need to see her, to imagine her leaning forward, green eyes darting back and forth, snapping with enjoyment of her news. “Only this morning, he challenged an Englishman to a duel—over a whore!”
“What!” Louise’s cry of astonishment drowned out my own gasp. I grabbed hold of a small table and held on, black spots whirling before my eyes as the world came apart at the seams.
“Oh, yes!” Marie was saying. “Jacques Vincennes was there; he told my husband all about it! It was in that brothel down near the fish market—imagine going to a brothel at that hour of the morning! Men are so odd. Anyway, Jacques was having a drink with Madame Elise, who runs the place, when all of a sudden there was the most frightful outcry upstairs, and all kinds of thumping and shouting.”
She paused for breath—and dramatic effect—and I heard the sound of liquid being poured.
“So, Jacques of course raced to the stairs—well, that’s what he says, anyway; I expect he actually hid behind the sofa, he’s such a coward—and after more shouting and thumping, there was a terrible crash, and an English officer came hurtling down the stairs, half-undressed, with his wig off, staggering and smashing into the walls. And who should appear at the top of the stairs, looking like the vengeance of God, but our own petit James!”
“No! And I would have sworn he was the last…but go on! What happened then?”
A teacup chimed softly against its saucer, followed by Marie’s voice, released by excitement from the modulations of secrecy.
“Well—the man reached the foot of the stairs still on his feet, by some miracle, and he turned at once, and looked up at Lord Tuarach. Jacques says the man was very self-possessed, for someone who’d just been kicked downstairs with his breeches undone. He smiled—not a real smile, you know, the nasty sort—and said, ‘There’s no need for violence, Fraser; you could have waited for your turn, surely? I should have thought you get enough at home. But then, some men derive pleasure from paying for it.’ ”
Louise made shocked noises. “How awful! The canaille! But of course, it is no reproach to milord Tuarach—” I could hear the strain in her voice as friendship warred with the urge to gossip. Not surprisingly, gossip won.
“Milord Tuarach cannot enjoy his wife’s favors at the moment; she carries a child, and the pregnancy is dangerous. So of course he would relieve his needs at a brothel; what gentleman would do otherwise? But go on, Marie! What happened then?”
“Well.” Marie drew breath as she approached the high point of the story. “Milord Tuarach rushed down the stairs, seized the Englishman by the throat, and shook him like a rat!”
“Non! Ce n’est pas vrai!”
“Oh, yes! It took three of Madame’s servants to restrain him—such a wonderful big man, isn’t he? So fierce-looking!”
“Yes, but then what?”
“Oh—well, Jacques said the Englishman gasped for a bit, then straightened up and said to milord Tuarach, ‘That’s twice you’ve come near killing me, Fraser. Someday you may succeed.’ And then milord Tuarach cursed in that terrible Scottish tongue