Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [259]
It reminded me of the way the sails of the ships had filled, turning past the headland into the shipping roads as they left the harbor of Le Havre. I had stood on the end of the quay, watching the bustle and the comings and goings of shipping and commerce. The gulls dived and shrieked among the masts, their voices raucous as the shouting of the seamen.
Jared Munro Fraser had stood by me, watching benignly the flow of passing seaborne wealth, some of it his. It was one of his ships, the Portia, that would carry us to Scotland. Jamie had told me that all Jared’s ships were named for his mistresses, the figureheads carved in the likenesses of the ladies in question. I squinted against the wind at the prow of the ship, trying to decide whether Jamie had been teasing me. If not, I concluded, Jared preferred his women well endowed.
“I shall miss you both,” Jared said, for the fourth time in half an hour. He looked truly regretful, even his cheerful nose seeming less upturned and optimistic than usual. The trip to Germany had been a success; he sported a large diamond in his stock, and the coat he wore was a rich bottle-green velvet with silver buttons.
“Ah, well,” he said, shaking his head. “Much as I should like to keep the laddie with me, I canna grudge him joy of his homecoming. Perhaps I shall come to visit ye someday, my dear; it’s been long since I set foot in Scotland.”
“We’ll miss you, too,” I told him, truthfully. There were other people I would miss—Louise, Mother Hildegarde, Herr Gerstmann. Master Raymond most of all. Yet I looked forward to returning to Scotland, to Lallybroch. I had no wish to go back to Paris, and there were people there I most certainly had no desire to see again—Louis of France, for one.
Charles Stuart, for another. Cautious probing amongst the Jacobites in Paris had confirmed Jamie’s initial impression; the small burst of optimism fired by Charles’s boasting of his “grand venture” had faded, and while the loyal supporters of King James held true to their sovereign, there seemed no chance that this stolid loyalty of stubborn endurance would lead to action.
Let Charles make his own peace with exile, then, I thought. Our own was over. We were going home.
“The baggage is aboard,” said a dour Scots voice in my ear. “The master of the ship says come ye along now; we sail wi’ the tide.”
Jared turned to Murtagh, then glanced right and left down the quay. “Where’s the laddie, then?” he asked.
Murtagh jerked his head down the pier. “In the tavern yon. Gettin’ stinkin’ drunk.”
I had wondered just how Jamie had planned to weather the Channel crossing. He had taken one look at the lowering red sky of dawn that threatened later storms, excused himself to Jared, and disappeared. Looking in the direction of Murtagh’s nod, I saw Fergus, sitting on a piling near the entrance to one grogshop, plainly doing sentry duty.
Jared, who had exhibited first disbelief and then hilarity when informed of his nephew’s disability, grinned widely at this news.
“Oh, aye?” he said. “Well, I hope he’s left the last quart ’til we come for him. He’ll be hell to carry up the gangplank, if he hasn’t.”
“What did he do that for?” I demanded of Murtagh, in some exasperation. “I told him I had some laudanum for him.” I patted the silk reticule I carried. “It would knock him out a good deal faster.”
Murtagh merely blinked once. “Aye. He said if he was goin’ to have a headache, he’d as soon enjoy the gettin’ of it. And the whisky tastes a good bit better goin’ down than yon filthy black stuff.” He nodded at my reticule, then at Jared. “Come on, then, if ye mean to help me wi’ him.”
In the forward cabin of the Portia, I had sat on the captain’s bunk, watching the steady rise and fall of the receding shoreline, my husband’s head cradled on my knees.
One eye opened a slit and looked up at me. I stroked the heavy damp hair off his brow. The scent of ale and whisky hung about him like perfume.
“You