Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [364]
He turned his head down the road, as though looking for signs of life from the direction of Beaufort.
“I met his eyes,” he said softly. “The once. I waited until Father reached his horse, and then I turned and looked at Lord Lovat, bold as I could. I wanted him to know we’d ask nothing of him, but that I wasna scairt of him.” He smiled at me, one-sided. “I was, though.”
I put a hand over his, stroking the grooves of his knuckles.
“Was he looking back at you?”
He snorted briefly.
“Aye, he was. Reckon he didna take his eyes off me from the time I came down the hill ’til my ship sailed away; I could feel them borin’ into my back like an auger. And when I looked at him, there he was, wi’ his eyes black under his brows, starin’ into mine.”
He fell silent, still looking at the castle, ’til I gently prodded him.
“How did he look, then?”
He pulled his eyes from the dark cloud mass on the far horizon to look down at me, the customary expression of good humor missing from the curve of his mouth, the depths of his eyes.
“Cold as stone, Sassenach,” he replied. “Cold as the stone.”
* * *
We were lucky in the weather; it had been warm all the way from Edinburgh.
“It’s no going to last,” Jamie predicted, squinting toward the sea ahead. “See the bank of cloud out there? It will be inland by tonight.” He sniffed the air, and pulled his plaid across his shoulders. “Smell the air? Ye can feel weather coming.”
Not so experienced at olfactory meteorology, I still thought that perhaps I could smell it; a dampness in the air, sharpening the usual smells of dried heather and pine resin, with a faint, moist scent of kelp from the distant shore mixed in.
“I wonder if the men have got back to Lallybroch yet,” I said.
“I doubt it.” Jamie shook his head. “They’ve less distance to go than we’ve had, but they’re all afoot, and it will ha’ been slow getting them all away.” He rose in his stirrups, shading his eyes to peer toward the distant cloud bank. “I hope it’s just rain; that willna trouble them overmuch. And it might not be a big storm, in any case. Perhaps it willna reach so far south.”
I pulled my arisaid, a warm tartan shawl, tighter around my own shoulders, in response to the rising breeze. I had thought this few days’ stretch of warm weather a good omen; I hoped it hadn’t been deceptive.
Jamie had spent an entire night sitting by the window in Holyrood, after receipt of Charles’s order. And in the morning, he had gone first to Charles, to tell His Highness that he and I would ride alone to Beauly, accompanied only by Murtagh, to convey His Highness’s respects to Lord Lovat, and his request that Lovat honor his promise of men and aid.
Next, Jamie had summoned Ross the smith to our chamber, and given him his orders, in a voice so low that I could not make out the words from my place near the fire. I had seen the burly smith’s shoulders rise, though, and set firm, as he absorbed their import.
The Highland army traveled with little discipline, in a ragtag mob that could scarcely be dignified as a “column.” In the course of one day’s movement, the men of Lallybroch were to drop away, one by one. Stepping aside into the shrubbery as though to rest a moment or relieve themselves, they were not to return to the main body, but to steal quietly away, and make their way, one by one, to a rendezvous with the other men from Lallybroch. And once regathered under the command of Ross the smith, they were to go home.
“I doubt they’ll be missed for some time, if at all,” Jamie had said, discussing the plan with me beforehand. “Desertion is rife, all through the army. Ewan Cameron told me they’d lost twenty men from his regiment within the last week. It’s winter, and men want to be settling their homes and making things ready for the spring planting. In any case, it’s sure there’s no one to spare to go after them, even should their leavin’ be noticed.”
“Have you given up, then, Jamie?” I had asked, laying a hand on his arm. He had rubbed a hand tiredly over his face before answering.
“I dinna ken, Sassenach. It may be too late;