Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [406]
“But then I recalled your husband’s apparent devotion to you—quite touching,” he said, with a benevolent smile that I particularly disliked. “I supposed that your tragic demise might well distract him from the endeavor in which he was engaged without provoking the sort of interest his own murder would have involved.”
Suddenly thinking of something, I turned to look at the harpsichord in the corner of the room. Several sheets of music adorned its rack, written in a fine, clear hand. Fifty thousand pounds, upon the occasion of Your Highness’s setting foot in Scotland. Signed S. “S,” of course, for Sandringham. The Duke laughed, in apparent delight.
“That was really very clever of you, my dear. It must have been you; I’d heard of your husband’s unfortunate inability with music.”
“Actually, it wasn’t,” I replied, turning back from the piano. The table at my side lacked anything useful in the way of letter openers or blunt objects, but I hastily picked up a vase, and buried my face in the mass of hothouse flowers it held. I closed my eyes, feeling the brush of cool petals against my suddenly heated cheeks. I didn’t dare to look up, for fear my telltale face would give me away.
For behind the Duke’s shoulder, I had seen a round, leathery object, shaped like a pumpkin, framed by the green velvet draperies like one of the Duke’s exotic art objects. I opened my eyes, peering cautiously through the petals, and the wide, snaggle-toothed mouth split in a grin like a jack-o’-lantern’s.
I was torn between terror and relief. I had been right, then, about the beggar near the gate. It was Hugh Munro, an old companion from Jamie’s days as a Highland outlaw. A one-time schoolmaster, he had been captured by the Turks at sea, disfigured by torture, and driven to beggary and poaching—professions he augmented by successful spying. I had heard he was an agent of the Highland army, but hadn’t realized his activities had brought him so far south.
How long had he been there, perched like a bird on the ivy outside the second-story window? I didn’t dare try to communicate with him; it was all I could do to keep my eyes fixed on a point just above the Duke’s shoulder, gazing with apparent indifference into space.
The Duke was regarding me with interest. “Really? Not Gerstmann, surely? I shouldn’t have thought he had a sufficiently devious mind.”
“And you think I do? I’m flattered.” I kept my nose in the flowers, speaking distractedly into a peony.
The figure outside released his grip on the ivy long enough to bring one hand up into view. Deprived of his tongue by his Saracen captors, Hugh Munro’s hands spoke for him. Staring intently at me, he pointed deliberately, first at me, then at himself, then off to one side. The broad hand tilted and the first two fingers became a pair of running legs, racing away to the east. A final wink, a clenched fist in salute, and he was gone.
I relaxed, trembling slightly with reaction, and took a deep, restorative breath. I sneezed, and put the flowers down.
“So you’re a Jacobite, are you?” I asked.
“Not necessarily,” the Duke answered genially. “The question is, my dear—are you?” Completely unselfconscious, he took off his wig and scratched his fair, balding head before putting it back on.
“You tried to stop the effort to restore King James to his throne when you were in Paris. Failing at that, you and your husband appear now to be His Highness’s most loyal supporters. Why?” The small blue eyes showed nothing more than a mild interest, but it wasn’t a mild interest that had tried to have me killed.
Ever since finding out who my host was, I had been trying as hard as I could to remember what it was that Frank and the Reverend Mr. Wakefield had once said about him. Was he a Jacobite? So far as I could recall, the verdict of history—in the persons of Frank and the Reverend—was uncertain. So was I.
“I don’t believe I’m going to tell you,” I said slowly.
One blond brow arched high, the Duke took a small enameled box from his pocket and abstracted