Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [463]
Claire was still there at the end of the hall; feet curled under her on the window seat, staring out at the blank black stretch of the night-filled glass.
“Claire?” His voice felt scratchy from disuse, and he cleared his throat and tried again. “Claire? I…have something to tell you.”
She turned and looked up at him, no more than the faintest curiosity visible on her features. She wore a look of calm, the look of one who has borne terror, despair, and mourning, and the desperate burden of survival—and has endured. Looking at her, he felt suddenly that he couldn’t do it.
But she had told the truth; he must do likewise.
“I found something.” He raised the book in a brief, futile gesture. “About…Jamie.” Speaking that name aloud seemed to brace him, as though the big Scot himself had been conjured by his calling, to stand solid and unmoving in the hallway, between his wife and Roger. Roger took a deep breath in preparation.
“What is it?”
“The last thing he meant to do. I think…I think he failed.”
Her face paled suddenly, and she glanced wide-eyed at the book.
“His men? But I thought you found—”
“I did,” Roger interrupted. “No, I’m fairly sure he succeeded in that. He got the men of Lallybroch out; he saved them from Culloden, and set them on the road home.”
“But then…”
“He meant to turn back—back to the battle—and I think he did that, too.” He was increasingly reluctant, but it had to be said. Finding no words of his own, he flipped the book open, and read aloud:
“After the final battle at Culloden, eighteen Jacobite officers, all wounded, took refuge in the old house and for two days, their wounds untended, lay in pain; then they were taken out to be shot. One of them, a Fraser of the Master of Lovat’s regiment, escaped the slaughter; the others were buried at the edge of the domestic park.”
“One man, a Fraser of the Master of Lovat’s regiment, escaped.…” Roger repeated softly. He looked up from the stark page to see her eyes, wide and unseeing as a deer’s fixed in the headlights of an oncoming car.
“He meant to die on Culloden Field,” Roger whispered. “But he didn’t.”
Books by Diana Gabaldon
Outlander
Dragonfly in Amber
Voyager
Drums of Autumn
The Outlandish Companion
The Hunt Begins
INVERNESS
MAY 2, 1968
“Of course he’s dead!” Claire’s voice was sharp with agitation; it rang loudly in the half-empty study, echoing among the rifled bookshelves. She stood against the cork-lined wall like a prisoner awaiting a firing squad, staring from her daughter to Roger Wakefield and back again.
“I don’t think so.” Roger felt terribly tired. He rubbed a hand over his face, then picked up the folder from the desk; the one containing all the research he’d done since Claire and her daughter had first come to him, three weeks before, and asked his help.
He opened the folder and thumbed slowly through the contents. The Jacobites of Culloden. The Rising of the ’45. The gallant Scots who had rallied to the banner of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and cut through Scotland like a blazing sword—only to come to ruin and defeat against the Duke of Cumberland on the gray moor at Culloden.
“Here,” he said, plucking out several sheets clipped together. The archaic writing looked odd, rendered in the black crispness of a photocopy. “This is the muster roll of the Master of Lovat’s regiment.”
He thrust the thin sheaf of papers at Claire, but it was her daughter, Brianna, who took the sheets from him and began to turn the pages, a slight frown between her reddish brows.
“Read the top sheet,” Roger said. “Where it says ‘Officers.’ “
“All right. ‘Officers,’ ” she read aloud, “ ‘Simon, Master of Lovat’ …”
“The Young Fox,” Roger interrupted. “Lovat’s son. And five more names, right?”
Brianna cocked one brow at him, but went on reading.
“ ‘William Chisholm Fraser, Lieutenant; George D’Amerd Fraser Shaw, Captain; Duncan Joseph Fraser,