Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [91]
Then I saw him. I could feel all of the blood draining from my head as my eye traced disbelievingly over the elegant curve of the skull, dark-haired and bold amid the powdered wigs around it. Alarms rang in my head like air-raid sirens, as I fought to accept and repel the impressions that assaulted me. My subconscious saw the line of the nose, thought “Frank,” and turned my body to fly toward him in welcome. “Not-Frank,” came the slightly higher, rational center of my brain, freezing me in my tracks as I saw the familiar curve of a half-smiling mouth, repeating, “You know it’s not Frank” as the muscles of my calves knotted. And then the lurch into panic and the clenching of hands and stomach, as the slower processes of logical thought came doggedly on the trail of instinct and knowledge, seeing the high brow and the arrogant tilt of the head, assuring me of the unthinkable. It could not be Frank. And if it were not, then it could only be…
“Jack Randall.” It wasn’t my voice that spoke, but Jamie’s, sounding oddly calm and detached. Attention attracted by my peculiar behavior, he had looked where I was looking, and had seen what I had seen.
He didn’t move. So far as I could tell through the increasing haze of panic, he didn’t breathe. I was dimly aware of a nearby servant peering curiously upward at the towering form of the frozen Scottish warrior next to me, silent as a statue of Mars. But all my concern was for Jamie.
He was entirely still. Still as a lion is still, part of the grass of the plain, its stare hot and unblinking as the sun that burns the veldt. And I saw something move in the depths of his eyes. The telltale twitch of the stalking cat, the tiny jerk of the tuft at the end of the tail, precursor to carnage.
To draw arms in the presence of the King was death. Murtagh was on the far side of the garden, much too far away to help. Two more paces would bring Randall within hearing distance. Within sword’s reach. I laid a hand on his arm. It was rigid as the steel of the swordhilt under his hand. The blood roared in my ears.
“Jamie,” I said. “Jamie!” And fainted.
10
A LADY, WITH BROWN HAIR CURLING LUXURIANTLY
I swam up out of a flickering yellow haze composed of sunlight, dust, and fragmented memories, feeling completely disoriented.
Frank was leaning over me, face creased in concern. He was holding my hand, except that he wasn’t. The hand I held was much larger than Frank’s, and my fingers brushed the wiriness of coarse hairs on the wrist. Frank’s hands were smooth as a girl’s.
“Are you all right?” The voice was Frank’s, low and cultured.
“Claire!” That voice, deeper and rougher, wasn’t Frank’s at all. Neither was it cultured. It was full of fright and anguish.
“Jamie.” I found the name at last to match the mental image for which I had been seeking. “Jamie! Don’t…” I sat bolt upright, staring wildly from one face to the other. I was surrounded by a circle of curious faces, courtiers two and three deep around me, with a small clear space left for His Majesty, who was leaning over, peering down at me with an expression of sympathetic interest.
Two men knelt in the dust beside me. Jamie on the right, eyes wide and face pale as the hawthorn blossoms above him. And on my left…
“Are you all right, Madame?” The light hazel eyes held only respectful concern, the fine dark brows arched over them in inquiry. It wasn’t Frank, of course. Neither was it Jonathan Randall. This man was younger than the Captain by a good ten years, perhaps close to my own age, his face pale and unlined by exposure to weather. His lips had the same chiseled lines, but lacked the marks of ruthlessness that bracketed the Captain’s mouth.
“You.…” I croaked, leaning away from him. “You’re…”
“Alexander Randall, Esquire, Madame,” he answered quickly, making an abortive gesture