Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [243]
A hot flush rose into his cheeks, and his eyes raked over me, his attention temporarily distracted from the leeches by being so familiarly addressed by what—I suddenly realized—appeared to be a disheveled beldame with her skirts round her thighs. Either he had good manners, or the disparity between my voice and my appearance made him cautious, because he swallowed the instant retort that came to his lips.
“Yes, it is,” he said shortly, instead. “William, Viscount Ashness, ninth Earl of Ellesmere.”
“All that?” I said politely. “Gracious.” I took hold of one leech between thumb and forefinger and pulled gently. The thing stretched out like a thick rubber band, but declined to let go. The boy’s pale flesh pulled out, too, and he made a small choking sound.
“Let go!” he said. “It’ll break, you’ll break it!”
“Could do,” I admitted. I got to my feet and shook down my skirts, putting myself in better order.
“Come along,” I said, offering him a hand. “I’ll take you to the house. If I sprinkle a bit of salt on them, they’ll drop off at once.”
He refused the hand, but got to his feet, a little shakily. He glanced around, as though looking for someone.
“Papa,” he explained, seeing my expression. “We missed the way, and he told me to wait by the stream while he made sure of our direction. I shouldn’t like him to take alarm if I am not here when he returns.”
“I shouldn’t worry,” I said. “I imagine he’ll have found the house himself by this time; it isn’t far.” A fair guess, as it was the only house in some distance, and at the end of a well-marked trail. Lord John had plainly left the boy while he went ahead, to find Jamie—and warn him. Very thoughtful. My lips tightened involuntarily.
“Will that be Frasers’?” the boy asked. He took a ginger step, spraddling so as not to allow his legs to rub together. “We had come to see a James Fraser.”
“I’m Mrs. Fraser,” I said, and smiled at him. Your stepmother, I might have added—but didn’t. “Come along.”
He followed me through the scrim of trees toward the house, almost treading on my heels in his haste. I kept tripping over tree roots and half-buried stones, not watching where I was going, fighting the overwhelming urge to turn around and stare at him. If William, Viscount Ashness, ninth Earl of Ellesmere, was not the very last person I had ever expected to see in the backwoods of North Carolina, he was certainly next to the last—King George was a trifle less likely to turn up on the doorstep, I supposed.
What had possessed that … that … I groped about, trying to choose among several discreditable epithets to apply to Lord John Grey, and gave up the struggle, in favor of trying to think what in heaven’s name to do. I gave that up, too; there wasn’t a thing I could do.
William, Viscount Ashness, ninth Earl of Ellesmere. Or he thought he was. And just what do you propose to do, I thought silently and savagely toward Lord John Grey, when he finds out that he’s really the bastard son of a pardoned Scottish criminal? And more important—what’s the Scottish criminal going to do? or feel?
I stopped, causing the boy to stumble as he tried to avoid crashing into me.
“Sorry,” I murmured. “Thought I saw a snake,” and went on, the thought that had stopped me in my tracks still knotting my midsection like a dose of bitter apples. Could Lord John have brought the boy on purpose to reveal his parentage? Did he mean to leave him here, with Jamie—with us?
Alarming as I found the notion, I couldn’t reconcile it with the man I had met in Jamaica. I might have sound reasons for disliking John Grey—always difficult to feel a warm sense of goodwill toward a man with a professed homosexual passion for one’s husband, after all—but I had to admit that I had seen no trace of either recklessness or cruelty in his character. On the contrary, he had struck me as a sensitive, kindly, and honorable man—or at least he had, before I’d found out