Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [474]
“I think of purchasing one of these stones,” Forbes explained. “To have made into a ring. I had them sent from Boston.” He smirked at Brianna, plainly feeling that he had stolen a march on the competition—and judging from the faint glower on MacNeill’s face, he had.
“Tell me, my dear—which do you prefer? The sapphire, the emerald, the topaz or the diamond?” He rocked back on his heels, waistcoat swelling with his own cleverness.
For the first time in her pregnancy, Brianna felt a sudden qualm of nausea. Her head felt light and giddy, and her fingertips tingled with numbness.
Sapphire, emerald, topaz, diamond. And her father’s ring held a ruby. Five stones of power, the points of a traveler’s pentagram, the guarantors of safe passage. For how many? Without thinking, she spread a hand protectively over her belly.
She realized the trap Forbes thought he was luring her toward. Let her make a choice and he would present her with the unmounted stone on the spot, a public proposal that would—he thought—force her either to accept him at once, or cause an unpleasant scene by rejecting him outright. Gerald Forbes really knew nothing about women, she thought.
“I—ah—I should not like to venture my own opinion without first hearing Mrs. Alderdyce’s choice,” she said, forcing a cordial smile and a nod toward the Judge’s mother, who looked both surprised and gratified by being so deferred to.
Brianna’s stomach clenched, and she surreptitiously wiped sweaty hands on her skirt. There they were, all together and in one place—the four stones she had thought it would take a lifetime to find.
Mrs. Alderdyce was jabbing an arthritic finger at the emerald, explaining the virtues of her choice, but Brianna paid no attention to what the woman said. She glanced at Lawyer Forbes, his round face still reflecting smugness. A sudden wild impulse filled her.
If she said yes, now, tonight, while he still had all four stones … could she bring herself to that? Inveigle him, kiss him, lull him into complacency—and then steal the stones?
Yes, she could—and then what? Run off into the mountains with them? Leave Jocasta disgraced and the county in an uproar, run and hide like a common thief? And how would she get to the Indies before the baby came? She counted in her head, knowing it was insanity, but still—it could be done.
The stones glittered and winked, temptation and salvation. Everyone had come to look, heads bent over the table, murmuring their admiration, herself temporarily overlooked.
She could hide, she thought, the steps of the plan unfolding inevitably before her mind’s eye, quite without her willing it. Steal a horse, head up the Yadkin valley into the backcountry. Despite the nearness of the fire, she shivered, feeling cold at the thought of flight through the winter snows. But her mind ran on.
She could hide in the mountains, at her parents’ cabin, and wait for them to come back with Roger. If they came back. If Roger was with them. Yes, and what if the baby came first, and she was there on the mountain, all alone with no one at hand, and nothing to help but a handful of stolen brightness?
Or should she ride at once for Wilmington and find a ship to the Indies? If Jocasta was right, Roger was never coming back. Was she sacrificing her only chance at return to wait for a man who was dead—or who, if not dead, might reject her and her child?
“Miss Fraser?”
Lawyer Forbes was waiting, swollen with expectation.
She took a deep breath, feeling sweat trickle down between her breasts, beneath the loosened stays.
“They’re all very lovely,” she said, surprised at how coolly she was able to speak. “I could not possibly choose among them—but then, I have no particular liking for gems. I have very simple tastes, I’m afraid.”
She caught the flicker of a smile on Mr. MacNeill’s face, and the deep flush of Forbes