Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [87]
“I shouldna think it’s all turpentine,” Jamie said. He mopped the back of his neck with a handkerchief and nodded toward the largest of the warehouses, its door flanked by red-coated soldiers. “Smell it, Sassenach?”
I inhaled, cautiously. There was something else in the air here; a hot, familiar scent.
“Rum?” I said.
“And brandywine. And a bit of port, as well.” Jamie’s long nose twitched, sensitive as a mongoose’s. I looked at him in amusement.
“You haven’t lost it, have you?” Twenty years before, he had managed his cousin Jared’s wine business in Paris, and his nose and palate had been the awe of the winery tasting rooms.
He grinned.
“Oh, I expect I could still tell Moselle from horse piss, if ye held it right under my nose. But telling rum from turpentine is no great feat, is it?”
Ian drew a huge lungful of air and let it out, coughing.
“It all smells the same to me,” he said, shaking his head.
“Good,” said Jamie, “I’ll give ye turpentine next time I stand ye a drink. It’ll be a good deal cheaper.”
“Turpentine’s just about what I could afford now,” he added under cover of the laughter this remark caused. He straightened, brushing down the skirts of his coat. “We’ll be there soon. Do I look a terrible beggar, Sassenach?”
Seen with the sun glowing on his neatly ribboned hair, his darkened profile coin-stamped against the light, I privately thought he looked dazzling, but I had caught the faint tone of anxiety in his voice, and knew well enough what he meant. Penniless he might be, but he didn’t mean to look it.
I was well aware that the notion of appearing at his aunt’s door as a poor relation come a-begging stung his pride considerably. The fact that he had been forced into precisely that role didn’t make it any easier to bear.
I looked him over carefully. The coat and waistcoat were not spectacular, but quite acceptable, courtesy of Cousin Edwin; a quiet gray broadcloth with a good hand and an excellent fit, buttons not silver, but not of wood or bone either—a sober pewter, like a prosperous Quaker.
Not that the rest of him bore the slightest resemblance to a Quaker, I thought. The linen shirt was rather grubby, but as long as he kept his coat on, no one would notice, and the missing button on the waistcoat was hidden by the graceful fall of his lace jabot, the sole extravagance he had permitted himself in the way of wardrobe.
The stockings were all right; pale blue silk, no visible holes. The white linen breeches were tight, but not—not quite—indecent, and reasonably clean.
The shoes were the only real flaw in his ensemble; there had been no time to have any made. His were sound, and I had done my best to hide the scuff-marks with a mixture of soot and dripping, but they were clearly a farmer’s footwear, not a gentleman’s; thick-soled, made of rough leather, and with buckles of lowly horn. Still, I doubted that his aunt Jocasta would be looking at his feet first thing.
I stood on tiptoe to straighten his jabot, and brushed a floating down-feather off his shoulder.
“It will be all right,” I whispered back, smiling up at him. “You’re beautiful.”
He looked startled; then the expression of grim aloofness relaxed into a smile.
“You’re beautiful, Sassenach.” He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. “You’re flushed as a wee apple; verra bonny.” He straightened up, glanced at Ian, and sighed.
“As for Ian, perhaps I can pass him off as a bondsman I’ve taken on to be swineherd.”
Ian was one of those people whose clothes, no matter what their original quality, immediately look as though they had been salvaged from a rubbish tip. Half his hair had escaped from its green ribbon, and one bony elbow protruded from a rip in his new shirt, whose cuffs were already noticeably gray round the wrists.
“Captain Freeman says we’ll be there in no time!” he exclaimed, eyes shining with excitement as he leaned over the side, peering upriver in order to be first to sight