Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [46]
“I welcome ye, mistress,” he said, with a slight bow. “My name is Colum ban Campbell MacKenzie, laird of this castle. I understand from my brother that he, er, encountered you some distance from here.”
“He kidnapped me, if you want to know,” I said. I would have liked to keep the conversation cordial, but I wanted even more to get away from this castle and back to the hill with the standing stone circle. Whatever had happened to me, the answer lay there—if anywhere.
The laird’s thick brows rose slightly, and a smile curved the fine-cut lips.
“Well, perhaps,” he agreed. “Dougal is sometimes a wee bit…impetuous.”
“Well.” I waved a hand, indicating gracious dismissal of the matter. “I’m prepared to admit that a misunderstanding might have arisen. But I would greatly appreciate being returned to…the place he took me from.”
“Mm.” Brows still raised, Colum gestured toward a chair. I sat, reluctantly, and he nodded toward one of the attendants, who vanished through the door.
“I’ve sent for some refreshment, Mistress…Beauchamp, was it? I understand that my brother and his men found ye in…er, some apparent distress.” He seemed to be hiding a smile, and I wondered just how my supposed state of undress had been described to him.
I took a deep breath. Now it was time for the explanation I had devised. Thinking this out, I had recalled Frank’s telling me, during his officer’s training, about a course he had taken in withstanding interrogation. The basic principle, insofar as I remembered it, was to stick to the truth as much as humanly possible, altering only those details that must be kept secret. Less chance, the instructor explained, of slipping up in the minor aspects of one’s cover story. Well, we’d have to see how effective that was.
“Well, yes. I had been attacked, you see.”
He nodded, face alight with interest. “Aye? Attacked by whom?”
Tell the truth. “By English soldiers. In particular, by a man named Randall.”
The patrician face changed suddenly at the name. Though Colum continued to look interested, there was an increased intensity in the line of the mouth, and a deepening of the creases that bracketed it. Clearly that name was familiar. The MacKenzie chief sat back a bit, and steepled his fingers, regarding me carefully over them.
“Ah?” he said. “Tell me more.”
So, God help me, I told him more. I gave him in great detail the story of the confrontation between the Scots and Randall’s men, since he would be able to check that with Dougal. I told him the basic facts of my conversation with Randall, since I didn’t know how much the man Murtagh had overheard.
He nodded absorbedly, paying close attention.
“Aye,” he said. “But how did you come to be there in that spot? It’s far off the road to Inverness—you meant to take ship from there, I suppose?” I nodded and took a deep breath.
Now we entered perforce the realm of invention. I wished I had paid closer attention to Frank’s remarks on the subject of highwaymen, but I would have to do my best. I was a widowed lady of Oxfordshire, I replied (true, so far as it went), traveling with a manservant en route to distant relatives in France (that seemed safely remote). We had been set upon by highwaymen, and my servant had either been killed or run off. I had myself dashed into the wood on my horse, but been caught some distance from the road. While I had succeeded in escaping from the bandits, I had perforce to abandon my horse and all property thereon. And while wandering in the woods, I had run afoul of Captain Randall and his men.
I sat back a little, pleased with the story. Simple, neat, true in all checkable details. Colum’s face expressed no more than a polite attention. He was opening his mouth to ask me a