The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [245]
“I see,” I said slowly. “So little Nameless will inherit all Beardsley’s property, even after they discover that he can’t have been her father. That’s . . . reassuring.”
His eyes met mine for a moment, then dropped.
“Aye,” he said quietly. “Reassuring.” There might have been a hint of bitterness in his voice, but if there was, it vanished without trace as he coughed and cleared his throat.
“So ye see,” he went on, matter-of-factly, “she’s in no danger of neglect. An Orphan Court would give Beardsley’s property—goats and all”—he added, with a faint grin—“to whomever is her guardian, to be used for her welfare.”
“And her guardians’,” I said, suddenly recalling the look Richard Brown had exchanged with his brother, when telling his wife the child would be “well cared for.” I rubbed my nose, which had gone numb at the tip.
“So the Browns would take her willingly, then.”
“Oh, aye,” he agreed. “They kent Beardsley; they’ll ken well enough how valuable she is. It would be a delicate matter to get her away from them, in fact—but if ye want the child, Sassenach, then ye’ll have her. I promise ye that.”
The whole discussion was giving me a very queer feeling. Something almost like panic, as though I were being pushed by some unseen hand toward the edge of a precipice. Whether that was a dangerous cliff or merely a foothold for a larger view remained to be seen.
I saw in memory the gentle curve of the baby’s skull, and the tissue-paper ears, small and perfect as shells, their soft pink whorls fading into an otherworldly tinge of blue.
To give myself a little time to organize my thoughts, I asked, “What did you mean, it would be a delicate matter to get her away from the Browns? They’ve no claim on her, have they?”
He shook his head.
“Nay, but none of them shot her father, either.”
“What—oh.” That was a potential trap that I hadn’t seen; the possibility that Jamie might be accused of killing Beardsley in order to get his hands on the trader’s farm and goods, by then adopting the orphan. I swallowed, the back of my throat tasting faintly of bile.
“But no one knows how Aaron Beardsley died, except us,” I pointed out. Jamie had told them only that the trader had had an apoplexy and died, leaving out his own role as the angel of deliverance.
“Us and Mrs. Beardsley,” he said, a faint tone of irony in his voice. “And if she should come back, and accuse me of murdering her husband? It would be hard to deny, and I’d taken the child.”
I forbore from asking why she might do such a thing; in light of what she had already done, it was clear enough that Fanny Beardsley might do anything.
“She won’t come back,” I said. Whatever my own uncertainties about the rest of it, I was sure that in this respect at least, I spoke the truth. Wherever Fanny Beardsley had gone—or why—I was sure she had gone for good.
“Even if she did,” I went on, pushing aside my vision of snow drifting through an empty wood, and a wrapped bundle lying by the burned-out fire, “I was there. I could say what happened.”
“If they’d let ye,” Jamie agreed. “Which they wouldna. You’re a marrit woman, Sassenach; ye couldna testify in a court, even if ye weren’t my own wife.”
That brought me up short. Living as we did in the wilderness, I seldom encountered the more outrageous legal injustices of the times in a personal way, but I was aware of some of them. He was right. In fact, as a married woman, I had no legal rights at all. Ironically enough, Fanny Beardsley did, being now a widow. She could testify in a court of law—if she wished.
“Well, bloody hell!” I said, with feeling. Jamie laughed, though quietly, then coughed.
I snorted, with a satisfactory explosion of white vapor. I wished momentarily that I was a dragon; it would have been extremely enjoyable to huff flame and brimstone on a number of people, starting with Fanny Beardsley. Instead, I sighed, my harmless white breath vanishing in the dimness of the lean-to.
“I see what you mean by ‘delicate,’ then,” I said.
“Aye—but not impossible.” He cupped a large, cold hand along