The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [287]
My features fixed in what I hoped was a pleasant smile, I sank into a formal curtsy, spreading my embroidered skirts to best advantage.
“Mr. Campbell.” I glanced covertly behind him, but Lieutenant Wolff had fortunately vanished in the pursuit of alcoholic sustenance.
“Mrs. Fraser. Your servant, ma’am.” Farquard made me a graceful leg in reply. An elderly, desiccated-looking man, Mr. Campbell was sedate as usual in black broadcloth, a small burst of ruffles at the throat being his only concession to the festivities.
He looked over my shoulder, frowning slightly in puzzlement. “I had seen—I thought I had seen your husband with you?”
“Oh. Well, I think he’s . . . er . . . gone . . .” I twiddled my fan delicately toward the trees where the necessary facilities lurked, separated from the main house by an aesthetic distance and a screen of small white pines.
“Ah, I see. Just so.” Campbell cleared his throat, and gestured to the man who accompanied him. “Mrs. Fraser, may I present Major Donald MacDonald?”
Major MacDonald was a rather hawk-nosed but handsome gentleman in his late thirties, with the weathered face and erect bearing of a career soldier, and a pleasant smile belied by a pair of sharp blue eyes, the same pale, vivid shade as Brianna’s dress.
“Your servant, ma’am.” He bowed, very gracefully. “May I say, ma’am, how particularly that color becomes you?”
“You may,” I said, relaxing a little. “Thank you.”
“The Major is but recently arrived in Cross Creek. I assured him he would find no greater opportunity to pursue acquaintance with his countrymen and familiarize himself with his surroundings.” Farquard swept a hand around the terrace, encompassing the party—which did indeed comprise a Who’s Who of Scottish society along the Cape Fear.
“Indeed,” the Major said politely. “I have not heard so many Scottish names since last I was in Edinburgh. Mr. Campbell gives me to understand that your husband is the nephew of Mrs. Cameron—or Mrs. Innes, perhaps I should say?”
“Yes. Have you met Mrs. . . . er . . . Innes yet?” I glanced toward the far end of the terrace. Still no sign of Duncan, let alone Roger or Jamie. Blast it, where was everybody? Holding summit conferences in the necessary house?
“No, but I shall look forward to presenting my compliments. The late Mr. Cameron was by way of being an acquaintance of my father, Robert MacDonald of Stornoway.” He inclined his wigged head a respectful inch in the direction of the small white marble building at the side of the lawn—the mausoleum that presently sheltered the fleshly remnants of Hector Cameron. “Has your husband any connection with the Frasers of Lovat, by chance?”
With an internal groan, I recognized a Scottish spiderweb in the making. The meeting of any two Scots invariably began with the casting out of skeins of inquiry until enough strands of relation and acquaintanceship had stuck to form a useful network. I tended to become entangled in the sticky strands of sept and clan, myself, ending up like a fat, juicy fly, thoroughly trapped and at the mercy of my questioner.
Jamie had survived the intrigues of French and Scottish politics for years by means of such knowledge, though—skating precariously along the secret strands of such webs, keeping away from the sticky snares of loyalty and betrayal that had doomed so many others. I settled myself to pay attention, struggling to place this MacDonald among the thousand others of his ilk.
MacDonald of Keppoch, MacDonald of the Isles, MacDonald of Clanranald, MacDonald of Sleat. How many kinds of MacDonald were there, anyway? I wondered, a little crossly. Surely one or two should be sufficient to most purposes.
MacDonald of the Isles, evidently; the Major’s family hailed from the Isle of Harris. I kept one eye out during the interrogation, but Jamie had safely gone to earth.
Farquard Campbell—no mean player himself—seemed to be enjoying the verbal game of battledore and shuttlecock, his dark eyes flicking back and forth between me and the Major with a look of amusement. The amusement faded into a look of surprise