The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [569]
“Yeah?” Roger drank the second cup more slowly, assembling his thoughts. Then he put down the cup and swung his legs out of bed, reaching for the discarded shirt that hung from the peg. “Okay. Tell him I’ll be there in a minute.”
She kissed him briefly and left, pausing long enough to untack the hide over the window and let in a brilliant shaft of light and chilly air.
He dressed slowly, his mind still pleasantly torpid. As he bent to dredge his stockings out from under the bed, though, something in the tumbled bedclothes caught his eye, just under the edge of the pillow. He reached out slowly and picked it up. The “auld wifie”—the tiny fertility charm, its ancient pink stone smooth in the sun, surprisingly heavy in his hand.
“I will be damned,” he said, aloud. He stood staring at it for a moment, then bent and tucked it gently back beneath the pillow.
BRIANNA HAD PUT the visitor in Jamie’s study—what most of the tenants still called the speak-a-word room. Roger stopped for a moment in the corridor, checking to be sure all his bodily parts were present and attached. There hadn’t been time to shave, but he’d combed his hair; there was a limit to what this Christie might expect, under the circumstances.
Three faces turned toward the door as he came in, surprising him. Bree hadn’t thought to warn him that Christie had outriders. Still, the elder man, a square-set gentleman with trimly cut black hair streaked with gray, was obviously Thomas Christie; the dark-haired younger man was no more than twenty, and just as obviously Christie’s son.
“Mr. Christie?” He offered the older man his hand. “I’m Roger MacKenzie; I’m married to Jamie Fraser’s daughter—you’ve met my wife, I think.”
Christie looked mildly surprised, and looked over Roger’s shoulder, as though expecting Jamie to materialize behind him. Roger cleared his throat; his voice was still thick from sleep, and thus even more hoarse than it usually was.
“I’m afraid my father-in-law is . . . not available at present. Could I be of service to you?”
Christie frowned at him, assessing his potential, then nodded slowly. He took Roger’s hand, and shook it firmly. To his astonishment, Roger felt something both familiar and grossly unexpected; the distinctive pressure against his knuckle of a Masonic greeting. He had not experienced that in years, and it was more reflex than reason that caused him to respond with what he hoped was the proper countersign. Evidently it was satisfactory; Christie’s severe expression eased slightly, and he let go.
“Perhaps ye may, Mr. MacKenzie, perhaps ye may,” Christie said. He fixed a piercing gaze on Roger. “I wish to find land on which to settle with my family—and I was told that Mr. Fraser might feel himself in a position to put something suitable in my way.”
“That might be possible,” Roger replied cautiously. What the hell? he thought. Had Christie just been trying it on at a venture, or had he reason to expect that sign would be recognized? If he did—that presumably meant that he knew Jamie Fraser would recognize it, and thought his son-in-law might, as well. Jamie Fraser, a Freemason? The thought had never so much as crossed Roger’s mind, and Jamie himself had certainly never spoken of it.
“Please—do sit down,” he said abruptly, motioning to the visitors. Christie’s family—the son and a girl who might be either Christie’s daughter or the son’s wife—had risen as well when Roger came in, standing behind the paterfamilias like attendants behind some visiting potentate.
Feeling more than slightly self-conscious, Roger waved them back to their stools, and sat down himself behind Jamie’s desk. He plucked one of the quills from the blue salt-glazed jar, hoping this would make him seem more businesslike. Christ, what questions ought he to ask a potential tenant?
“Now, then, Mr. Christie.” He smiled at them, conscious of his unshaven jaws. “My wife says that you were acquainted with my father-in-law, in Scotland?”
“In Ardsmuir prison,” Christie answered,