The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [631]
“Mr. Fraser has made other arrangements,” Roger said, with equal politeness. “He sent me to say as much to Mr. Lyon.”
That seemed to take Lillywhite aback. He pursed his lips, and worked them in and out, staring hard at Roger, as though to estimate his truthfulness. Roger stared blandly back, hoping that Jamie wouldn’t reappear inopportunely and put paid to his story.
“How did you get here?” Lillywhite demanded abruptly. “If you did not travel on that boat?”
“I came overland from Edenton.” Blessing Duff for the information, he waved casually over his shoulder. “There’s a shell road back there.”
The two of them stared at him, but he stared back, undaunted.
“Something smells fishy, and it isn’t the marsh.” Anstruther sniffed loudly in illustration, then coughed and snorted. “Phew! What a stink.”
Lillywhite disregarded this, but went on looking at Roger with a narrowed eye.
“I think perhaps I must inconvenience you for a little longer, Mr. MacKenzie,” he said, and turned to the Sheriff. “Put him in with the Russians—if that’s what they are.”
Anstruther accepted this commission with alacrity, prodding Roger in the buttocks with the muzzle of his musket as he forced him toward the shed where the Russians were imprisoned. Roger gritted his teeth and ignored it, wondering how high the Sheriff might bounce, if picked up and slammed down on the boards of the dock.
The Russians were all clustered in the corner of the shed, the women tending solicitously to their wounded husband and father, but they all looked up at Roger’s entrance, with a babble of incomprehensible greetings and questions. He gave them as much of a smile as he could manage, and waved them back, pressing his ear to the wall of the shed in order to hear what Lillywhite and company were up to now.
He had hoped they would simply accept his story and depart—and they might still do that, once they satisfied themselves that there really was no whisky hidden anywhere near the landing. Another possibility had occurred to him, though; one that was making him increasingly uneasy.
It was clear enough from the behavior of the men that they had intended to take the whisky by force—if there had been any. And the way Lillywhite had held back, concealing himself . . . it wouldn’t do, obviously, for a county magistrate to be revealed as having connections with smugglers and pirates.
As it was, since there was no whisky, Roger could report no actual wrong-doing on Lillywhite’s part—it was illegal to deal in contraband, of course, but such arrangements were so common on the coast that the mere rumor of it wasn’t likely to damage Lillywhite’s reputation in his own inland county. On the other hand, Roger was alone—or Lillywhite thought he was.
There was clearly some connection between Lillywhite and Stephen Bonnet—and if Roger and Jamie Fraser began to ask questions, chances were good that it would come to light. Was whatever Lillywhite was engaged in sufficiently dangerous that he might think it worth killing Roger to prevent his talking? He had the uneasy feeling that Lillywhite and Anstruther might well come to that conclusion.
They could simply take him into the marsh, kill him and sink his body, then return to their companions, announcing that he had gone back to Edenton. Even if someone eventually traced the members of Lillywhite’s gang, and if they could be persuaded to talk—both matters of low probability—nothing could be proved.
There was a lot of thumping and banging outside, gradually succeeded by more distant calling, as the sheds were re-searched, and the search then spread to the nearby marsh.
It occurred to Roger that Lillywhite and Anstruther might well have intended to kill him and Jamie after taking the whisky. In which case, there was still less to prevent them doing it now; they would be already prepared for it. As for the Russians—would they harm them? He hoped not, but there was no telling.
A light pattering rang on the tin roof of the shed;