The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [643]
“Gold,” I said, raising my voice a little. “Whatever do you mean, gold? There isn’t any gold at River Run; Jocasta Cameron told you as much.”
He puffed air through his lips in genial disbelief.
“I will say as Mrs. Cameron is a better liar than yourself, dear one, but sure, I didn’t believe her, either. The doctor saw the gold, see.”
“What doctor?” A baby’s high-pitched cry came faintly through the bushes—Joan. I coughed, hoping to drown it out, and repeated, more loudly, “What doctor do you mean?”
“Rawls, I think was his name, or Rawlings.” Bonnet was frowning slightly, head turned toward the sound. “I’d not the pleasure of his acquaintance, though; I might be mistaken.”
“I’m sorry—I still have no idea what you’re talking about.” I was trying simultaneously to hold his gaze and to scan the ground nearby for anything that might be used as a weapon. Bonnet had a pistol in his belt, and a knife, but showed no disposition to draw either one. Why should he? A woman with an armload of two-year-old was not any sort of threat.
One thick blond brow flicked up, but he seemed in no great hurry, whatever he was about.
“No? Well, ’twas Wolff, as I was sayin’. It was a tooth to be drawn or somesuch; he met with this sawbones in Cross Creek. Bought the fellow a drink in reward, and spent the evening inside a wine-skin with him, in the end. Ye’ll know the Lieutenant’s weakness for the drink—the doctor was another sot, I hear, and the two of them thick as thieves before the dawn. Rawlings let out that he’d seen a great quantity of gold at River Run, for he’d just come from there, see?”
Rawlings had either passed out or sobered up enough to say no more, but the revelation had been enough to renew the Lieutenant’s determination to gain the hand—and property—of Jocasta Cameron.
“The lady would be havin’ none of him, though, and then she ups and declares as she’ll be takin’ the one-armed fella instead. ’Twas a cruel blow to the Lieutenant’s pride, alas.” He grinned at that, showing a missing molar on one side.
Lieutenant Wolff, furious and baffled, appealed to his particular friend, Randall Lillywhite, for advice.
“Why, that—so that’s why he arrested the priest at the Gathering? To prevent him marrying Mrs. Cameron to Duncan Innes?”
Bonnet nodded.
“That would be the way of it. A matter of delay, ye might say, so as to be havin’ the opportunity of lookin’ further into the matter.”
Said opportunity had occurred at the wedding. As we had theorized, someone—Lieutenant Wolff—had in fact attempted to drug Duncan Innes with a cup of punch spiked with laudanum. The plan had been to render him insensible and pitch him into the river. During the uproar occasioned by Duncan’s disappearance and presumedly accidental death, Wolff would have the chance to search the premises thoroughly for the gold—and eventually, to renew his addresses to Jocasta.
“But the black bitch drank the stuff herself,” he said dispassionately. “Didn’t die of it, worse luck—but she could have said who gave the cup to her, of course, and so Wolff slipped round and mixed ground glass into the gruel they were after feedin’ her.”
“What I want to know,” I said, “is just how you got involved in this. Why were you there at River Run?”
“And isn’t the Lieutenant the friend of my bosom these many years past, dear one? He came to me for help in disposing of the one-armed lad, so as he could take care to be seen in the midst of the party, enjoyin’ himself in all innocence whilst accident was befallin’ his rival.” He frowned slightly, tapping a finger on the hilt of his pistol.
“I would have done better to bash the Innes fella on the head and toss him in, once I saw the laudanum had gone astray. Couldn’t get at him, though—he spent half the day in the jakes, and someone always in there with him, bad cess to them.”
There was nothing on the ground near me that could possibly be used as a weapon. Twigs, leaves, scattered fragments of shell, a dead rat—well, that had worked for Germain, but I didn’t think Bonnet could be surprised twice in that fashion. Jemmy was losing