The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [71]
The cold feeling returned, sharp as though someone had pierced my lung with a sliver of ice.
“Oh, of course,” I said, as coolly as I could. “You want to know where he is, so that you can take pains not to go there, is that it?”
Something that might have been a smile flickered across his face.
“Oh, aye,” he said. “To be sure.” Given the scarcity of population in North Carolina in general, and the remoteness of Fraser’s Ridge in particular, the chances of our stumbling over Stephen Bonnet by accident were roughly equivalent to walking out of the front door and stepping on a jellyfish—and Jamie bloody knew it.
I narrowed my eyes at him. The corner of his wide mouth drew in for a moment, then relaxed, his eyes gone back to seriousness. There was precisely one good reason for his wanting to locate Stephen Bonnet—and I bloody knew that.
“Jamie,” I said, and put a hand on his arm again. “Leave him alone. Please.”
He put his own hand over mine, squeezing, but I felt no reassurance from the gesture.
“Dinna fash yourself, Sassenach. I’ve asked throughout the Gathering, all through the week, inquiring of men from Halifax to Charleston. There’s nay report of the man anywhere in the colony.”
“Good,” I said. It was, but the fact did not escape me that he had been hunting Bonnet with assiduity—and had told me nothing of it. Nor did it escape me that he had not promised to stop looking.
“Leave him alone,” I repeated softly, my eyes holding his. “There’s enough trouble coming; we don’t need more.” He had drawn close to me, the better to forestall interruption, and I could feel the power of him where he touched me, his arm beneath my hand, his thigh brushing mine. Strength of bone and fire of mind, all wrapped round a core of steel-hard purpose that would make him a deadly projectile, once set on any course.
“Ye say it is your business.” His eyes were steady, the blue of them bleached pale with autumn light. “I know it is mine. Are ye with me, then?”
The ice blossomed in my blood, spicules of cold panic. Damn him! He meant it. There was one reason to seek out Stephen Bonnet, and one reason only.
I swung round on my heel, pulling him with me, so we stood pressed close together, arms linked, looking toward the fire. Brianna, Marsali, and the Bugs were now listening raptly to Fergus, who was recounting something, his face alight with cold and laughter. Jemmy’s face was turned toward us over his mother’s shoulder, round-eyed and curious.
“They are your business,” I said, my voice pitched low and trembling with intensity. “And mine. Hasn’t Stephen Bonnet done enough damage to them, to us?”
“Aye, more than enough.”
He pulled me closer to him; I could feel the heat of him through his clothes, but his voice was cold as the rain. Fergus’s glance flicked toward us; he smiled warmly at me and went on with his story. To him, no doubt we looked like a couple sharing a brief moment of affection, heads bent together in closeness.
“I let him go,” Jamie said quietly. “And evil came of it. Can I let him wander free, knowing what he is, and that I have loosed him to spread ruin? It is like loosing a rabid dog, Sassenach—ye wouldna have me do that, surely.”
His hand was hard, his fingers cold on mine.
“You let him go once; the Crown caught him again—if he’s free now, it’s not your fault!”
“Perhaps not my fault that he is free,” he agreed, “but surely it is my duty to see he doesna stay so—if I can.”
“You have a duty to your family!”
He took my chin in his hand and bent his head, his eyes boring into mine.
“Ye think I would risk them? Ever?”
I held myself stiff, resisting for a long moment, then let my shoulders slump, my eyelids drop in capitulation. I took a long, trembling breath. I wasn’t giving in altogether.
“There’s risk in hunting, Jamie,” I said softly. “You know it.”
His grip relaxed, but his hand still cupped my face, his thumb tracing the outline of my lips.
“I know it,” he whispered. The mist of his breath touched my cheek. “But I have been a hunter for a verra long time, Claire. I willna bring danger