The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [21]
Shocked and disbelieving, Mary rushes into the hall, pursued by Claire, eager to prevent the scandal that will result if Mary is found. Dashing around a corner in pursuit, though, Claire forgets Mary entirely, when she crashes headfirst into a man coming the other way.
He let out a startled “Whoof!” as I struck him amidships, and clutched me by the arms to keep upright as we swayed and staggered together.
“I’m sorry,” I began, breathlessly.
“I thought you were—oh, Jesus H. Fucking Christ!”
My initial impression—that I had encountered Alexander Randall—had lasted no more than the split second necessary to see the eyes above that finely chiseled mouth. The mouth was much like Alex’s, bar the deep lines around it. But those cold eyes could belong to only one man.
The shock was so great that for a moment everything seemed paradoxically normal; I had an impulse to apologize, dust him off, and continue my pursuit, leaving him forgotten in the corridor, as just a chance encounter. My adrenal glands hastened to remedy this impression, dumping such a dose of adrenaline into my bloodstream that my heart contracted like a squeezed fist.
He was recovering his own breath by now, along with his momentarily shattered self-possession.
“I am inclined to concur with your sentiments, madam, if not precisely with their manner of expression.” Still clutching me by the elbows, he held me slightly away from him, squinting to see my face in the shadowed hall, I saw the shock of recognition blanch his features as my face came into the light. “Bloody hell, it’s you!” he exclaimed.
“I thought you were dead!” I wrenched at my arms, trying to free them from the iron-tight grip of Jonathan Randall.
He let go of one arm, in order to rub his middle, surveying me coldly. The thin, fine-cut features were bronzed and healthy; he gave no outward sign of having been trampled five months before by thirty quarter-ton beasts. Not so much as a hoofprint on his forehead.
Claire is shocked by the revelation that Jack Randall still lives, but even more distressed by the effects of this revelation on Jamie—and its possible repercussions.
Jamie sends her home in the carriage, and disappears. What has he done, what is he doing? He cannot challenge Randall openly at Sandringham’s house—but a challenge is certainly what he intends.
Desperate with fear and worry, Claire arrives back at Jared’s house, only to find an unexpected visitor—Jamie’s uncle, Dougal MacKenzie. An ardent Jacobite, Dougal is visiting Paris for undisclosed reasons of his own, but is concerned to hear of his nephew’s impending duel. Duelling is illegal, and likely to get the participants locked up in the Bastille—a development that would certainly put a damper on Jamie’s abilities to help Prince Charles.
Claire has a plan, conceived in desperation, and enlists Dougal’s help in carrying it out. She will go to the police and denounce Jack Randall as one of the men who attacked her in the Rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré. He is, of course, innocent of the charge, but the police will lock him up until he can prove his innocence—giving Claire time to find Jamie.
The scheme works, and Jamie returns to the house, thwarted of his prey and cold with fury. Jamie is bent on vengeance; nothing will quench the fires of his rage save Jack Randall’s blood. Claire understands, and would be more than willing not only to help, but to kill Randall herself—were it not for one thing: Frank.
Jack Randall is Frank’s six-times-great-grandfather; the child who will be next in the line of descent that leads to Frank has not yet been conceived. Claire implores Jamie to delay his vengeance only a little while—only a year; time enough for Randall to marry and sire a son. Then, with Frank safe … Jack Randall can die.
Jamie meets this request with an outburst of fury. How can she expect him to wait,