The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [27]
The plan works, at least initially. But things go quickly wrong when Claire discovers that the battle she thought already over has in fact not yet begun. With all the English officers engaged in preparations, no one has time to spare for her—and she is quickly sent South, under guard as a suspicious person. Trying and failing to escape, she is delivered at last to an unexpected destination in northern England— a manor called Bellhurst. Her host is also unexpected: the Duke of Sandringham.
Hearing of the astonishing case of the Englishwoman held hostage, the Duke has shrewdly guessed who the Englishwoman must be, and arranged to have Claire delivered to him, to serve as bait for Jamie Fraser. In an edgy interview with the Duke, Claire learns the truth—or part of it. It was the Duke who arranged the attacks on Jamie’s life and on Claire’s, in Paris, in an effort to remove an influential source of support for the Stuart cause. The man who led the attack in the Rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré was Albert Danton, the Duke’s valet—an attack that ironically prevented the marriage of the Duke’s goddaughter, Mary Hawkins.
Jamie does follow Claire, but succeeds in sneaking into the mansion undetected, where he kills Danton and releases both Claire and Mary. The expedition is not without cost: Hugh Munro, a friend of Jamie’s who sought to warn him, is taken by the Duke’s men and hanged. Accompanied by Murtagh, who carries away a bag of loot from the mansion, Jamie and his men head north, pausing for the melancholy duty of delivering Hugh’s body to his wife.
Murtagh laid the bag on the floor at my feet, then straightened up and looked from me to Mary, to Hugh Munro’s widow, and at last to Jamie, who looked as puzzled as I felt. Having thus assured himself of his audience, Murtagh bowed formally to me, a lock of wet dark hair falling free over his brow.
“I bring ye your vengeance, lady, ”he said, as quietly as I’d ever heard him speak. He straightened and inclined his head in turn to Mary and Mrs. Munro. “And justice for the wrong done to ye.”
Mary sneezed, and wiped her nose hastily with a fold of her plaid. She stared at Murtagh, eyes wide and baffled. I gazed down at the bulging saddlebag, feeling a sudden deep chill that owed nothing to the weather outside. But it was Hugh Munro’s widow who sank to her knees, and with steady hands opened the bag and drew out the head of the Duke of Sandringham.
Returning north with all speed, the Frasers reach Edinburgh. While Jamie is impatient to push on and join the Highland army—where the men of Lallybroch are—Mary Hawkins has one small request: that he and Claire will attend as witnesses to her marriage.
A marriage not to the dying Alexander Randall, but to his brother, Jonathan. Mary is with child, and Alex wishes her to have the protection of name and family— a protection that he cannot give her himself. As a curate, though, he can perform the marriage between his lover and his brother; a final act of desperation before his death.
So the mystery of Frank Randall’s descent is solved; but Claire has no time to contemplate it. Disaster is approaching like storm clouds over the Highland peaks. The Highland army is headed for Culloden, and destruction—threatening to take with it the men of Lallybroch. The Frasers hurry northward, hiding, starving, pressing on to their final confrontation with history.
The Frasers arrive at Culloden House on the eve of battle, to find chaos and despair. Starving men lie in mud and rags, sleeping in exhaustion from a long and futile march. Tomorrow they will stand on the moor, to be cut down by English cannon fire.
Taking refuge in a small attic at the top of the house, Claire tells Jamie that there is one last,