The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [34]
A bargain is struck; Grey will have Jamie’s irons removed, if Jamie will agree to translate the stranger’s ravings, and keep them secret between Grey and himself. Jamie abides by his bargain, but does not tell Grey that he recognizes the man— Duncan Kerr—nor that the man’s ravings hold a kind of sense beyond their words.
Duncan spoke of “the white witch.” To Jamie, the white witch is the woman he has lost: Claire, his wife. He cannot imagine what she might have to do with the islands or the treasure Kerr describes, and yet … he cannot ignore the man’s words. Three days following the stranger’s death, Jamie Fraser escapes from Ardsmuir Prison.
Recaptured, Jamie refuses to speak of his reasons—or of his discoveries, if any. Determined to find out whether the treasure exists, Grey overcomes his personal feelings and invites Jamie to resume the custom followed with the previous governor: weekly dinners, at which Jamie, as chief and spokesman for the prisoners, would present requests and problems. Grey learns little regarding the treasure— until he thinks of blackmailing Jamie with threats against his family. Forced to reveal the truth—or part of it—Jamie confesses that he did find a treasure: not French gold, but a small cache of ancient coins and gems. This treasure, he informs Grey, he threw into the sea; unable to make use of it himself, he saw no reason why the English should have it.
Grey reluctantly accepts Jamie’s story— but continues their meetings, gradually coming to the realization that his own feelings are changing; far from regarding Jamie Fraser with suspicion and anger, he is becoming attracted to the man, both physically and mentally. Worse—he is falling in love. When Grey steels himself to make a tentative approach, though, he is rejected with bruising finality, and all cordial relations between them are severed. The severance is made final when Jamie takes responsibility for possession of a bit of clan tartan—a crime, by the English law passed after Culloden. The penalty is flogging, and Grey—sick at the thought—is obliged to have it carried out.
ROGER IS GETTING CLOSER; he and Claire have found the proof of Jamie’s survival, found the record of his name on the prison rolls at Ardsmuir. He did survive, he was alive—for how long? What became of him then?
THE PRISONERS OF ARDSMUIR are transported to the American Colonies, there to serve as indentured labor—with one exception. As a convicted traitor, Jamie’s sentence cannot be commuted, save at the King’s pleasure. Instead of transportation, he is sent to Helwater, a farm in the Lake District, there to serve as a groom. At first convinced that this is Lord John’s revenge—to have him sentenced to menial work, where Grey can see him and gloat—Jamie finally comes to realize what Grey has really done: saved him from the deadly hardships of transportation and slave labor, and given him the nearest thing to freedom that could be managed.
If it is not true freedom, he does at least have light and air, free movement and the company of horses. For the first time since leaving Lallybroch, Jamie begins to find some small measure of content, living under an alias, as Alex MacKenzie.
This relative peace is threatened by the daughter of the house, Geneva Dunsany. A spoiled, headstrong girl with little regard for anyone’s feelings but her own, she has taken a liking to Jamie—much to his alarm. Alarm becomes outrage when Geneva informs him that she is to be married, against her will—but before submitting to a marriage with the elderly Earl of Ellesmere, she is determined to have her virginity taken by someone more attractive—Jamie.
Nothing, he informs Geneva, will induce him to come to her bed. Nothing? Nothing, save the threat she smilingly produces—an intercepted letter from his sister, containing information that would provoke an English inquiry into