The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [47]
Despite this unsettling encounter, things seem to be progressing well; Mr. Willoughby charms the ladies, Claire is introduced and makes the social rounds, and Jamie eventually retires discreetly to the Governor’s office, with Lord John. Following him, Claire is detained by the crowd, and reaches the office a few minutes later—only to find Jamie holding Lord John Grey in fervent embrace.
The Governor’s shock at learning that I was Jamie’s wife was now at least partially explained; that one glimpse of unguarded, painful yearning had told me exactly how matters stood on his side. Jamie was another question altogether.
He was the Governor of Ardsmuir Prison he had said, casually. And less casually, on another occasion, D’ye ken what men in prison do?
I did know, but I would have sworn on Brianna’s head that Jamie didn’t; hadn’t, couldn’t, under any circumstances whatever. At least I would have sworn that before tonight. I closed my eyes, chest heaving, and tried not to think of what I had seen.
Shocked, and trying to make sense of what she has seen, Claire retreats, unseen, and makes her way back through the crowd. Unwilling to face Jamie immediately, she heads for the ladies retiring rooms. What she finds there, though, is not refuge—but murder.
Mina Alcott, a local widow with something of a reputation, lies with her throat cut, blood puddling beneath her head. And beyond the body is a line of footprints, leading toward the open window— the small neat prints of a felt-soled foot, outlined in blood.
The reception dissolves in hue and cry; soldiers are sent in instant pursuit of Mr. Willoughby, the militia is roused, and all the guests are questioned—particularly M. Alexandre de Provac, who appeared to be a close associate of the murderer. Left alone in the Governor’s office after her own questioning, Claire is not particularly pleased to be joined by the Governor himself.
Lord John had discovered the fan Claire had dropped in the hall; realizing that she had seen the embrace between himself and Jamie, he does not pretend that matters are not as they are—on his side, at least. But in the ensuing discussion, Claire learns what lies on Jamie’s side of the relationship, and exactly why Jamie insisted on coming first to see the Governor.
It was a portrait, an oval miniature, set in a carved frame of some fine-grained dark wood. I looked at the face, and sat down abruptly, my knees gone to water. I was only dimly aware of Grey’s face, floating above the desk like a cloud on the horizon, as I picked up the miniature to look at it more closely.
He might have been Bree’s brother, was my first thought. The second, coming with the force of a blow to the solar plexus, was “My God in heaven, he is Bree’s brother!”
The edgy conversation that follows leaves Claire with various bits of unwelcome information: the fact that Jamie has an illegitimate son, about whom he has not told her, the fact that he shares an intimate history with John Grey—and the fact that she feels an altogether unwilling sympathy with Grey. Both John and Claire love Jamie; both have, in a way, given him a child—and each of them is slightly jealous of the other.
Both jealousy and shock fade, though, when Jamie emerges from a long night of questioning and takes Claire home to Blue Mountain House. Drawn close together by fatigue and the shocking events of the night, they talk intimately, and Jamie confesses to Claire the fact of Willie’s existence, showing her a miniature of the boy; the twin of the one John Grey had shown her.
“I was afraid to tell ye,” he said, low-voiced. “For fear ye would think that perhaps I’d gone about spawning a dozen bastards… for fear ye’d think that I wouldna care for Brianna so much, if ye kent I had another child. But I do care, Claire—a great deal more