The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [67]
The fog had closed over the deck. There was nothing visible save the glowing coal of Bonnet’s cigar, a burning cyclops in the mist. The man might be a devil indeed, one eye closed to human misery, one eye open to the dark. And here Roger stood quite literally between the devil and the deep blue sea, with his fate shining silver in the palm of his hand.
“It is my life; I’ll make the call,” he said, and was surprised to hear his voice calm and steady. “Tails—tails is mine.” He threw, and caught, clasped his one hand hard against the back of the other, trapped the coin and its unknown sentence.
He closed his eyes and thought just once of Brianna. I’m sorry, he said silently to her, and lifted his hand.
A warm breath passed over his skin, and then he felt a spot of coolness on the back of his hand as the coin was picked up, but he didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes.
It was some time before he realized that he stood alone.
SAFELY ARRIVED INWILMINGTON, Brianna faces one more obstacle on her journey to find her parents; her maid, Lizzie, has contracted a mysterious fever that Brianna fears may be malaria; it comes and goes, leaving Lizzie sweat-drenched and shaking with chills. While the recurrent fever traps them in Wilmington for the moment, Lizzie’s sickness merely reinforces Brianna’s urgent need to find the Frasers—she must find her mother, who will know what to do for the fever, before Lizzie dies.
Leaving Lizzie in the care of the landlady, Brianna goes to sell their horses, in preparation for the journey upriver to Cross Creek; Jocasta Cameron will know where to find Claire and Jamie, she hopes. The fever breaks, as it has before, and Lizzie—weak but clear-eyed—greets Brianna upon her return to the inn with news that she has learned of Jamie Fraser’s whereabouts; he will be in the town of Cross Creek, a week’s travel upriver, come Monday week.
Fired by excitement, Brianna makes the arrangements to travel by canoe to Cross Creek—and returns to the inn in the evening, where she is found by Roger, who has jumped ship in Edenton, made his way to Wilmington, and has been searching the inns and taverns of the town.
His greeting is not quite what he might have hoped; Brianna’s initial joy at seeing him turns at once to shocked dismay. What, she demands to know, is he doing here? Looking for her, he heatedly replies, and what was her notion in rushing off through the stones without a word to him?
She arranged to deceive him, she informs him, because she was convinced that if he discovered what she was about to do, he would have tried his best to stop her. Roger can hardly deny the truth of that— he did in fact try to stop her, and can only hope she never finds out how.
But now what are they to do? she asks in evident distress. So far as she could determine, the only way of navigation through the currents of time is to have a point of attachment—a person whose presence in a time can draw the traveler to a safe haven.
“GETTING BACK! You have to have somebody to go to—somebody you care for. You’re the only person I love at that end—or you were! How am I going to get back, if you’re here? And how will you get back, if I’m here?”
He stopped dead, fear and anger both forgotten, and his hands clamped tight on her wrists to stop her hitting him again.
“That’s why? That’s why you wouldn’t tell me? Because you love me? Jesus Christ!” She reached up and took hold of his wrist, but didn’t pull his hand away. He felt her swallow.
“Right,” he whispered. “Say it. I want to hear it.”
“I… love… you,” she said, between her teeth. “Got it?”
“Aye, I’ve got it.” He took her face between his hands, very gently, and drew her down. She came, arms trembling and giving way beneath her.
“You’re sure,” he said.
“Yes. What are we going to do?” she said, and began to cry.
“We.” She’d said we. She’d said she was sure.
Roger lay in the dust of the road, bruised, filthy, and starving, with a woman trembling and weeping against his chest, now and then giving him a small thump with