The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [76]
With the strength of her outburst fading fast, she steps back far enough to get Bonnet at gunpoint, and forces him to tell her what has been going on. Prior to his capture, he had been running cheap contraband alcohol up the river, exchanging it for expensive brandy and wine stocked in the warehouse, which Murchison had abstracted. The cheap alcohol was stored in casks marked with the Crowns stamp, the good liquor sold off quietly. But since Bonnet’s capture, one of Murchison’s soldiers, a Private Hodgepile, had gotten wind of the scheme and had been asking questions.
The plan was therefore that Murchison would release Bonnet, after setting fuses in the warehouse and spilling several barrels of highly flammable turpentine. The warehouse would go up in flames, concealing all evidence of the smuggling—and Bonnet would escape, being assumed dead in the conflagration.
Dancing with impatience, Bonnet urges her to let him go. The fuses have been set and lit, he tells her; the warehouse is going to explode overhead at any moment! She steps back, a little dazed, but motions to the unconscious Murchison, insisting that Bonnet cannot mean to leave him behind—the man is still alive.
Pragmatic as always, Bonnet takes the knife from Murchison’s belt and cuts his throat. Observing that he is no longer alive, and thus presents no moral dilemma, he strides to the door, urging Brianna to leave as well—and promptly.
Her first impulse is to do just that—but she cannot go without finding out whether Lord John is truly dead. A frantic search for a pulse reveals him to be badly injured, but not quite dead. A smallish man, he is still too much for her to carry by herself, but she cannot, will not, leave him.
At this point, though, Bonnet returns, exhorting her to leave, and quickly! Shocked, but still retaining her presence of mind, Brianna brings up her musket, and insists that he bring Lord John to safety. Bonnet is not pleased, but is as always practical, and does as she says. They exit onto the riverbank below the loading ramp of the warehouse, and scramble to safety as the flames of the burning warehouse roar into the night sky.
Dumping Lord John on the ground, Bonnet turns to escape, but pauses to invite Brianna to accompany him. She declines, and as Bonnet leaves, he reaches into his mouth and extracts something he had hidden there—the black diamond, originally stolen from the Frasers on the river.
“For his maintenance, then,” he said, and grinned at her. “Take care of him, sweetheart!”
And then he was gone, bounding long-legged up the riverbank, silhouetted like a demon in the flickering light. The turpentine flowing into the water had caught fire, and roiling billows of scarlet light shot upward, floating pillars of fire that lit the riverbank bright as day.
Lord John survives, much to Brianna’s relief. Claire and Jamie return safely, to her even greater relief, and she and Jamie are reconciled, though Roger has not yet returned.
Brianna’s child is born—a lusty boy, who resembles neither of his putative fathers. But, as Jamie states, “If I dinna ken who his father was, at least I know who his grandsire is!” and the family returns—with its new addition—to the house on Fraser’s Ridge.
It is a bright summer’s day soon thereafter when a ragged figure limps slowly into the dooryard—Roger, who has made his choice.
“I don’t imagine it pleases you any more than it does me,” he said, in his rusty voice, “but you are my nearest kinsman. Cut me. I’ve come to swear an oath in our shared blood.”
I couldn’t tell whether Jamie hesitated or not; time seemed to have stopped, the air in the room crystallized around us. Then I watched Jamie