The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon [146]
He got up, used the pot, then splashed water from the ewer over his face and, tilting the pitcher, drank most of the rest. It was nearly evening; his room was growing dark, and he could smell the luscious scents of tea preparing downstairs: fried sardines, fresh buttered crumpets, lemon sponge, cucumber sandwiches, sliced ham. He swallowed, suddenly ravenous.
He was strongly tempted to go down and have his tea instantly, but there were things he wanted more than food. Clarity, for one.
He can’t have done it for me. The thought carried some regret; he wished it were true. But he was realist enough to know that Fraser wouldn’t have gone to such lengths merely to distract attention from Twelvetrees’s accusation of sodomy, no matter what he personally thought of Grey at the moment—and Grey didn’t even know that.
He realized that he was unlikely to divine Fraser’s motives without asking the man. And he was reasonably sure where Fraser had gone; there weren’t many places he could go, in all justice.
Justice. There were a good many different ways to achieve that enigmatic state of affairs, in descending levels of social acceptability. Statute. Court-martial. Duello. Murder.
He sat down on the bed and thought for a few moments. Then he rang for paper and ink, wrote a brief note, folded it, and, without sealing it, gave it to the servant with instructions for its delivery.
He at once felt better, having taken action, and, smoothing his crumpled neckcloth, went in search of fried sardines.
31
Betrayal
FRASER HAD, AS GREY THOUGHT, GONE BACK TO ARGUS House. When he arrived himself, Grey had barely ascertained as much from Nasonby when Hal came storming up the steps behind him, his tempestuous entrance nearly jerking the door from the butler’s grasp.
“Where is that bloody Scotchman?” he demanded, dividing a glare between Grey and Nasonby.
That was fast, Grey thought. News of what had happened at the Beefsteak had clearly spread through the coffeehouses and clubs of London within hours.
“Here, Your Grace,” said a deep, cold voice, and Jamie Fraser emerged from the library, Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful in his hand. “Did you wish to speak with me?”
Grey had a moment’s relief that Fraser had finished the collected disputations of Marcus Tullius Cicero; Burke would make much less of a dent in Hal’s skull if it came to blows—which looked likely at the moment.
“Yes, I bloody wish to speak with you! Come in here! You, too!” He turned to glower at Grey, including him in this command, then swept past Fraser into the library.
Jamie walked across the room and sat down deliberately, looking coolly at Hal. The door had barely closed behind them when Hal swung round to face Fraser, face livid with shock and fury.
“What have you done?” Hal was making an effort to control himself, but his right hand was flexing, closing and unclosing, as though he were keeping himself with an effort from hitting something. “You knew what I—what we”—he corrected himself, with a brief nod at Grey—“intended. We have done you the honor of including you in all our counsels, and this is how you repay—”
He stopped abruptly, because Fraser had risen to his feet. Fast. He took a quick step toward Hal, and Hal, by pure reflex, took a step back. His face was flushed now, but his color was nothing to Fraser’s.
“Honor,” Fraser said, and his voice shook with fury. “You dare speak to me of honor?”
“I—”
A large fist crashed down on the table, and all the ornaments rattled. The bud vase fell over.
“Be still! Ye seize a man who is your captive—and your captive by honor alone, sir, for believe me, if I had none, I should have been in France these four years past! Seize and compel him by threat to do your bidding, and by that bidding to betray ancient comrades, to forswear vows, betray friendship and loyalty, to become your very creature … and ye think ye do me honor to count me an Englishman!?”
The air seemed to shiver with