The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon [49]
He missed the boy with a sudden pang, wishing he had Willie perched on his shoulders now, grabbing at his ears and giggling at the puppets. Would Willie remember him if he was gone for months?
Well, he’d just have to find Siverly fast. Because he was going back to Helwater.
He could feel the child’s imagined weight on his shoulders, warm and heavy, smelling faintly of wee and strawberry jam. There were some chains you wore because you wanted to.
“WHERE THE BLOODY HELL have you been?” Hal demanded without preamble. “And what in God’s name happened to you?” His eye roamed over Grey’s clothes, retrieved from the Beefsteak. The club’s steward had done his best, but the overall effect was shrunken, stained, faded, and generally far from fashionable.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I got soaked in the rain and stopped the night with a friend,” Grey replied equably. He felt cheerful. Relaxed and solidly at peace. Not even Hal’s bad temper or the imminent prospect of meeting Jamie Fraser could disturb him. “And where is our guest?”
Hal drew in a long, exasperated breath.
“He’s sitting under a tree in the park.”
“What on earth for?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. Harry Quarry came for tea—I was expecting you to be here, by the way”—Hal gave him an eyeball, which he ignored—“and when Fraser came in, he took one look at Harry and walked straight out of the house without a by-your-leave. I only know where he is because I’d told one of the footmen to follow him if he went out.”
“He’ll like that, I’m sure,” Grey said. “For God’s sake, Hal. Harry was governor at Ardsmuir before me; surely you knew that?”
Hal looked irritably blank. “Possibly. So?”
“He put Fraser in irons. For eighteen months—and left him that way when he came back to London.”
“Oh.” Hal considered that, frowning. “I see. How was I meant to know that, for heaven’s sake?”
“Well, you would have,” Grey replied crushingly, “if you’d had the common sense to tell me what the devil you were doing, rather than—oh, hallo, Harry. Didn’t know you were still here.”
“So I gathered. Where did Fraser go?”
Harry looked rather grim, Grey saw. And he was in full uniform. No bloody wonder Fraser had left; he’d likely seen Harry’s presence as a calculated insult, an attempt to further impress his own helplessness upon him.
This realization appeared to be dawning on Hal, too.
“Damn, Harry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had a history with Fraser.”
History, Grey thought. One way of putting it. Just as well he hadn’t arrived in time for tea. He’d no idea what James Fraser might have done—confronted simultaneously and without warning by the man who’d put him in fetters, and by the one who’d had him flogged, in addition to the man who was currently blackmailing him—but whatever he might have done, Grey wouldn’t have blamed him for doing it.
“I’d asked Harry to come so that we might discuss the Siverly affair and so that Harry could tell you what—and who—he knows in Ireland,” Hal went on, turning to Grey. “But I didn’t think to tell Harry about Fraser ahead of time.”
“Not your fault, old man,” Harry said, gruff. He squared his shoulders and straightened his lapels. “I’d best go and talk to him, hadn’t I?”
“And say what, exactly?” Grey asked, out of sheer inability to imagine what could be said in the circumstances.
Harry shrugged. “Offer him satisfaction, if he likes. Don’t see that there’s much else to be done.”
The Grey brothers exchanged a look of perfect comprehension and suppressed horror. The implications of a duel between a regimental colonel and a paroled prisoner in the custody of the colonel of the regiment, putting aside the complete illegality of the proceedings, and the very real possibility that one of them might well kill or maim the other …
“Harry—” Hal began, in measured tones, but John interrupted him.
“I’ll be your second, Harry,” he said hastily. “If it’s necessary. I’ll go and … er … inquire about the arrangements, shall I?”
Not waiting for an answer, he pulled open the front door and ran down the