The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon [55]
“Greenfly,” she said, in a tone boding no good for either the greenflies or the gardener. Grey made an obliging noise indicating concern, and after a further glower, Minnie snorted and returned to the path.
“This Mr. Fraser of yours,” she said, after they’d walked a few moments in silence.
“He’s not actually mine,” he said. He’d intended to speak lightly, and thought he had, but she shot him a glance that made him wonder.
“You know him, though,” she said. “Is he … dependable, do you think?”
“I suppose that would depend upon what one expected of him,” Grey replied cautiously. “If you mean, is he a man of honor, then, yes, he is. Certainly a man of his word. Beyond that …” He shrugged. “He is Scotch, and a Highlander, to boot.”
“Meaning what?” She was interested; one brow arched upward. “Is he such a savage as people say Highlanders are? Because if so, he apes the gentleman to an amazing degree.”
“James Fraser apes nothing,” he assured her, feeling an obscure sense of offense on Fraser’s behalf. “He is—or was—a landed gentleman, and one of breeding, with substantial property and tenants. What I meant is that he has …” He hesitated, not quite sure how to put it into words. “… a sense of himself that is quite separate from what society demands. He is inclined to make his own rules.”
She laughed at that. “No wonder Hal likes him!”
“Does he?” Grey said, feeling absurdly pleased to hear it.
“Oh, yes,” she assured Grey. “He was quite surprised—but very pleased. I think he feels slightly guilty, too,” she added thoughtfully. “At making use of him, I mean.”
“So do I.”
She smiled at him with great affection. “Yes, you would. Mr. Fraser is fortunate to have you for a friend, John.”
“I doubt he recognizes his good fortune,” Grey said dryly.
“Well, he needn’t worry—and neither need you, John. Hal won’t let him come to any harm.”
“No, of course not.” Still, the feeling of unease at the back of his neck did not go away.
“And if your venture should be successful, I’m sure Hal would see about getting him pardoned. He could be a free man then. He could go back to his home.”
Grey felt a sudden stricture in his throat, as though his valet, Tom Byrd, had tied his stock too tightly.
“Yes. Why did you ask about him—about Fraser, I mean—being dependable?”
She lifted one shoulder and let it fall.
“Oh—Hal showed me the translation Mr. Fraser made of that page of Erse. I only wondered how faithful it might be.”
“Have you any reason to suppose it isn’t?” he asked curiously. “I mean—why shouldn’t it be?”
“No particular reason.” She chewed her lower lip, though, in a thoughtful sort of way. “I don’t speak Erse myself, of course, but I recognize a few words. I, um, don’t know quite how much Hal told you about my father …?”
“A bit,” Grey said, and smiled at her. She smiled back.
“Well, then. I saw the occasional Jacobite document, and while most were in French or Latin, there were a few in English, and even fewer in Erse. But they all tended to have some internal clue, some casual mention of something that would assure the recipient that what they were holding wasn’t merely an order for wine or a merchant’s inquiry about the contents of his warehouse. And one of the code things you saw mentioned quite often was a white rose. For the Stuarts, you know?”
“I do.” For a vertiginous instant, he saw—as clearly as though the scene had sprung from the earth at his feet—the face of the man he had shot on Culloden Moor, his eyes dark and the white cockade in his bonnet stark in the dying light of evening.
Minnie paid no attention to his momentary distraction, though, and went on talking.
“Well, this bit you brought Hal has the words róisíní bhán in it. It’s not quite the same, but it’s very similar to the Scottish words for ‘white rose’—I saw them often enough to know those. And Mr. Fraser put the word ‘rose’ into his translation, all right—but he left out the ‘white.’ If it’s there to begin with, I mean,” she added. “And perhaps the Irish