The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon [57]
To Grey’s surprise, Fraser smiled back, almost shyly.
“I’ve seen it before,” he said, and put out a hand to stroke the fabric. “In France. Couleur puce, it was called. The Duc d’Orleans had a suit made of it, and verra proud of it he was, too.”
Tom’s eyes were round. He looked quickly at Grey—had his employer known that his prisoner hobnobbed with French dukes?—then back at Fraser.
“Pee-yuse?” he said, trying out the word. “Color of a … what’s a peeyuse, then?”
Fraser actually laughed at that, and Grey felt a startled small burst of pleasure at the sound.
“A flea,” Fraser told Tom. “The whole of the name means ‘the color of the belly of a flea,’ but that’s a bit much, even for the French.”
Tom squinted at the coat one-eyed, evidently comparing it to fleas he had known. “It’s not like that word pew-cell, is it? Would that be like a little-bitty flea?”
Fraser’s mouth twitched, and his eyes darted toward Grey.
“Pucelle?” he said, pronouncing it in good French. “I, erm, don’t think so, though I might of course be mistaken.”
Grey felt his ribs creak slightly but managed to speak casually. “Where did you come across the word pucelle, Tom?”
Tom considered for a moment.
“Oh. Colonel Quarry, when he was here last week. He asked me could I think of anything that rhymed with pew-cell. ‘Usual’ was all I could think of, and he didn’t think much o’ that, I could tell, though he wrote it down in his notebook, just in case, he said.”
“Colonel Quarry writes poetry,” Grey explained to Fraser, getting another lifted brow in return. “Very … um … individual style of verse.”
“I know,” Fraser said, to Grey’s utter astonishment. “He asked me once if I could think of a suitable rhyme for ‘virgin.’ ”
“He did? When?”
“At Ardsmuir,” Fraser said, with no apparent emotion, from which Grey concluded that Harry hadn’t actually shown the Scot any of his poetry. “Over dinner. I couldna bring anything to mind save ‘sturgeon,’ though. He didna bother writing that one down,” he added, turning to Tom. “There was a good deal of brandy drunk.”
“Though for what the observation is worth, pucelle is the French word for ‘virgin,’ ” Grey told Tom. He glanced at Fraser. “Perhaps he couldn’t manage the verse in English, abandoned it, and later decided to try it in French?”
Fraser made a small sound of amusement, but Tom was still frowning.
“Have French virgins got fleas, do you think?”
“I never met a Frenchwoman I felt I could ask,” Grey said. “But I have met a good many fleas, and they tend not to be respecters of persons, let alone of purity.”
Tom shook his head, dismissing this bit of natural philosophy as beyond him, and returned with an air of relief to his natural sphere of competence.
“Well, then. There’s the pee-yuse velvet suit, the blue silk, the brown worsted, and two coats for everyday, bottle-green and sapphire, and three waistcoats, two plain and a yellow one with fancy-work. Dark breeches, white breeches, stockings, shirts, small-clothes …” He pointed at various parcels here and there about the room, consulting the list in his head. “Now, the shoes haven’t come yet, nor the riding boots. Will those do for the Beefsteak, do you think, me lord?” He squinted doubtfully at the shoes on Jamie’s feet, these being the sturdy objects borrowed from Lady Joffrey’s chairman. They had been buffed and polished to the limits of the bootboy’s capability but were not intrinsically fashionable.
Grey joined Tom’s scrutiny and lifted one shoulder in a shrug.
“Change the buckles, and they’ll do. Take the silver-gilt ones from my brown calfskin court shoes. Mr. Fraser?” He motioned delicately at Jamie’s feet, and Jamie obligingly stepped out of the objects in question, allowing Tom to take them away.
Fraser waited until Tom was safely out of hearing before inquiring, “The Beefsteak?”
“My club. The Society for the Appreciation of the English Beefsteak. We are taking dinner there today, with Captain von Namtzen.” He felt a small