The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon [62]
“I am quite sure he did it to the best of his ability, my lord.”
13
By Darkness Met
JAMIE ROUSED ABRUPTLY AND SAT UP IN BED, HAND GOING automatically beneath his pillow for his dirk before his mind made sense of where he was. The door closed almost silently, and he was on the verge of diving out of bed, ready to throw himself at the intruder’s legs, but he smelled perfume and stopped short, completely bewildered, tangled between thoughts of prison, Jared’s house in Paris, inn rooms, Claire’s bed … but Claire had never worn a scent like that.
The woman’s weight pressed down the mattress beside him, and a hand touched his arm. A light touch, and he felt the hairs bristle in response.
“Forgive me for calling upon you so unceremoniously,” the duchess said, and he could hear the humor in her low voice. “I thought it better to be discreet.”
“Ye think this is discreet?” he said, barely remembering to lower his own voice. “Holy God!”
“You would prefer that I pretend to encounter you by accident at a Punch and Judy show in the park?” she asked, and his heart nearly stopped. “I doubt we should have enough time.”
His heart was still pounding like a drum, but he’d got control of his breath, at least.
“A long story, is it?” he asked, as evenly as possible. “Perhaps ye’d be more comfortable sitting in the chair, then.”
She rose, with a small sound that might have been amusement, and he heard the muffled scrape of chair legs over the Turkey carpet. He took advantage of her movement to get out of bed—talk of being taken at a disadvantage—and sit down in the window seat, tucking the nightshirt primly round his legs.
What had she meant by that remark about the Punch and Judy show? Had his encounter with Quinn been noticed and reported? Or was it merely a chance remark?
She paused by the chair, an amorphous shape in the dark.
“Shall I light the candle?”
“No. Your Grace,” he added, with a certain sardonic emphasis.
The sky was overcast, but there was a waxing moon tonight, and he’d drawn back the curtains when he went to bed, not liking the feeling of enclosure. There was a soft, bright glow through the window behind him. He wouldn’t have a distinct view of her face—but she wouldn’t see his at all.
She sat down, her garments whispering, and sighed briefly but said nothing immediately. It was an old trick, and one he knew well. He didn’t speak, either, though his mind was churning with questions. The most important one being, did the duke know?
“Yes, he does,” she said. He nearly bit his tongue.
“Oh, aye?” he managed. “And may I ask just what your husband knows?”
“About me, of course.” The faint note of amusement was back. “He knew what my … mode of life … was when he married me.”
“A man of blood and iron, then.”
She laughed outright at that, though softly.
“And does he know that ye kent me back then?”
“He does. He does not know what I came to talk with you about.”
He wondered whether the duke knew that she had come to talk to him in his bedroom, but merely made a polite sound of invitation, and the duchess’s robe rustled softly as she settled herself.
“Do you know a man named Edward Twelvetrees?”
“I saw him briefly today,” he said. “At the Beefsteak club. Who is he, and why do I care?”
“Edward Twelvetrees,” she said, with a note of grimness in her voice, “is an estimable soldier, an honorable gentleman—and the younger brother of Nathaniel Twelvetrees, whom my husband killed in a duel many years ago.”
“A duel over …?”
“Not important,” she said tersely. “The point is that the entire Twelvetrees family harbors feelings of the deepest hatred for my husband—well, for all the Greys, but particularly Pardloe—and would do anything possible to damage him.
“The second point,” she went on, cutting off his next question, “is that Edward Twelvetrees is an intimate of Gerald Siverly. Very intimate.