The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon [70]
Jamie recognized the passage without difficulty: Men always believe what they wish to believe. He pressed his lips tight together and sat down in the other basket chair, wicker creaking under his weight. Grey opened his eyes.
“Now. What exactly do you mean,” he said, sitting up straight, “about cat’s-paws and my so-called honor?”
The brief walk through the glasshouse and Grey’s unexpected equanimity had defused something of Jamie’s rage, but nothing had changed the conclusions he’d come to.
He considered it for a moment, but, after all, what was to be gained by keeping those conclusions to himself? Forewarned was forearmed, after all, and it might be no bad thing for the Greys to know he was forewarned.
He told Grey, shortly, what he’d been thinking and the conclusions to which he’d come, leaving out only the duchess’s visit to his room—and William.
Grey listened, sitting quite still, with no change of expression until Jamie had finished. Then he rubbed a hand hard over his face and said, “Damn Hal!” under his breath.
The grapevines had been cut back for winter, but the new spring growth was well sprouted, delicate rusty leaves deckling the rough-knuckled vines that roped through the arbor. A faint draft moved through the rich air of the glasshouse, ruffling the leaves.
“Right,” Grey said, dropping his hand. “You aren’t a cat’s-paw, to begin with. A stalking horse, perhaps. And for what the assurance is worth, I had nothing to do with your presence here, let alone the notion that you should accompany me to Ireland.” He paused. “Do you believe that?” he asked, looking intently at Jamie.
“I do,” Jamie said, after a brief silence.
“Good. I am, however, probably to blame for the fact that you are involved in this situation. My brother wished me to take that blasted poem to Helwater and request you to translate it. I refused, whereupon he took matters into his own hands.” He made a small gesture, indicating exasperated resignation.
“My interest in the matter is exactly what Hal told you. My friend Carruthers entrusted me with the job of bringing Major Siverly to a court-martial, and I will do that.” He paused once more. “Do you believe me?”
“Aye, I do,” Jamie said reluctantly. “But His Grace …”
“My brother does not let go of things,” Grey observed. “You may have noticed that.”
“I have.”
“But he is not, to the best of my knowledge, either a murderer or an unprincipled knave.”
“I’m obliged to take your word for it, Colonel.”
“You may,” Grey said politely. “He can—and will, I’m afraid—use you to accomplish his ends regarding Siverly, but those ends do not include either kidnapping or murder, and he intends you no harm. In fact”—he hesitated for a moment, but then firmed his jaw and went on, eyes fixed on the hands that hung between his knees—“should this venture end in success, I think I can promise you that you will … benefit from it.”
“In what way?” Jamie asked sharply.
“As to that … I cannot make specific promises without consulting my brother and … perhaps other people. But I do promise that you will not be harmed by the … association.”
Jamie made a noise in his throat, on the verge of rudeness, indicating what he thought of the Greys’ promises, and Grey’s head snapped up, his eyes direct, their pale blue darkened by the fading light.
“Either you take me at my word, Mr. Fraser,” he said, “or you don’t. Which is it?”
Jamie met his eyes and didn’t look away. The light had dimmed to a sea of gray-green dusk, but the flush that rose now in Grey’s face was still visible. It was the same dim light that had lain between them in the stable at Helwater, the last time they had spoken privately.
The last time he had taken Grey at his word. He had come within an inch of killing