Voyager - Diana Gabaldon [482]
He didn’t believe me, but there was nothing he could do about it, either. His mouth pursed up in a tiny rosette, then unpuckered enough to ask, “So you are staying here?”
“Yes,” I said, pleased that I knew enough about the geography of the place to pretend to be a guest. If the servants were gone, there was no one to say I wasn’t, after all.
He stood still, regarding me narrowly for a long moment. Then his jaw tightened and he nodded grudgingly.
“Indeed. Then I suppose ye’ll have some notion as to where our hostess has taken herself, and when she proposes to return?”
I was beginning to have a rather unsettling notion of where—if not exactly when—Geillis Abernathy might have gone, but the Reverend Campbell didn’t seem the proper person with whom to share it.
“No, I’m afraid not,” I said. “I…ah, I’ve been out visiting since yesterday, at the neighboring plantation. Just came back this minute.”
The Reverend eyed me closely, but I was in fact wearing a riding habit—because it was the only decent set of clothes I owned, besides the violet ball dress and two wash-muslin gowns—and my story passed unchallenged.
“I see,” he said. “Mmphm. Well, then.” He fidgeted restlessly, his big bony hands clenching and unclenching themselves, as though he were not certain what to do with them.
“Don’t let me disturb you,” I said, with a charming smile and a nod at the desk. “I’m sure you must have important work to do.”
He pursed his lips again, in that objectionable way that made him look like an owl contemplating a juicy mouse. “The work has been completed. I was only preparing copies of some documents that Mrs. Abernathy had requested.”
“How interesting,” I said automatically, thinking that with luck, after a few moments’ small talk, I could escape under the pretext of retiring to my theoretical room—all the first-floor rooms opened onto the veranda, and it would be a simple matter to slip off into the night to meet Jamie.
“Perhaps you share our hostess’s—and my own—interest in Scottish history and scholarship?” His gaze had sharpened, and with a sinking heart I recognized the fanatical gleam of the passionate researcher in his eyes. I knew it well.
“Well, it’s very interesting, I’m sure,” I said, edging toward the door, “but I must say, I really don’t know very much about—” I caught sight of the top sheet on his pile of documents, and stopped dead.
It was a genealogy chart. I had seen plenty of those, living with Frank, but I recognized this particular one. It was a chart of the Fraser family—the bloody thing was even headed “Fraser of Lovat”—beginning somewhere around the 1400s, so far as I could see, and running down to the present. I could see Simon, the late—and not so lamented, in some quarters—Jacobite lord, who had been executed for his part in Charles Stuart’s Rising, and his descendants, whose names I recognized. And down in one corner, with the sort of notation indicating illegitimacy, was Brian Fraser—Jamie’s father. And beneath him, written in a precise black hand, James A. Fraser.
I felt a chill ripple up my back. The Reverend had noticed my reaction, and was watching with a sort of dry amusement.
“Yes, it is interesting that it should be the Frasers, isn’t it?”
“That…what should be the Frasers?” I said. Despite myself, I moved slowly toward the desk.
“The subject of the prophecy, of course,” he said, looking faintly surprised. “Do ye not know of it? But perhaps, your husband being an illegitimate descendant…”
“I don’t know of it, no.”
“Ah.” The Reverend was beginning to enjoy himself, seizing the opportunity to inform me. “I thought perhaps Mrs. Abernathy had spoken of it to you; she being so interested as to have written to me in Edinburgh regarding the matter.” He thumbed through the stack, extracting one paper that appeared to be written in Gaelic.
“This is the original language of the prophecy,” he said, shoving Exhibit A under my nose. “By the Brahan Seer; you’ll have heard