is, but it’s a good thing that he isna an exciseman. I thought at first something had come verra badly unstuck, but it’s likely all right.”
“Unstuck?”
He smiled briefly. “I’ve an arrangement with the Superintending Customs Officer for the district, Sassenach.”
I gaped at him. “Arrangement?”
He shrugged. “Well, bribery then, if ye like to be straight out about it.” He sounded faintly irritated.
“No doubt that’s standard business procedure?” I said, trying to sound tactful. One corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
“Aye, it is. Well, in any case, there’s an understanding, as ye might say, between Sir Percival Turner and myself, and to find him sending excise officers into this place would worry me considerably.”
“All right,” I said slowly, mentally juggling all the half-understood events of the morning, and trying to make a pattern of them. “But in that case, what did you mean by telling Fergus the excisemen were on your heels? And why has everyone been racing round like chickens with their heads off?”
“Oh, that.” He smiled briefly, and took my arm, turning me away from the corpse at our feet. “Well, it’s an arrangement, as I said. And part of it is that Sir Percival must satisfy his own masters in London, by seizing sufficient amounts of contraband now and again. So we see to it that he’s given the opportunity. Wally and the lads brought down two wagonloads from the coast; one of the best brandy, and the other filled with spiled casks and the punked wine, topped off with a few ankers of cheap swill, just to give it all flavor.
“I met them just outside the city this morning, as we planned, and then we drove the wagons in, takin’ care to attract the attention of the Riding Officer, who just happened to be passing with a small number of dragoons. They came along and we led them a canty chase through the alleyways, until the time for me and the good tubs to part company wi’ Wally and his load of swill. Wally jumped off his wagon then, and made awa’, and I drove like hell down here, wi’ two or three dragoons following, just for show, like. Looks well in a report, ye ken.” He grinned at me, quoting, “‘The smugglers escaped in spite of industrious pursuit, but His Majesty’s valiant soldiers succeeded in capturing an entire wagonload of spirits, valued at sixty pounds, ten shillings.’ You’ll know the sort of thing?”
“I expect so,” I said. “Then it was you and the good liquor that was arriving at ten? Madame Jeanne said—”
“Aye,” he said, frowning. “She was meant to have the cellar door open and the ramp in place at ten sharp—we havena got long to get everything unloaded. She was bloody late this morning; I had to circle round twice to keep from bringing the dragoons straight to the door.”
“She was a bit distracted,” I said, remembering suddenly about the Fiend. I told Jamie about the murder at the Green Owl, and he grimaced, crossing himself.
“Poor lass,” he said.
I shuddered briefly at the memory of Bruno’s description, and moved closer to Jamie, who put an arm about my shoulders. He kissed me absently on the forehead, glancing again at the shawl-covered shape on the ground.
“Well, whoever he was, if he wasna an exciseman, there are likely no more of them upstairs. We should be able to get out of here soon.”
“That’s good.” Jamie’s coat covered me to the knees, but I felt the covert glances cast from the far end of the room at my bare calves, and was all too uncomfortably aware that I was naked under it. “Will we be going back to the printshop?” What with one thing and another, I didn’t think I wanted to take advantage of Madame Jeanne’s hospitality any longer than necessary.
“Maybe for a bit. I’ll have to think.” Jamie’s tone was abstracted, and I could see that his brow was furrowed in thought. With a brief hug, he released me, and began to walk about the cellar, staring meditatively at the stones underfoot.
“Er…what did you do with Ian?”
He glanced up, looking blank; then his face cleared.
“Oh, Ian. I left him making inquiries at the taverns above the Market Cross. I’ll need to remember to meet him, later,” he muttered, as though making a note to himself.
“I met Young Ian, by the way,” I said conversationally.
Jamie looked startled. “He came here?”
“He did. Looking for you—about a quarter of an hour after you left, in fact.”
“Thank God for small mercies!” He rubbed a hand through his hair, looking simultaneously amused and worried. “I’d have had the devil of a time explaining to Ian what his son was doing here.”
“You know what he was doing here?” I asked curiously.
“No, I don’t! He was supposed to be—ah, well, let it be. I canna be worrit about it just now.” He relapsed into thought, emerging momentarily to ask, “Did Young Ian say where he was going, when he left ye?”
I shook my head, gathering the coat around myself, and he nodded, sighed, and took up his slow pacing once more.
I sat down on an upturned tub and watched him. In spite of the general atmosphere of discomfort and danger, I felt absurdly happy simply to be near him. Feeling that there was little I could do to help the situation at present, I settled myself with the coat wrapped round me, and abandoned myself to the momentary pleasure of looking at him—something I had had no chance to do, in the tumult of events.
In spite of his preoccupation, he moved with the surefooted grace of a swordsman, a man so aware of his body as to be able to forget it entirely. The men by the casks worked by torchlight; it gleamed on his hair as he turned, lighting it like a tiger’s fur, with stripes of gold and dark.
I caught the faint twitch as two fingers of his right hand flickered together against the fabric of his breeches, and felt a strange little lurch of recognition in the gesture. I had seen him do that a thousand times as he was thinking, and seeing it now again, felt as though all the time that had passed in our separation was no more than the rising and setting of a single sun.
As though catching my thought, he paused in his strolling and smiled at me.
“You’ll be warm enough, Sassenach?” he asked.
“No, but it doesn’t matter.” I got off my tub and went to join him in his peregrinations, slipping a hand through his arm. “Making any progress with the thinking?”
He laughed ruefully. “No. I’m thinking of maybe half a dozen things together, and half of them things I canna do anything about. Like whether Young Ian’s where he should be.”
I stared up at him. “Where he should be? Where do you think he should be?”
“He should be at the printshop,” Jamie said, with some emphasis. “But he should ha’ been with Wally this morning, and he wasn’t.”
“With Wally? You mean you knew he wasn’t at home, when his father came looking for him this morning?”
He rubbed his nose with a finger, looking at once irritated and amused. “Oh, aye. I’d promised Young Ian I wouldna say anything to his Da, though, until he’d a chance to explain himself. Not that an explanation is likely to save his arse,” he added.
Young Ian had, as his father said, come to join his uncle in Edinburgh without the preliminary bother of asking his parents’ leave. Jamie had discovered this dereliction fairly quickly, but had not wanted to send his nephew alone back to Lallybroch, and had not yet had time to escort him personally.
“It’s not that he canna look out for himself,” Jamie explained, amusement winning in the struggle of expressions on his face. “He’s a nice capable lad. It’s just—well, ye ken how things just happen around some folk, without them seeming to have anything much to do wi’ it?”
“Now that you mention it, yes,” I said wryly. “I’m one of them.”
He laughed out loud at that. “God, you’re right, Sassenach! Maybe that’s why I like Young Ian so well; he ’minds me of you.”
“He reminded me a bit of you,” I said.
Jamie snorted briefly. “God, Jenny will maim me, and she hears her baby son’s been loiteri
ng about a house of ill repute. I hope the wee bugger has the sense to keep his mouth shut, once he’s home.”
“I hope he gets home,” I said, thinking of the gawky almost-fifteen-year-old I had seen that morning, adrift in an Edinburgh filled with prostitutes, excisemen, smugglers, and hatchet-wielding Fiends. “At least he isn’t a girl,” I added, thinking of this last item. “The Fiend doesn’t seem to have a taste for young boys.”
“Aye, well, there are plenty of others who have,” Jamie said sourly. “Between Young Ian and you, Sassenach, I shall be lucky if my hair’s not gone white by the time we get out of this stinking cellar.”
“Me?” I said in surprise. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I don’t?” He dropped my arm and rounded on me, glaring. “I dinna need to worry about ye? Is that what ye said? Christ! I leave ye safely in bed waiting for your breakfast, and not an hour later, I find ye downstairs in your shift, clutching a corpse to your bosom! And now you’re standing in front of me bare as an egg, with fifteen men over there wondering who in hell ye are—and how d’ye think I’m going to explain ye to them, Sassenach? Tell me that, eh?” He shoved a hand through his hair in exasperation.
“Sweet bleeding Jesus! And I’ve to go up the coast in two days without fail, but I canna leave ye in Edinburgh, not wi’ Fiends creepin’ about with hatchets, and half the people who’ve seen ye thinking you’re a prostitute, and…and…” The lacing around his pigtail broke abruptly under the pressure, and his hair fluffed out round his head like a lion’s mane. I laughed. He glared for a moment longer, but then a reluctant grin made its way slowly through the frown.
“Aye, well,” he said, resigned. “I suppose I’ll manage.”
“I suppose you will,” I said, and stood on tiptoe to brush his hair back behind his ears. Working on the same principle that causes magnets of opposing polarities to snap together when placed in close proximitry, he bent his head and kissed me.
“I had forgotten,” he said, a moment later.
“Forgotten what?” His back was warm through the thin shirt.
“Everything.” He spoke very softly, mouth against my hair. “Joy. Fear. Fear, most of all.” His hand came up and smoothed my curls away from his nose.
“I havena been afraid for a verra long time, Sassenach,” he whispered. “But now I think I am. For there is something to be lost, now.”
I drew back a little, to look up at him. His arms were locked tight around my waist, his eyes dark as bottomless water in the dimness. Then his face changed and he kissed me quickly on the forehead.
“Come along, Sassenach,” he said, taking me by the arm. “I’ll tell the men you’re my wife. The rest of it will just have to bide.”
27
UP IN FLAMES
The dress was a trifle lower-cut than necessary, and a bit tight in the bosom, but on the whole, not a bad fit.
“And how did you know Daphne would be the right size?” I asked, spooning up my soup.
“I said I didna bed wi’ the lasses,” Jamie replied circumspectly. “I never said I didna look at them.” He blinked at me like a large red owl—some congenital tic made him incapable of closing one eye in a wink—and I laughed.
“That gown becomes ye a good deal more than it did Daphne, though.” He cast a glance of general approval at my bosom and waved at a servingmaid carrying a platter of fresh bannocks.
Moubray’s tavern was doing a thriving dinner business. Several cuts above the snug, smoky atmosphere to be found in The World’s End and similar serious drinking establishments, Moubray’s was a large and elegant place, with an outside stair that ran up to the second floor, where a commodious dining room accommodated the appetites of Edinburgh’s prosperous tradesmen and public officials.
“Who are you at the moment?” I asked. “I heard Madame Jeanne call you ‘Monsieur Fraser’—are you Fraser in public, though?”
He shook his head and broke a bannock into his soup bowl. “No, at the moment, I’m Sawney Malcolm, Printer and Publisher.”
“Sawney? That’s a nickname for Alexander, is it? I should have thought ‘Sandy’ was more like it, especially considering your hair.” Not that his hair was sandy-colored in the least, I reflected, looking at it. It was like Bree’s hair—very thick, with a slight wave to it, and all the colors of red and gold mixed; copper and cinnamon, auburn and amber, red and roan and rufous, all mingled together.
I felt a sudden wave of longing for Bree; at the same time, I longed to untie Jamie’s hair from its formal plait and run my hands up under it, to feel the solid curve of his skull, and the soft strands tangled in my fingers. I could still recall the tickle of it, spilling loose and rich across my breasts in the morning light.
My breath coming a little short, I bent my head to my oyster stew.
Jamie appeared not to have noticed; he added a large pat of butter to his bowl, shaking his head as he did so.
“Sawney’s what they say in the Highlands,” he informed me. “And in the Isles, too. Sandy’s more what ye’d hear in the Lowlands—or from an ignorant Sassenach.” He lifted one eyebrow at me, smiling, and raised a spoonful of the rich, fragrant stew to his mouth.
“All right,” I said. “I suppose more to the point, though—who am I?”
He had noticed, after all. I felt one large foot nudge mine, and he smiled at me over the rim of his cup.
“You’re my wife, Sassenach,” he said gruffly. “Always. No matter who I may be—you’re my wife.”
I could feel the flush of pleasure rise in my face, and see the memories of the night before reflected in his own. The tips of his ears were faintly pink.
“You don’t suppose there’s too much pepper in this stew?” I asked, swallowing another spoonful. “Are you sure, Jamie?”
“Aye,” he said. “Aye, I’m sure,” he amended, “and no, the pepper’s fine. I like a wee bit of pepper.” The foot moved slightly against mine, the toe of his shoe barely brushing my ankle.
“So I’m Mrs. Malcolm,” I said, trying out the name on my tongue. The mere fact of saying “Mrs.” gave me an absurd little thrill, like a new bride. Involuntarily, I glanced down at the silver ring on my right fourth finger.
Jamie caught the glance, and raised his cup to me.
“To Mrs. Malcolm,” he said softly, and the breathless feeling came back.
He set down the cup and took my hand; his own was big and so warm that a general feeling of glowing heat spread rapidly through my fingers. I could feel the silver ring, separate from my flesh, its metal heated by his touch.
“To have and to hold,” he said, smiling.
“From this day forward,” I said, not caring in the least that we were attracting interested glances from the other diners.
Jamie bent his head and pressed his lips against the back of my hand, an action that turned the interested glances into frank stares. A clergyman was seated across the room; he glared at us and said something to his companions, who turned round to stare. One was a small, elderly man; the other, I was surprised to see, was Mr. Wallace, my companion from the Inverness coach.
“There are private rooms upstairs,” Jamie murmured, blue eyes dancing over my knuckles, and I lost interest in Mr. Wallace.
“How interesting,” I said. “You haven’t finished your stew.”
“Damn the stew.”
“Here comes the servingmaid with the ale.”
“Devil take her.” Sharp white teeth closed gently on my knuckle, making me jerk slightly in my seat.
“People are watching you.”
“Let them, and I trust they’ve a fine day for it.”
His tongue flicked gently between my fingers.
“There’s a man in a green coat coming this way.”
“To hell—” Jamie began, when the shadow of the visitor fell upon the table.
“A good day to you, Mr. Malcolm,” said the visitor, bowing politely. “I trust I do not intrude?”
“You do,” said Jamie, s
traightening up but keeping his grip on my hand. He turned a cool gaze on the newcomer. “I think I do not know ye, sir?”
The gentleman, an Englishman of maybe thirty-five, quietly dressed, bowed again, not intimidated by this marked lack of hospitality.
“I have not had the pleasure of your acquaintance as yet, sir,” he said deferentially. “My master, however, bade me greet you, and inquire whether you—and your companion—might be so agreeable as to take a little wine with him.”
The tiny pause before the word “companion” was barely discernible, but Jamie caught it. His eyes narrowed.
“My wife and I,” he said, with precisely the same sort of pause before “wife,” “are otherwise engaged at the moment. Should your master wish to speak wi’ me—”
“It is Sir Percival Turner who sends to ask, sir,” the secretary—for so he must be—put in quickly. Well-bred as he was, he couldn’t resist a tiny flick of one eyebrow, as one who uses a name he expects to conjure with.
“Indeed,” said Jamie dryly. “Well, with all respect to Sir Percival, I am preoccupied at present. If you will convey him my regrets?” He bowed, with a politeness so pointed as to come within a hair of rudeness, and turned his back on the secretary. That gentleman stood for a moment, his mouth slightly open, then pivoted smartly on his heel and made his way through the scatter of tables to a door on the far side of the dining room.
“Where was I?” Jamie demanded. “Oh, aye—to hell wi’ gentlemen in green coats. Now, about these private rooms—”
“How are you going to explain me to people?” I asked.
He raised one eyebrow.
“Explain what?” He looked me up and down. “Why must I make excuses for ye? You’re no missing any limbs; you’re not poxed, hunchbacked, toothless or lame—”
“You know what I mean,” I said, kicking him lightly under the table. The lady sitting near the wall nudged her companion and widened her eyes disapprovingly at us. I smiled nonchalantly at them.
“Aye, I do,” he said, grinning. “However, what wi’ Mr. Willoughby’s activities this morning, and one thing and another, I havena had much chance to think about the matter. Perhaps I’ll just say—”
“My dear fellow, so you are married! Capital news! Simply capital! My deepest congratulations, and may I be—dare I hope to be?—the first to extend my felicitations and best wishes to your lady?”
A small, elderly gentleman in a tidy wig leaned heavily on a gold-knobbed stick, beaming genially at us both. It was the little gentleman who had been sitting with Mr. Wallace and the clergyman.
“You will pardon the minor discourtesy of my sending Johnson to fetch you earlier, I am sure,” he said deprecatingly. “It is only that my wretched infirmity prevents rapid movement, as you see.”
Jamie had risen to his feet at the appearance of the visitor, and with a polite gesture, now drew out a chair.
“You’ll join us, Sir Percival?” he said.
“Oh, no, no indeed! Shouldn’t dream of intruding on your new happiness, my dear sir. Truly, I had no idea—” Still protesting gracefully, he sank down into the proffered chair, wincing as he extended his foot beneath the table.
“I am a martyr to gout, my dear,” he confided, leaning close enough for me to smell his foul old-man’s breath beneath the wintergreen that spiced his linen.
He didn’t look corrupt, I thought—breath notwithstanding—but then appearances could be deceiving; it was only about four hours since I had been mistaken for a prostitute.
Making the best of it, Jamie called for wine, and accepted Sir Percival’s continued effusions with some grace.
“It is rather fortunate that I should have encountered you here, my dear fellow,” the elderly gentleman said, breaking off his flowery compliments at last. He laid a small, manicured hand on Jamie’s sleeve. “I had something particular to say to you. In fact, I had sent a note to the printshop, but my messenger failed to find you there.”
“Ah?” Jamie cocked an eyebrow in question.
“Yes,” Sir Percival went on. “I believe you had spoken to me—some weeks ago, I scarce recall the occasion—of your intention to travel north on business. A matter of a new press, or something of the sort?” Sir Percival had quite a sweet face, I thought, handsomely patrician despite his years, with large, guileless blue eyes.
“Aye, that’s so,” Jamie agreed courteously. “I am invited by Mr. McLeod of Perth, to see a new style of letterpress he’s recently put in use.”
“Quite.” Sir Percival paused to remove a snuffbox from his pocket, a pretty thing enameled in green and gold, with cherubs on the lid.
“I really should not advise a trip to the north just now,” he said, opening the box and concentrating on its contents. “Really I should not. The weather is like to be inclement at this season; I am sure it would not suit Mrs. Malcolm.” Smiling at me like an elderly angel, he inhaled a large pinch of snuff and paused, linen handkerchief at the ready.
Jamie sipped at his wine, his face blandly composed.
“I am grateful for your advice, Sir Percival,” he said. “You’ll perhaps have received word from your agents of recent storms to the north?”
Sir Percival sneezed, a small, neat sound, like a mouse with a cold. He was rather like a white mouse altogether, I thought, seeing him dab daintily at his