A Breath of Snow and Ashes

She jerked her chin out of his grasp, and bit down as hard as she could on Howard’s thumb, feeling the meat of it shift and tear between her molars with a sudden copper taste of blood.

He shrieked and struck at her; she let go and dodged, enough so his hand glanced off her cheek. Bonnet let go, and she took two fast steps back and fetched up hard against the wall.

“She’s bitten me thumb off, the bitch!” Eyes watering in agony, Mr. Howard swayed to and fro, cradling his wounded hand against his chest. Fury flooded his face and he lunged toward her, free hand drawn back, but Bonnet seized him by the wrist and pulled him aside.

“Now then, sir,” he said. “I cannot allow ye to damage her, sure. She’s not yours yet, is she?”

“I don’t care if she’s mine or not,” Howard cried, face suffused with blood. “I’ll beat her to death!”

“Oh, no, surely ye don’t mean that, Mr. Howard,” Bonnet said, his voice jovially soothing. “A cruel waste that would be. Leave her to me, will ye, then?” Not waiting for an answer, he pulled Brianna after him, dragging her stumbling across the room, and thrust her toward the silent factotum, who had waited motionless by the door through the conversation.

“Take her out, Manny, and teach her her manners, will ye? And gag her before ye bring her back.”

Emmanuel didn’t smile, but a faint light seemed to burn in the black depths of his pupilless eyes. His fingers dug between the bones of her wrist and she gasped with pain, jerking in a vain attempt to free herself. With a single quick movement, the Ibo whirled her round and twisted up her arm behind her back, bending her half forward. Sharp pain shot up her arm as she felt her shoulder tendons begin to part. He pulled harder and a dark wave passed over her vision. Through it, she heard Bonnet’s voice calling out behind them as Emmanuel propelled her through the door.

“Not in the face, mind, Manny, and no permanent marks.”



HOWARD’S VOICE had quite lost its choked note of fury. It was still choked, but with something more like awe.

“My God,” he said. “Oh, my God.”

“A charmin’ sight, is it not?” Bonnet agreed cordially.

“Charming,” Howard echoed. “Oh—the most charming thing I believe I have ever seen. Such a shade! Might I—” The hunger in his voice was evident, and Brianna felt the vibration of his footstep on the carpet, a split second before his hands clamped tight on her buttocks. She screamed behind the gag, but she was bent hard across the table, with the edge cutting into her diaphragm, and the sound came out as no more than a grunt. Howard laughed joyfully, and let go.

“Oh, look,” he said, sounding enchanted. “Look, do you see? The most perfect print of my hands—so white on the crimson . . . she is so hot . . . oh, it’s fading. Let me just—”

She clenched her legs tight together and stiffened as he fondled her naked privates, but then his touch was gone, and Bonnet had taken his hand off her neck, and was pulling his customer away from her.

“Ah, now, that’s enough, sir. After all, she’s not your property—not yet.” Bonnet’s tone was jovial, but firm. Howard’s response was immediately to offer a sum that made her gasp behind the gag, but Bonnet only laughed.

“That’s generous, sir, so it is, but ’twouldn’t be fair on my other customers, would it, to be takin’ your offer without letting them make their own? No, sir, I do appreciate it, but I mean to auction this one; I’m afraid ye’ll needs be waiting on the day.”

Howard was disposed to protest, to offer more—he was most urgently in earnest, he protested that he could not wait, was ravished by desire, a great deal too warm to abide delay . . . but Bonnet only demurred, and in a few moments had ushered him out of the room. Brianna heard his voice protesting, dying away as Emmanuel removed him.

She had stood up as soon as Bonnet took his hand off her neck, wriggling madly to shake her skirts down. Emmanuel had tied her hands behind her back, as well as gagging her. If he hadn’t, she would have tried to kill Stephen Bonnet with her bare hands.

This thought must have been visible on her face, for Bonnet glanced at her, looked again, and laughed.

“Ye did amazing well, darlin’,” he said, and leaning over, negligently pulled the gag down from her mouth. “That man will empty his purse for the chance to get his hands on your arse again.”

“You God damn . . . you—” She shook with rage, and with the futility of finding any epithet that came close to being strong enough. “I will fucking kill you!”

He laughed again.

“Oh, now, sweetheart. For a sore arse? Consider it a repayment—in part—for my left ball.” He chucked her under the chin, and went toward the table where the tray with the decanters stood. “Ye’ve earned a drink. Brandy or porter?”

She ignored the offer, trying to keep her rage in check. Her cheeks flamed with furious blood, and so did her outraged bottom.

“What do you mean, ‘auction’?” she demanded.

“I should think that clear enough, sweetheart. Ye’ve heard the word, sure.” Bonnet gave her a glance of mild amusement, and pouring himself a tot of brandy, drank it off in two swallows. “Hah.” He exhaled, blinking, and shook his head.

“Hoo. I’ve two more customers in the market for someone like you, darlin’. They’ll be here tomorrow or next day to be having a look. Then I’ll ask for bids, and ye’ll be off to the Indies by Friday, I expect.”

He spoke casually, without the slightest hint of jeering. That, more than anything, made her insides waver. She was a matter of business, a piece of merchandise. To him, and to his goddamned bloody customers, too—Mr. Howard had made that clear. It didn’t matter what she said; they weren’t at all interested in who she was or what she might want.

Bonnet was watching her face, his pale green eyes assessing. He was interested, she realized, and her insides curled up into a knot.

“What did ye use on her, Manny?” he asked.

“A wooden spoon,” the manservant said indifferently. “You said no marks.”

Bonnet nodded, thoughtful.

“Nothing permanent, I said,” he corrected. “We’ll leave her as she is for Mr. Ricasoli, I think, but Mr. Houvener . . . well, we’ll wait and see.”

Emmanuel merely nodded, but his eyes rested on Brianna with sudden interest. Her stomach everted itself neatly and she vomited, absolutely ruining the fine silk dress.



THE SOUND OF high-pitched whinnying reached her; wild horses, rioting down the beach. If this were a romance novel, she thought grimly, she’d make a rope from the bedclothes, let herself down from the window, find the horse herd, and, by exercising her mystical skills with horses, persuade one of them to carry her to safety.

As it was, there were no bedclothes—only a ratty mattress made of ticking stuffed with sea grass—and as for getting within a mile of wild horses . . . She would have given a lot for Gideon, and felt tears prickle at thought of him.

“Oh, now you are losing your mind,” she said aloud, wiping her eyes. “Crying over a horse.” Especially that horse. That was so much better than thinking of Roger, though—or Jem. No, she absolutely could not think about Jemmy, nor the possibility of his growing up without her, without knowing why she had abandoned him. Or the new one . . . and what life might be like for the child of a slave.

But she was thinking of them, and the thought was enough to overcome her momentary despair.

All right, then. She was getting out of here. Preferably before Mr. Ricasoli and Mr. Houvener, whoever they were, turned up. For the thousandth time, she moved restlessly around the room, forcing herself to move slowly, look at what was there.

Damn little, and what there was, stoutly built, was the discouraging answer. She’d been given food, water for washing, a linen towel, and a hairbrush with which to tidy herself. She picked it up, assessing its potential as a weapon, then threw it down again.

The chimney stack rose through this room, but there was no open hearth. She thumped the bricks experimentally, and pried at the mortar with the end of the spoon they’d given her to eat with. She found one place where the mortar was cracked enough to pry, but a quarter of an hour’s trying managed to dislodge only a few inches of mortar; the brick itself stayed firmly in place. Given a month or so, that might be worth a try—though the chances of someone her size managing to squeeze up an eighteenth-century flue . . .

It was getting up to rain; she heard the excited rattle of the palmetto leaves as the wind came through, sharp with the smell of rain. It was not quite sunset, but the clouds had darkened the sky so the room seemed dim. She had no candle; no one expected her to read or sew.

She threw her weight against the bars of the window for the dozenth time, and for the dozenth time found them solidly set and unyielding. Again, in a month, she might contrive to sharpen the spoon’s end by grinding it against the chimney bricks, then use it as a chisel to chip away enough of the frame to dislodge one or two bars. But she didn’t have a month.

They’d taken away the fouled dress, and left her in shift and stays. Well, that was something. She pulled off the stays, and by picking at the ends of the stitching, extracted the busk—a flat, twelve-inch strip of ivory that ran from sternum to navel. A better weapon than a hairbrush, she thought. She took it over to the chimney, and began to rasp the end against the brick, sharpening its point.

Could she stab someone with it? Oh, yes, she thought fiercely. And please let it be Emmanuel.





108



DAMN TALL

ROGER WAITED IN THE COVER of the thick bayberry bushes near the shore; a little way beyond, Ian and Jamie lay likewise in wait.

The second ship had arrived in the morning, coming to anchor a fastidious distance beyond the slaver. Sloshing nets over the side of Roarke’s ship in the guise of fishermen, they had been able to watch as first the captain of the slaver went ashore, and then, an hour later, a boat from the second ship was lowered and rowed ashore, with two men—and a small chest—in it.

“A gentleman,” Claire had reported, scanning them through the telescope. “Wig, nicely dressed. The other man’s a servant of some kind—is the gentleman one of Bonnet’s customers, do you think?”

“I do,” Jamie had said, watching the boat pull to the shore. “Take us a bit to the north, if ye please, Mr. Roarke; we’ll go ashore.”

The three of them had landed half a mile from the beach and worked their way down through the wood, then took up their positions in the shrubbery and settled down to wait. The sun was hot, but so close to the shore, there was a fresh breeze, and it was not uncomfortable in the shade, bar the insects. For the hundredth time, Roger brushed away something crawling on his neck.

The waiting was making him jumpy. His skin itched with salt, and the scent of the tidal forest, with its peculiar mix of aromatic pine and distant seaweed, the crunch of shell and needle beneath his feet, brought back to him in vivid detail the day he had killed Lillington.

He had gone then—as now—with the intent of killing Stephen Bonnet. But the elusive pirate had been warned, and an ambush laid. It had been by the will of God—and the skill of Jamie Fraser—that he hadn’t left his own carcass in a similar forest, bones scattered by wild pigs, bleaching among the gleam of dry needles and the white of empty shells.

His throat was tight again, but he couldn’t shout or sing to loosen it.

He should pray, he thought, but could not. Even the constant litany that had echoed through his heart since the night he had learned she was gone—Lord, that she might be safe—even that small petition had somehow dried up. His present thought—Lord, that I might kill him—he couldn’t voice that, even to himself.

The deliberate intent and desire to murder—surely he couldn’t expect such a prayer to be heard.

For a moment, he envied Jamie and Ian their faith in gods of wrath and vengeance. While Roarke and Moses had brought the fishing boat in, he had heard Jamie murmur to Claire and take her hands in his. And heard her then bless him in the Gaelic, with the invocation to Michael of the red domain, the blessing of a warrior on his way to battle.

Ian had merely sat, cross-legged and silent, watching the shore draw nearer, his face remote. If he prayed, there was no telling to whom. When they landed, though, he had paused on the bank of one of the myriad inlets, and scooping up mud in his fingers, had carefully painted his face, drawing a line from forehead to chin, then four parallel streaks across his left cheek, a thick dark circle around his right eye. It was remarkably unsettling.

Quite obviously, neither of them had the slightest qualms about the business, nor the least hesitation in asking God to aid their efforts. He envied them.

And sat in stubborn silence, the gates of heaven closed against him, his hand on the hilt of his knife and a loaded pistol in his belt, planning murder.

A little past noon, the burly captain of the slaver came back, footsteps crunching indifferently on the layer of dried pine needles. They let him pass, waiting.

Late in the afternoon, it began to rain.



SHE HAD DOZED off again, from sheer boredom. It began to rain; the sound roused her briefly, then drove her more deeply into slumber, drops pattering softly on the palmetto thatch above. She woke abruptly when one of the drops fell cold on her face, followed quickly by a few of its fellows.

She jerked upright, blinking with momentary disorientation. She rubbed a hand over her face and looked up; there was a small wet patch on the plaster ceiling, surrounded by a much larger stain from previous leaks, and drops were forming in its center like magic, each perfect bead falling one after another after another to splat on the mattress ticking.

She got up to push the bed out from under the leak, and then stopped. Slowly she straightened up, and put up a hand to the wet patch. The ceiling was a normal one for the time, less than seven feet; she could reach it easily.

“She damn tall,” she said aloud. “Damn right she is.”

She put her hand flat on the wet patch and pushed as hard as she could. The wet plaster gave way at once, and so did the rotten laths behind it. She jerked back her hand, scratching her arm on the jagged edges of lath, and a small cascade of dirty water, centipedes, mouse droppings, and fragments of palmetto leaf poured in through the hole she’d made.

She wiped her hand on her shift, reached up, seized the edge of the hole, and pulled, ripping down chunks of lath and plaster, until she’d made a hole that would accommodate her head and shoulders.

“Okay,” she whispered to the baby, or herself. She glanced around the room, put on her stays over her shift, then tucked the sharpened busk down the front.

Then, standing on the bed, she took a deep breath, shoved her steepled hands upward as though about to dive, and grabbed for anything solid enough to provide leverage. Little by little, she hauled herself, sweating and grunting, up into the steaming thatch of sharp-edged leaves, teeth gritted and eyes closed against the dirt and dead insects.

Her head thrust into moist open air and she gasped for breath. She had an elbow hooked over a beam and, using that for leverage, pulled farther up. Her legs kicked vainly in empty air, trying to propel her upward, and she felt the wrench of shoulder muscles, but sheer desperation propelled her upward—that, and the nightmare vision of Emmanuel coming into the room and seeing the bottom half of her hanging out of the ceiling.

With a rending shower of leaves, she hauled herself out, to lie flat on the rain-wet thatch of the roof. The rain was still coming down heavily, and she was soaked in moments. A little way away, she saw some sort of structure sticking up amid the palmetto leaves of the thatch, and wriggled her way cautiously toward it, constantly fearful lest the roof give way beneath her weight, probing with hands and elbows for the firmness of the roof beams below the thatched leaves.

The structure proved to be a small platform, firmly set on the beams, with a railing on one side. She scrambled onto this and crouched, panting. It was still raining onshore, but out to sea, the sky was mostly clear, and the setting sun behind her spilled a burnt, bloody orange over sky and water through black streaks of shattered cloud. It looked like the end of the world, she thought, her ribs heaving against the lacing of her stays.

From the vantage point of the roof, she could see over the scrub forest; the slice of beach she had glimpsed from her window was clearly visible—and beyond it, two ships, lying close offshore.

Two boats were pulled up on shore, though well separated from each other—probably one from each ship, she thought. One of the ships must be the slaver, the other likely Howard’s. A wash of humiliated rage ran over her—she was surprised that the rain didn’t steam off her skin. There was no time to dwell on that, though.

Voices came faintly through the patter of rain, and she ducked down, then realized that no one was likely to look up and see her. Raising her head to peer through the railing, she saw figures come out of the trees onto the beach—a single file of chained men, with two or three guards.

“Josh!” She strained her eyes to see, but in the eerie twilight, the figures were no more than silhouettes. She thought she made out the tall, slender figures of the two Fulani men—perhaps the shorter one behind them was Josh, but she couldn’t tell.

Her fingers curled tight around the railing, impotent. She couldn’t help, she knew it, but to be obliged simply to watch . . . As she watched, a thin scream came from the beach, and a smaller figure ran out of the wood, skirts flying. The guards turned, startled; one of them seized Phaedre—it had to be her; Brianna could hear her screaming “Josh! Josh!”, the sound of it harsh as the cry of a distant gull.

She was struggling with the guard—some of the chained men turned abruptly, lunging at the other. A struggling knot of men fell to the sand. Someone was running toward them from the boat, something in his hand . . .

The vibration in her feet jerked her attention from the scene on the beach.

“Crap!” she said involuntarily. Emmanuel’s head poked up over the edge of the roof, staring in disbelief. Then his face contorted, and he heaved himself up—there must be a ladder attached to the side of the house, she thought, well, of course there would be, you wouldn’t have a lookout platform and no way to get up to it. . . .

While her mind was busying itself with that nonsense, her body was taking more concrete steps. She had drawn the sharpened busk and was crouched against the platform, hand low as Ian had taught her.

Emmanuel made a derisive face at the thing in her hand and grabbed at her.



THEY COULD HEAR the gentleman coming well before they saw him. He was singing softly to himself, a French air of some kind. He was alone; the servant must have gone back to the ship while they were making their way through the woods.

Roger got softly to his feet, crouched behind his chosen bush. His limbs were stiff, and he stretched inconspicuously.

As the gentleman drew even with him, Jamie stepped out into the path in front of him. The man—a small, foppish-looking sort—uttered a girlish shriek of alarm. Before he could flee, though, Jamie had stepped forward and grasped his arm, smiling pleasantly.

“Your servant, sir,” he said courteously. “Have ye been calling upon Mr. Bonnet, by chance?”

The man blinked at him, confused.

“Bonnet? Why, why . . . yes.”

Roger felt a tightness in his chest ease suddenly. Thank God. They’d found the right place.

“Who are you, sir?” the small man was demanding, trying to draw his forearm out of Jamie’s grip, to no avail.

There was no need to keep hidden now; Roger and Ian stepped out of the bushes, and the gentleman gasped at sight of Ian in his war paint, then glanced wildly back and forth between Jamie and Roger.

Evidently settling on Roger as the most civilized-looking person present, the gentleman appealed to him.

“I beg you, sir—who are you, and what do you want?”

“We are in search of an abducted young woman,” Roger said. “A very tall young woman with red hair. Have you—” Before he could finish, he saw the man’s eyes dilate with panic. Jamie saw it, too, and twisted the man’s wrist, sending him to his knees, mouth awry with pain.

“I think, sir,” Jamie said, with impeccable courtesy, holding tight, “we must oblige you to tell us what ye know.”



SHE COULDN’T LET him get hold of her. That was her only conscious thought. He grabbed at her weaponless arm and she yanked free, skin slippery with rain, and struck at him in the same motion. The point of the busk skidded up his arm, leaving a reddening furrow, but he ignored this and lunged at her. She fell backward over the railing, landing awkwardly on her hands and knees in the leaves, but he hadn’t got her; he’d fallen on his own knees on the platform, with a thud that shook the whole roof.

She scrabbled madly to the edge of the roof, hands and knees poking randomly through the thatch, and threw her legs over the edge into space, kicking frantically for the rungs of the ladder.

He was after her, had her wrist in a grip like an eel’s bite, was hauling her back onto the roof. She drew back her free hand and lashed him hard across the face with the busk. He roared and his grip loosened; she wrenched free and dropped.

She hit the sand flat on her back with a bone-shaking thump! and lay paralyzed, unable to breathe, the rain pelting down on her face. A hoot of triumph came from the roof, and then a growl of exasperated dismay. He thought he’d killed her.

Great, she thought muzzily. Keep thinking that. The shock of impact was beginning to wear off, her diaphragm lurched into motion, and glorious air rushed into her lungs. Could she move?

She didn’t know, and didn’t dare to try. Through rain-clotted lashes, she saw Emmanuel’s bulk ease over the edge of the roof, foot groping for the crude ladder rungs she could now see, nailed to the wall.