Текст книги "The Scottish Prisoner"

Автор книги: Diana Gabaldon

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Jamie contented himself with a neutral sound in his throat, though he felt his ears grow hot. They would not discipline the boy, and yet they meant to case his sweet small body in linen and whalebone, to narrow his shoulders and sway his back to meet the demands of what they thought fashionable?

He knew that the custom of corseting children was common among the wealthy English—to form their bodies into the slope-shouldered, high-chested figure thought most fashionable—but such things were not done in the Highlands, save perhaps among the nobles. The odious garment—he could feel the hard edge of it pressing into Willie’s soft flesh, just below his oxter—made Jamie want to spur up and ride hell-bent for the Border, pausing only to strip the thing off and throw it into the mere as they passed.

But he couldn’t do that and so rode on, one arm tight around William, seething.

“He’s selling,” Betty murmured, distracting him from his dark thoughts, “but Lady D’s not buying. Poor Isobel!”

“Eh?”

She nodded and he looked ahead, seeing Mr. Wilberforce riding between the two ladies, now and then casting a quick, possessive glance at Isobel but turning the most of his winsome charm on Lady Dunsany. Who, as Betty said, seemed less than overwhelmed.

“Why poor Isobel?” Jamie asked, watching this byplay with interest.

“Why, she’s sweet on him, you great nit. Surely even you can see that?”

“Aye, so?”

Betty sighed and rolled her eyes dramatically but was sufficiently bored as to put aside her pose of disinterest.

“So,” she said, “Lady Isobel wants to marry him. Well,” she added fairly, “she wants to be married, and he’s the only one in the county that’s halfway presentable. But only halfway, and I don’t think that’ll be enough,” she said, squinting judiciously at Wilberforce, who was nearly falling out of his saddle in the effort to pay a compliment to Lady Dunsany, who was pretending to be hard of hearing.

On Wilberforce’s other side, Isobel was glaring at her mother, with a look of mingled frustration and apprehension on her face. Lady Dunsany rode tranquilly, rocking a little on her sidesaddle, glancing vaguely at Wilberforce’s importunate face from time to time, with an expression that said plainly, “Oh, are you still here?”

“Why do they not like him for their daughter, then?” Jamie asked, interested despite himself. “Do they not wish her to be married?”

Betty snorted. “After what happened to Geneva?” she asked, and looked pointedly at William, then raised her face to Jamie, with a tiny smirk. He kept his own face carefully blank, despite a lurch of the innards, and did not reply.

They rode in silence for a bit, but Betty’s innate restlessness would not tolerate silence for long.

“They’d let her marry well, I s’pose,” she said, grudging. “But they don’t mean to let her throw herself away on a lawyer. And one that’s talked about, too.”

“Aye? What’s said about him?” Jamie didn’t give a fig for Wilberforce—and not much more for Lady Isobel—but the conversation took his mind off Willie’s corset.

Betty pursed her lips, with a knowing, sly sort of look.

“They say he spends a good bit of time with his clients what are ladies with no husbands—more than he needs to. And he lives beyond his means,” she added primly. “Well beyond.”

That was likely the more serious charge, Jamie reflected. He supposed that Isobel had a decent portion. She was the Dunsanys’ only remaining child, though of course William would inherit the estate.

As they climbed the path to the old shepherd’s hut, he felt a tightening of the belly, but there was no sign of anyone, and he gave a small sigh of relief and said a quick prayer for the repose of Quinn’s soul. A basket had been brought, with a roast chicken, a loaf, some good cheese and a bottle of wine. Willie, emerging from his daze, was irascible and whiny, rejecting all offers of food. Mr. Wilberforce, in an attempt at ingratiation, ruffled the boy’s hair and tried to jolly him out of his sulks, being severely bitten in the hand for his pains.

“Why, you little—” The lawyer’s face went red, but he wisely coughed and said, “You poor little child. How sorry I am that you should be so miserable!”

Jamie, his face kept carefully straight, happened to catch Lady Dunsany’s eye at this point, and they exchanged a glance of perfect understanding. Had it lasted more than an instant, one or both of them would have burst into laughter, but Lady Dunsany looked away, coughed, and reached for a napkin, which she offered to the lawyer.

“Are you bleeding, Mr. Wilberforce?” she inquired sympathetically.

“William!” said Isobel. “That is very wicked! You must apologize to Mr. Wilberforce this minute.”

“No,” said William briefly, and, plumping down on his backside, turned his attention to a passing beetle.

Isobel hovered in indecision, plainly not wanting to appear before the lawyer as anything other than the personification of womanly gentleness and not sure how to reconcile this desire with the equally plain urge to clout Willie over the ear. Mr. Wilberforce begged her to sit down and have a glass of wine, though, and Betty—with a deep sigh of resignation—went to crouch beside William and distract him with plucked blades of grass, showing him how to chivvy the hapless beetle to and fro.

Jamie had the horses hobbled, grazing on the short turf beyond the ruined hut. They needed no attention, but he took the bread and cheese Cook had given him for the journey and went to look at them, enjoying a moment’s solitude.

He must be careful not to spend too much time in watching William, lest his fascination show, and he sat down on the ruined wall, back turned to the party—though he was unable to avoid hearing the stramash that broke out when William put the doomed beetle up his nose and then shrieked at the result.

The unfortunate Betty came in for a dreadful scolding, all three of the others reproaching her at once. The clishmaclaver was made worse by William, who started roaring again, apparently wanting the beetle put back.

“Go away!” Isobel shouted at Betty. “Go right away to the house; you’re no use at all!”

Jamie’s mouth was full of bread and cheese, and he nearly choked when Betty broke away from the group and ran toward him, sobbing.

“Horse,” she said, her bosom heaving. “Get my horse!”

He rose at once and fetched her animal, swallowing the last of his meal.

“Did they—” he began, but she didn’t stay for question or comfort but put her foot in his offered hand and swung into the saddle in a furious flurry of petticoats. She lashed the startled horse across the neck with the end of the rein, and the poor beast shot down the trail as though its tail was on fire.

The others were fussing over William, who seemed to have lost his mind and had no idea what he wanted, only that he didn’t want whatever he was offered. Jamie turned round and walked up the fell, out of earshot. The wean would wear himself out soon enough—and sooner if they’d leave him be.

Up higher, there was no shelter from the wind, and its soft, high whistle drowned the noise from below. Looking down, he could see William curled up in a ball beside his auntie, with his jacket over his head, his breeches filthy, and the damned corset almost round his neck. He looked deliberately away and saw Betty, halfway across the moss. His mouth tightened. He hoped the horse wouldn’t step into one of the boggy spots and break a leg.

“Wee gomerel,” he muttered, shaking his head. Despite their history, he felt a bit sorry for Betty. He was also curious about her.

She hadn’t been friendly to him today, not quite that. But she’d spoken to him with more intimacy than she’d ever shown before. He would have expected her to ignore him, or be short with him, after what had passed between them. But no. Why was that?

“She wants to be married,”the lass had said of Isobel. Perhaps Mrs. Betty did, as well. She was the age for it, or a wee bit beyond. He’d thought—and blushed at his presumption—that she only wanted to bed him, whether out of lewdness or curiosity, he couldn’t tell. He was nearly sure that she knew about Geneva and him. But what if she’d fixed on him as a husband, in preference to George Roberts? God, had Grey said anything to her? The thought disturbed him very much.

On the face of it, he thought no woman in her right mind would consider him in that light. He’d neither money, property, nor freedom, doubted he even couldwed, without the permission of Lord John Grey. Betty could be in no ignorance of his circumstances; the entire estate knew exactly what—if not exactly who—he was.

Who. Aye, who. Examining his feelings—a mixture of surprise, alarm, and a mild revulsion—he was a bit bothered to find that part of it was pride, and pride of a particularly sinful kind. Betty was a common girl, the daughter of a poor tenant of Dunsany’s—and he was both startled and discomfited to find that, in spite of present circumstance, he still thought of himself as the laird of Lallybroch.

“Well, that’s foolish,” he muttered, batting away a cloud of whining small flies that clustered round his head. He’d married Claire without a single thought of his place or hers. For all he’d known then, she was a—well, no. He smiled a little, involuntarily. He’d been an exile and an outlaw, with a price on his head. And he’d never have taken her for a slattern or peasant.

“I would have taken ye even if that was so, lass,” he said softly. “I’d have had ye, no matter if I’d known the truth from the start.”

He felt a little better, about himself, at least. That was the main root of his feeling regarding Betty, after all. Only that he could not countenance the thought of marrying again. That—

He stopped dead, catching sight of the corner of the wall where Quinn had sat, the Irishman’s strange light eyes glowing with fervor. Betty was Quinn’s sister-in-law; of course she knew who Jamie was. Had been.

The wind touched his neck with a sudden, different chill, and he turned at once, to see the fog coming down. He stood up in haste. Fogs on the fells were swift, sudden, and dangerous. He could see this one moving, a dirty great swell like a wild beast poking its head above the rocks, tendrils of mist creeping over the ground like the tentacles of an octopus.

He was running down the slope and looking to the horses, who had all stopped feeding and were standing with their heads up, looking toward the fog and switching their tails uneasily. He’d have the hobbles off in seconds—best run to the Dunsanys and make them pack up at once; he’d get the horses while they were about their business.

Thinking this, he looked for the party and found them. Counted them automatically. Three heads and a—Three. Only three. He flung himself down the hill, leaping rocks and stumbling over tussocks.

“Where’s William?” he gasped, as the three adults turned shocked faces on him. “The boy? Where is he?”

THE BOY WAS NOT quite three; he could not have gone far. He couldn’t. So Jamie told himself, trying to control the panic that was creeping into his mind as fast as the fog was covering the ground.

“Stay here, and stay together!” he said to Isobel and Lady Dunsany, both of whom blinked at him in surprise. “Call out for the lad, keep calling out—but dinna move a step. Here, hold the horses.” He thrust the bundled reins into Wilberforce’s hand, and the lawyer opened his mouth as though to protest, but Jamie didn’t stay to hear it.

“William!” he bellowed, plunging into the fog.

“Willie! Willie!” The women’s higher voices obligingly took up the call, regular as a bell on a ship’s buoy, and serving the same purpose. “Willie! Where are youuuu?”

The air had changed quite suddenly, no longer clear but soft and echoing; sound seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

“William!” The sound bounced off the stones and the short, leathery turf. “William!”

He was moving up the slope, Jamie could tell that much. Perhaps William had gone to explore the shepherd’s hut. Wilberforce had joined the women now in calling out but was doing it in counterpoint, rather than in unison with them.

Jamie had the feeling that he could not breathe, that the fog was choking him—but this was nonsense. Pure illusion.

“William!”

His shins thumped into the fallen wall of the shepherd’s hut. He could not see more than the faintest outline of the stones but felt his way inside and crawled quickly along the walls, calling out for the boy. Nothing.

Fogs might last an hour, or a day.

“Willie-iam-Wil-Willy-iam-WILLIE!”

Jamie gritted his teeth. If they didn’t keep quiet now and then, he couldn’t hear Willie shouting back. If the boy was capable of shouting. The footing was treacherous, the grass slippery, the ground rocky. And if he went all the way to the bottom of the slope, the moss …

He went higher, among the tumbled stones. Staggered from one to another, feeling round their bases, stubbing his toes. The fog was cold in his chest, aching. His foot came down on something soft—Willie’s jacket—and his heart leapt.

“WILLIAM!”

Was that a sound, a whimper? He stopped dead, trying to listen, trying to hear through the whisper of the moving fog and the distant voices, cacophonous as a ring of church bells.

And then, quite suddenly, he saw the boy curled up in a rocky hollow, the yellow of his shirt showing briefly through an eddy in the fog. He lunged and seized William before he could disappear, clutched him to his bosom, saying, “It’s all right, a chuisle, it’s all right now, dinna be troubled, we’ll go and see your grannie, aye?”

“Mac! Mac, Mac! Oh, Mac!”

Willie clung to him like a leech, trying to burrow into his chest, and he wrapped his arms tight around the boy, too overcome to speak.

To this point, he could not really have said that he loved William. Feel the terror of responsibility for him, yes. Carry thought of him like a gem in his pocket, certainly, reaching now and then to touch it, marveling. But now he felt the perfection of the tiny bones of William’s spine through his clothes, smooth as marbles under his fingers, smelled the scent of him, rich with the incense of innocence and the faint tang of shit and clean linen. And thought his heart would break with love.

40

Gambit

GREY SAW JAMIE NOW AND THEN, MOSTLY IN THE DISTANCE as he went about his work. They had had no opportunity to speak, though—and he could not seem to invent a pretext, let alone think what he might say if he found one. He felt amazingly self-conscious, like a boy unable to say anything to an attractive girl. He’d be blushing, next thing, he thought, disgusted with himself.

Still, the fact remained that he really had nothing to say to Jamie anymore—or Jamie to him. Well, not nothing, he corrected himself. They’d always had a great deal to say to each other. But there was no excuse for conversation now.

Three days before his scheduled departure, he rose in the morning with the conviction that he must speak with Fraser, somehow. Not in the stiff manner of an interview between paroled prisoner and officer of the Crown—simply a few words, as man to man. If he could have that, he could go back to London with an easy heart, knowing that sometime, somewhere, there was the possibility that they might be friends again, even if that time and place could not be here and now.

It was no good anticipating an unknown battle. He ate his breakfast and told Tom to dress him for riding. Then he put on his hat and, heart beating a little faster than usual, went down toward the stables.

He saw Jamie from a long way off; he couldn’t be mistaken for any other man, even without the signal fire of his dark-red hair. He had it tailed today, not plaited, and the ends fluttered against the white of his shirt like tiny flames.

William was with him, trotting at his heels, chattering like a magpie. Grey smiled to see him; the little boy was in his tiny breeches and a loose shirt and looked a proper little horseman.

He hesitated for a moment, waiting to see what Fraser was about; better if he did not interrupt the day’s work. But they were headed for the paddock, and he followed them at a distance.

A young man he didn’t know was waiting there; he bobbed his head at Fraser, who offered a hand and said something to him. Perhaps this was the new groom; Dunsany had said something about needing a new man to replace Hanks, over tea last night.

The men spoke for a few minutes, Fraser gesturing toward the group of horses in the paddock. There were three horses there, frisky two-year-old stallions, who nipped and shoved one another, galloping up and down in play. Fraser took a coiled halter rope from the fence post, and a bag of oats, and handed these to the young man.

The new groom took them gingerly, then opened the gate and went into the paddock. Grey saw that his nervousness vanished as soon as he was in with the horses; that was a good sign. Fraser seemed to think so, too—he gave a small nod to himself and crossed his forearms on the top rail, settling himself to watch.

Willie yanked at the side of Fraser’s breeches, obviously wanting to get up and see. Rather than pick the boy up, though, Fraser nodded, bent, and showed Willie how to put a foot up on the rail and then pull himself up. With a large hand cupped under his bottom to supply a boost, William made it to the upper rail and clung there, crowing with pleasure. Fraser smiled at him and said something, then turned back to watch how the groom was getting on.

Perfect. Grey could go and watch, too: nothing more natural.

He came up beside Fraser, nodded briefly to him, and leaned in his turn on the fence. They watched in silence for a few moments; the new man had successfully whistled the stallions in, shaking his bagful of oats, and had slipped the halter rope around the neck of one of the young horses. The others, finding the oats gone, shook their manes and frisked away; the roped one tried to go with them and, displeased to find himself tied, jerked back.

Grey watched with interest to see what the groom would do; he didn’t pull on the rope but rather swarmed inward along it and, with a hand on the stallion’s mane, was on his back in an instant. He turned his face toward Fraser, flashing a grin, and Fraser laughed, turning up his thumb in approval.

“Well done!” he called. “Take him round a few times, aye?”

“Well done!” Willie piped, and hopped up and down on the fence rail like a sparrow.

Fraser put out a hand to touch the boy’s shoulder, and he quieted at once. All three of them watched the groom take the horse barebacked round the paddock, sticking in spite of all attempts to shake or rear, until the stallion gave up and trotted peacefully along.

The sense of excitement ebbed to one of pleasant half attention. And, quite suddenly, Grey knew what to say.

“Queen’s knight,” he said quietly. “To queen two.” It was, he knew, a dangerous opening.

Fraser didn’t move, but Grey felt his sideways glance. After an instant’s hesitation, he replied, “King’s knight to bishop two,” and Grey felt his heart lighten. It was the answer to the Torremolinos Gambit, the one he had used on that far-off, disastrous evening at Ardsmuir, when he had first laid his hand on Jamie Fraser’s.

“Well done, well done, well done,” Willie was chanting softly to himself. “Well done, well done, well done!”

41

A Moonlicht Flicht

IT WAS NOT YET TEATIME, BUT THE SUN HOVERED JUST above the leafless copper beeches; the dark came earlier every day. Jamie was walking back from the distant barn where the farm horses were kept. Three young men from the village tended these, feeding, brushing, and mucking out; Jamie came daily when the horses were brought in, to check for injury, lameness, cough, and general ill health, for the farm horses were, in their own way, nearly as valuable as the stud.

Joe Gore, one of the farmhands, was outside the barn, looking out for him, and looking anxious. The instant he saw Jamie, he broke into a clumsy run, waving his arms.

“Fanny’s gone missing!” he blurted.

“How?” Jamie asked, startled. Fanny was a big Belgian draft horse, fawn in color, who stood seventeen hands at the shoulder. Not easily mislaid, even in the fading light.

“Well, I dunno, do I?” Joe was scared, and defensive with it. “Ike hit a stone and bent t’ wheel rim, so’m he unhitched wagon and left her while he brung wheel to smithy. I go up to get her, and she’s nay bloody there, is she?”

“Ye checked the walls and hedges, aye?” Jamie was already moving, heading for the distant cornfield, Joe at his heels. That field was not fenced but was bordered by drystone dikes on three sides, a windbreak hedgerow to the north. The notion of Fanny jumping the walls was just this side of absurd, but she might conceivably have broken through the hedge; she was a powerful horse.

“Think I’m green? ’Course I did!”

“We’ll go round by the road.” Jamie jerked his chin toward the road that edged the property to the east; it was the border of Helwater’s land and made along the high ground, offering a view of the whole of the back fields.

They had barely reached the road, though, when Joe gave a shout of relief, pointing. “There she is! Who the devil’s that atop her?”

Jamie squinted for a moment into the glare of the fading sun and felt a lurch of alarm—for the small figure perched on Fanny’s back, kicking its heels in frustration against the draft horse’s great placid sides, was Betty Mitchell.

Fanny had been plodding stolidly along when first sighted, but now the big head reared up, nostrils flaring, and she broke into a thumping gallop. Betty screamed and fell off.

Jamie left Fanny to Joe, who seized the horse by the mane and was half-dragged toward the barn as Fanny made single-mindedly for her manger. Jamie squatted by Betty but was relieved to see her already struggling to rise, using the most unladylike language he’d heard since Claire had left him.

“What—” he began, seizing her under the arms, but she didn’t wait for him to finish.

“Isobel!” she gasped. “That frigging lawyer’s got her! You’ve got to go!”

“Go where?” He set her firmly on her feet, but she swayed alarmingly, and he gripped her arms to steady her. “Mr. Wilberforce, ye mean?”

“Who bloody else?” she snapped. “He came to take her driving, in a gig. She was already out in the yard with her bonnet on, getting in, when I saw her from the window. I ran down and said, whatever was she thinking? She wasn’t going off with him by herself—Lady D would have my head!”

She paused to breathe heavily, gathering herself.

“She tried to make me stay, but he laughed and said I was quite right; ’twasn’t proper for an unmarried young woman to be out with a man unchaperoned. She made a face, but she giggled at him and said, oh, all right, then, she supposed I could come.”

Betty’s hair was coming down in thick hanks round her face; she brushed one back with a “Tcha!” of irritation, then turned round and pointed up the road.

“We got up to the edge of Helwater, and he stops to look at the view. We all got out, and I’m standing there thinking it’s perishing cold and me come out with no more than my shawl and cross with Isobel for being a thoughtless ninny, and all of a sudden Mr. Wilberforce grabs me by the shoulders and pushes me off the road and into a ditch, the fucking bastard! Look at that, just look!” She seized a handful of her muddied skirt and shook it under Jamie’s nose, showing him a great rent in the fabric.

“Where’s he gone, do ye know?”

“I can bloody guess! Gretna fucking Green, that’s where!”

“Jesus Christ!” He took a deep breath, trying to think. “He’ll never get there tonight—not in a gig.”

She shrugged, exasperated. “Why are you standing here? You’ve got to go after them!”

“Me? Why, for God’s sake?”

“Because you can ride fast! And because you’re big enough to make her bloody come back with you! And you can keep it quiet!”

When he did not move at once, she stamped her foot. “Are you deaf? You have to go now! If he takes her maidenhead, she’s stuffed more ways than one. The bugger’s got a wife already.”

“What? A wife?”

“Will you stop saying ‘What’ like a bloody parrot?” she snapped. “Yes! He married a girl in Perthshire, five or six years back. She left him and went back to her parents, and he came to Derwentwater. I heard it from—well, never bloody mind! Just—just—go!”

“But you—”

“I’ll manage! GO!” she bellowed, her face scarlet in the glare of the sinking sun.

He went.

HIS FIRST IMPULSE was to go back to the house, to the main stable. But that would take too long—and embroil him in awkward explanations that would not only delay his leaving but rouse the whole household.

“And you can keep it quiet,” Betty had said.

“Aye, fat chance,” he muttered, half-running for the barn. But if there was any chance of keeping this from becoming an open scandal, he had to admit that it probably lay with him, little as he liked it.

There was no possibility of pursuing Wilberforce on one of the farm horses, even were they not knackered from the day’s work. But there were two fine mules, Whitey and Mike, who were kept to draw the hay wagon. They were broken to the saddle, at least, and had spent the day in pasture. He might just …

By the time he’d reached this point in his thoughts, he was already rifling through the tack in search of a snaffle and, ten minutes later, was mounted on a surprised and affronted Whitey, trotting toward the road, the three stable-hands staring after them with their mouths hanging open. He saw Betty in the distance, limping toward the house, her entire figure emanating indignation.

He felt no small amount of this emotion himself. His impulse was to think that Isobel had made her bed and could lie in it—but, after all, she was very young and knew nothing of men, let alone a scoundrel like Wilberforce.

And she would indeed be stuffed, as Betty inelegantly put it, once Wilberforce had taken her maidenhead. Quite simply, her life would be ruined. And her family would be badly damaged—more damaged. They’d lost two of their three children already.

He pressed his lips tight. He supposed he owed it to Geneva Dunsany and her parents to save her little sister.

He wished he had thought to tell Betty to seek out Lord John and let him know what was to do—but it was too late for that, and he couldn’t have waited for Grey to come, in any case. The sun had sunk below the trees now, though the sky remained light; he’d have an hour, maybe, before full dark. He might reach the coaching road in that time.

If Wilberforce meant to reach Gretna Green, just over the Scottish border, where he could marry Isobel without the consent of her parents—and without anything in the way of questions asked—he must be taking the coaching road that led from London to Edinburgh. This passed within a few miles of Helwater. And it had inns along the way.

Not even an eloping scoundrel would try to drive a gig all the way to Gretna at night. They’d have to stop overnight and go on in the morning.

He might catch them in time.

IT WAS A GOOD deal safer to ride a mule in the dark than to drive a gig, but still nothing a sane man would want to do. He was shivering—and not entirely from the cold, though he was wearing only a leather jerkin over his shirt—and cursing in a manner that would have outdone Betty, by the time he saw the lights of the first posthouse.

He gave the mule to an ostler to water, asking as he did whether a gig had stopped, with a well-dressed man and a young woman in it?

It had not, though the ostler had seen such a conveyance go by, just before dark, and thought the driver an idiot.

“Aye,” Jamie said briefly. “How far’s the next inn?”

“Two miles,” the man replied, peering at him curiously. “You’re after him, are you? What’s he done?”

“Nothing,” Jamie assured him. “He’s a solicitor, hurryin’ to a dying client who needs a will changed. He’s left behind some papers he needs, so they sent me on to bring them.”

“Oh.” The ostler—like everyone else in the world—had no interest in legal matters.

Jamie had no money, so shared the mule’s water, scooping it up with his hand. The ostler took his lack of money personally, but Jamie loomed menacingly at him, and the ostler took his disgruntlement off to a safe distance, muttering insults.

Back to the road, after a brief contest of wills between Jamie and the mule, and on into the night. There was a half-moon, barely up, and as it rose, he was at least able to see the edge of the road and thus not fear going badly astray in the dark.

Biddle was not a posthouse but rather a small hamlet boasting one tavern—outside which stood the Helwater gig, its traces unhitched. Jamie said a quick Hail Mary in thanks, added an Our Father for strength, and swung grimly off the mule.

He tied Whitey to the rail and stood for a moment, rubbing his stubbled chin and thinking how to proceed. One way if they were in separate rooms—but another if they were together. And if solicitor Wilberforce was the man that Betty thought him, Jamie would put money on together. The man wouldn’t want to risk being caught before he’d put the matter beyond question; he wouldn’t wait for marriage before deflowering the girl, for once he’d taken her virginity, there was no going back.

The simplest thing would be to walk in and demand to know the whereabouts of Wilberforce and Isobel—but if the aim was as much to prevent scandal as it was to rescue the fat-heided wee lassie from her peril, he’d best not do that. Instead, he walked quietly round behind the tavern, looking at the windows.

It was a small place: only two rooms upstairs, and only one of those windows was lit. The shutters were drawn, but he saw a shadow pass by the crack, and as he stood there in the sharp-smelling dark, he heard Isobel’s giggle, high and nervous, and then the rumble of Wilberforce’s voice.

Not too late, then. He drew a deep breath and flexed his hands, stiff with cold and long riding.

The words of an old Highland song echoed in his mind as he rummaged about the ramshackle shed behind the tavern. He had no notion of the music, but it was a ballad, and he recalled the story, which had to do with an abducted bride.

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