An Echo in the Bone, Page 79

  fires like hers. But the night above stretched black and clear and infinite, the stars burning with their own cold fire.

  When she went back in, he was half under the bed, muttering.

  “What?” she demanded, and he backed out, bringing with him the small crate that held their foodstuffs—save that it didn’t. Only a scattering of raw acorns and an apple, half-gnawed by mice, remained.

  “ What?” she repeated, shocked. “What has happened to the food?”

  Denny was flushed and plainly angry, and rubbed his knuckles hard across his lips before replying.

  “Some misbegotten son of a—of Belial… has slit the tent and taken it.”

  The resultant flood of fury at this news was almost welcome, for the distraction that it offered.

  “Why, that—that—”

  “Doubtless,” Denny said, taking a deep breath and seeking to regain control of himself, “he was hungry. Poor soul,” he added, with a distinct lack of charitable intonation.

  “If so, he might have asked to be fed,” she snapped. “He is a thief, plain and simple.” She tapped a foot, fuming. “Well. I will go and beg some food myself, then. Watch the coffee.”

  “Thee need not go on my account,” he protested, but it was a halfhearted protest; she knew he had not eaten since morning and was starved, and she said as much to him with a wide-eyed stare in his direction.

  “The wolves…” he said, but she was already wrapping up her cloak and pulling on her cap.

  “I’ll take a torch,” she assured him. “And it would be an unlucky wolf who made the mistake of crossing me in my present mood, I assure thee!” She seized her gathering bag and went out quickly, before he could ask her where she proposed to go.

  SHE MIGHT HAVE gone to a dozen different tents nearby. Puzzlement and suspicion of the Hunters had faded after Denny’s adventures as a deserter, and Rachel herself had cordial relations with a number of the militia wives who camped near them.

  She might have told herself that she hesitated to disturb these worthy women so late. Or that she wished to hear the latest news regarding the surrender—Friend Jamie was always privy to the negotiations and would tell her what he could. Or that she thought to consult Claire Fraser regarding a small but painful wart upon her great toe and might as well do this while seeking food, for the sake of convenience.

  But she was an honest woman and told herself none of these things. She was walking toward the Frasers’ camp as though drawn by a magnet, and the magnet’s name was Ian Murray. She saw this clearly, thought her own behavior insane—and could no more do otherwise than she could change the color of her eyes.

  What she meant to do, say, or even think if she did see him was unimaginable, but she walked on nonetheless, steady as though she went to market, the light of her torch a beacon upon the trampled dirt of her path, her own shadow following, huge and strange upon the pale canvas of the tents she passed.

  DESPOILER

  I WAS TENDING the fire when I heard the sound of slow footsteps approaching. I turned, to see a massive shape between me and the moon, coming fast. I tried to run but couldn’t make my legs obey me. As in all the best nightmares, I tried to scream, only to find it trapped in my throat. I choked, and it came out as a small, strangled “eep.”

  The monstrous shape—manlike, but humped and headless, grunting—stopped before me, and there was a short whoosh and a loud thump of something hitting the ground that sent the cold air rushing up under my skirt.

  “I brought ye a present, Sassenach,” Jamie said, grinning and wiping sweat from his jaw.

  “A… present,” I said faintly, looking at the enormous heap of… what?… he had dropped on the ground at my feet. Then the smell reached me.

  “A buffalo robe!” I exclaimed. “Oh, Jamie! A real buffalo robe?”

  Not much doubt of that. It was not—thank God—a fresh one, but the scent of its original owner was still perceptible, even in the cold. I fell to my knees, running my hands over it. It was well-cured, flexible, and relatively clean, the wool of it rough under my hands but free of mud, burrs, clumps of dung, and the other impedimenta that normally attended live buffalo. It was enormous. And warm. Wonderfully warm.

  I sank my freezing hands into the depths of it, which still held Jamie’s body heat.

  “Oh,” I breathed. “You won it?”

  “I did,” he said proudly. “From one of the British officers. A decent man at cards,” he added fairly, “but no luck.”

  “You’ve been playing with British officers?” I cast an uneasy look in the direction of the British camp, though it wasn’t visible from here.

  “Just one. A Captain Mansel. He came wi’ the latest reply from Burgoyne and was obliged to wait while Granny chews it over. He’ll be lucky if he’s not skinned to the bone before he goes back,” he added callously. “Worse luck wi’ cards I never saw.”

  I paid no attention, engrossed in examining the robe. “This is marvelous, Jamie! It’s huge!”

  It was. A good eight feet long, and wide enough that two people could lie cradled in its warmth—provided they didn’t mind sleeping close. The thought of crawling into that enveloping shelter, warm and cozy, after so many nights shivering under threadbare blankets …

  Jamie appeared to have been thinking along similar lines.

  “Big enough for the two of us,” he said, and touched my breast, very delicately.

  “Oh, really?”

  He leaned closer, and I caught his own scent above the gamy pong of the buffalo robe—dry leaves, and the bitterness of acorn coffee, laced with sweet brandy, top notes to the deep male scent of his skin.

  “I could pick you out of a dozen men in a dark room,” I said, closing my eyes and inhaling enjoyably.

  “I daresay ye could; I havena bathed in a week.” He put his hands on my shoulders and bent his head until our foreheads touched.

  “I want to unlace the neck o’ your shift,” he whispered, “and suckle your breasts until ye curl up like a wee shrimp, wi’ your knees in my balls. Then take ye fast and hard, and fall asleep wi’ my head pillowed on your naked breasts. Really,” he added, straightening up.

  “Oh,” I said. “What a good idea.”

  IN FAVOR AS I WAS of the suggested program, I could see that Jamie required nourishment before executing anything of a further strenuous nature; I could hear his stomach rumbling from a yard away.

  “Playing cards takes it out of you, does it?” I observed, watching him demolish three apples in six bites.

  “Aye, it does,” he said briefly. “Have we any bread?”

  “No, but there’s beer.”

  As though the word had evoked him, Young Ian materialized out of the gloom.

  “Beer?” he said hopefully.

  “Bread?” Jamie and I said together, sniffing like dogs. Wafting from Ian’s clothes was a yeasty, half-burned fragrance, which proved to come from two small loaves in his pockets.

  “Where did you get these, Ian?” I asked, handing him a canteen of beer.

  He drank deep, then lowered the canteen and stared vacantly at me for a moment.

  “Ah?” he said vaguely.

  “Are you all right, Ian?” I peered at him in some concern, but he blinked, and intelligence returned momentarily to his face.

  “Aye, Auntie, fine. I’ll just… ah… oh, thank ye for the beer.” He handed back the empty canteen, smiled at me as though I were a stranger, and wandered off into the darkness.

  “Did you see that?” I turned to find Jamie absorbed in dabbing up bread crumbs from his lap with a moistened finger.

  “No, what? Here, Sassenach.” He handed me the second loaf.

  “Ian acting like a half-wit. Here, you have half; you need it more than I do.”

  He didn’t argue.

  “He wasna bleeding or staggering, was he? Well, then, I suppose he’s fallen in love wi’ some poor lass.”

  “Oh? Well, that would fit the symptoms. But…” I nibbled the bread slo
wly, to make it last; it was crusty and fresh, clearly just out of the ashes. I’d seen young men in love, certainly, and Ian’s behavior did fit the symptomology. But I hadn’t seen it in Ian, not since … “I wonder who?”

  “God knows. I hope it’s no one of the whores.” Jamie sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Though maybe better that than someone else’s wife.”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t—” I began, but then saw the wry look on his face. “Oh, he didn’t?”

  “No, he didn’t,” Jamie said, “but a near thing—and no credit to the lady involved.”

  “Who?”

  “Colonel Miller’s lady.”

  “Dear me.” Abigail Miller was a sprightly young blonde of twenty or so, and twenty or so years younger than her rather stout—and distinctly humorless—husband. “Just… how near a thing?”

  “Near enough,” Jamie said grimly. “She had him up against a tree, rubbing up to him like a wee cat in heat. Though I imagine her husband will ha’ put a stop to her antics by now.”

  “He saw them?”

  “Aye. He and I were walking together, came round a bush, and there they were. It was clear enough to me that it wasna the lad’s idea—but he wasna resisting all that much, either.”

  Colonel Miller had frozen for an instant, then strode forward, gripped his startled wife by the arm, and with a murmured “Good day, sir” to Jamie, had dragged her off, squealing, in the direction of his camp.

  “Jesus H…. when did this happen?” I demanded.

  Jamie glanced at the rising moon, estimating.

  “Oh, maybe five or six hours ago.”

  “And he’s already managed to fall in love with someone else?”

  He smiled at me.

  “Ever heard of coup de foudre, Sassenach? It didna take me more than one good look at you.”

  “Hmm,” I said, pleased.

  WITH SOME EFFORT, I heaved the heavy buffalo robe over the stack of cut fir branches that formed the foundation of our bed, spread our two blankets over the robe, then folded the whole thing over like a dumpling, creating a large, weatherproof, cozy pocket into which I inserted myself, shivering in my shift.

  I left the tent flap open, watching Jamie as he drank coffee and talked with two militiamen who had come by to gossip.

  As my feet thawed for the first time in a month, I relaxed into untrammeled bliss. Like most people obliged to live outdoors in the autumn, I normally slept in everything I owned. Women moving with the army would occasionally remove their stays—if it wasn’t raining, you saw them hung to air from tree branches in the mornings sometimes, like huge, malodorous birds poised for flight—but most simply loosened the ties and lay down regardless. Stays are quite comfortable to wear while standing up, but leave a lot to be desired in terms of nightwear.

  Tonight, with the prospect of warm, waterproof shelter at hand, I had actually gone so far as to take off not only my stays—rolled up under my head as a pillow—but also skirt, blouse, jacket, and kerchief, crawling into bed in nothing save my shift and stockings. I felt absolutely depraved.

  I stretched luxuriously and ran my hands down the length of my body, then thoughtfully cupped my breasts, contemplating Jamie’s proposed plan of action.

  The warmth of the buffalo robe was making me deliciously drowsy. I thought I needn’t struggle to stay awake; I could tell that Jamie wasn’t in any mood to forbear waking me out of chivalrous regard for my rest.

  Had the fortuitous acquisition of the buffalo robe inspired him? I wondered, thumb dreamily circling one nipple. Or had sexual desperation inspired him to bet on the thing? What with his injured hand, it had been … how many days? I was absently totting up the total in my mind when I heard the low murmur of a new voice by the fire, and sighed.

  Ian. Not that I wasn’t pleased to see him, but… oh, well. At least he hadn’t turned up just as we were…

  He was sitting on one of the stones near the fire, head bent. He took something from his sporran and rubbed it thoughtfully between his fingers as he talked. His long, homely face was worried—but bore an odd sort of glow.

  How peculiar, I thought. I’d seen it before, that look. A sort of intent concentration on something wonderful, a marvelous secret held to himself.

  It was a girl, I thought, both amused and touched. He’d looked just that way at Mary, the young prostitute who had been his first. And Emily?

  Well, yes… I thought so, though in that instance his joy in her had been terribly shadowed by the knowledge of his impending separation from everyone and everything else he loved.

  Cruimnich, Jamie had said to him, laying his own plaid over Ian’s shoulders in farewell. “Remember.” I had thought my heart would break, to leave him—I knew Jamie’s had.

  He was still wearing the same ragged plaid, pinned to the shoulder of his buckskins.

  “Rachel Hunter?” Jamie said, loud enough for me to hear, and I jerked upright, startled.

  “Rachel Hunter?” I echoed. “You’re in love with Rachel?”

  Ian looked at me, startled by my jack-in-the-box appearance.

  “Oh, there ye are, Auntie. I wondered where ye’d got to,” he said mildly.

  “Rachel Hunter?” I repeated, not intending to let him elude the question.

  “Well… aye. At least, I… well, aye. I am.” The admission made the blood rise in his cheeks; I could see it even by firelight.

  “The lad is thinking we’d maybe have a word wi’ Denzell, Sassenach,” Jamie explained. He looked amused, but slightly worried, as well.

  “A word? What for?”

  Ian looked up and glanced from one to the other of us. “It’s only… Denny Hunter’s no going to like it. But he thinks the world of Auntie Claire, and he respects you, of course, Uncle Jamie.”

  “Why would he not like it?” I asked. I had by now extracted myself from the robe and, wrapping my shawl round my shoulders, sat down on a rock beside him. My mind was racing. I liked Rachel Hunter very much. And I was very pleased—to say nothing of relieved—if Ian had at last found a decent woman to love. But…

  Ian gave me a look.

  “Surely ye’ve noticed that they’re Quaker, Auntie?”

  “I did, yes,” I said, giving him back the look. “But—”

  “And I’m not.”

  “Yes, I’d noticed that, too. But—”

  “She’d be put out of meeting, if she weds me. Most likely they both would. They’ve been put out once already for Denny’s going wi’ the army, and that was hard for her.”

  “Oh,” said Jamie, pausing in the act of tearing off a bit of bread. He held it for a moment, frowning. “Aye, I suppose they would.” He put the bread into his mouth and chewed slowly, considering.

  “Do you think she loves you, too, Ian?” I asked, as gently as possible.

  Ian’s face was a study, torn between worry, alarm, and that inner glow that kept breaking through the clouds of distress.

  “I—well… I think so. I hope so.”

  “You haven’t asked her?”

  “I… not exactly. I mean—we didna really talk, ken?”

  Jamie swallowed his bread and coughed.

  “Ian,” he said. “Tell me ye havena bedded Rachel Hunter.”

  Ian gave him a look of affront. Jamie stared at him, brows raised. Ian dropped his gaze back to the object in his hands, rolling it between his palms like a ball of dough.

  “No,” he muttered. “I wish I had, though.”

  “What?”

  “Well… if I had, then she’d have to wed me, no? I wish I’d thought of that—but no, I couldna; she said stop, and I did.” He swallowed, hard.

  “Very gentlemanly of you,” I murmured, though in fact I rather saw his point. “And very intelligent of her.”

  He sighed. “What am I to do, Uncle Jamie?”

  “I don’t suppose you could become a Quaker yourself?” I asked hesitantly.

  Both Jamie and Ian looked at me. They didn’t resemble each other in the slightes
t, but the look of ironic amusement on both faces was identical.

  “I dinna ken very much about myself, Auntie,” Ian said, with a painful half smile, “but I think I wasna born to be a Quaker.”

  “And I suppose you couldn’t—no, of course not.” The thought of professing a conversion that he didn’t mean had plainly never entered his mind.

  It struck me quite suddenly that, of all people, Ian would understand exactly what the cost to Rachel would be if her love for him severed her from her people. No wonder he hesitated at the thought of her paying such a price.

  Always assuming, I reminded myself, that she did love him. I had better have a talk with Rachel first.

  Ian was still turning something over in his hands. Looking closer, I saw that it was a small, darkened, leathery-looking object. Surely it wasn’t—

  “That isn’t Neil Forbes’s ear, is it?” I blurted.

  “Mr. Fraser?”

  The voice brought me up standing, hairs prickling at the back of my neck. Bloody hell, not him again? Sure enough, it was the Continental soldier, the despoiler of my soup. He came slowly into the circle of firelight, deep-set eyes fixed on Jamie.

  “I am James Fraser, aye,” Jamie said, setting down his cup and gesturing politely toward a vacant rock. “Will ye take a cup of coffee, sir? Or what passes for it?”

  The man shook his head, not speaking. He was looking Jamie over appraisingly, like one about to buy a horse and not sure of its temper.

  “Perhaps ye’d prefer a warm cup o’ spittle?” Ian said, in an unfriendly tone. Jamie glanced at him, startled.

  “Seo mac na muice a thàinig na bu thràithe gad shiubhal,” Ian added. He didn’t take his eyes off the stranger. “Chan eil e ag iarraidh math dhut idir ‘uncle.’This is the misbegotten son of a pig who came earlier in search of you. He means you no good, Uncle.”

  “Tapadh leat Iain. Cha robh fios air a bhith agam,” Jamie answered in the same language, keeping his voice pleasantly relaxed. “Thank you, Ian. I should never have guessed. Have ye business with me, sir?” he asked, changing to English.

  “I would speak with you, yes. In privacy,” the man added, with a dismissive glance at Ian. Apparently I didn’t count.

  “This is my nephew,” Jamie said, still courteous but wary. “Ye may speak in front of him.”

  “I fear ye may think differently, Mr. Fraser, when you hear what I’ve to say. And once said, such things cannot be unsaid. Leave, young man,” he said, not bothering to look at Ian. “Or you will both regret it.”

  Both Jamie and Ian stiffened visibly. Then they moved, at nearly the same instant, bodies shifting subtly, their feet coming under them, shoulders squaring. Jamie gazed thoughtfully at the man for a moment, then inclined his head an inch toward Ian. Ian rose without a word and disappeared into the darkness.

  The man stood waiting, until the sound of Ian’s footsteps had faded and the night settled into silence around the tiny fire. Then he moved round the fire and sat down slowly, opposite Jamie, still maintaining that unnerving air of scrutiny. Well, it unnerved me; Jamie merely picked up his cup and drained it, calm as though he were sitting at his own kitchen table.

  “If ye’ve aught to say to me, sir, say it. It’s late, and I’m for my bed.”