* * *
As the girl opened her mouth, I opened mine as well. And screamed as loudly as I could. The butler, taken unprepared, took a step back, tripped on a settee, and fell over sideways like a bowls pin. I could hear the startled noises of the soldiers outside, coming up the steps.
I picked up my skirts, shrieked “A mouse! A mouse!” and fled toward the parlor, yelling like a banshee.
Infected by my apparent hysteria, Mary shrieked as well, and clutched me about the middle as I cannoned into her. I bore her back into the recesses of the parlor with me, and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Don’t tell anyone who I am,” I breathed into her ear. “No one! My life depends on it!” I had thought I was being melodramatic, but it occurred to me, as I spoke the words, that I could very well be telling the exact truth. Being married to Red Jamie Fraser was likely a dicey proposition.
Mary had time only to nod in a dazed sort of way, when the door at the far side of the room opened, and a man came in.
“Whatever is all this wretched noise, Mary?” he demanded. A plump, contented-looking man, he had also the firm chin and tightly satisfied lips of the man who is contented because he generally gets his own way.
“N-nothing, Papa,” said Mary, stuttering in her nervousness. “Only a m-m-mouse.”
The baronet squeezed his eyes shut and inhaled deeply, seeking patience. Having found a simulacrum of that state, he opened them and gazed at his offspring.
“Say it again, child,” he ordered. “But straight. I’ll not have you mumbling and blithering. Take a deep breath, steady yourself. Now. Again.”
Mary obeyed, inhaling ’til the laces of her bodice strained across the budding chest. Her fingers wound themselves in the silk brocade of her skirt, seeking support.
“It w-was a mouse, Papa. Mrs. Fr…er, this lady was frightened by a mouse.”
Dismissing this attempt as barely satisfactory, the baronet stepped forward, examining me with interest.
“Oh? And who might you be, Madam?”
Captain Mainwaring, arriving belatedly after the search for the mythical mouse, popped up at my elbow and introduced me, handing over the note of introduction from Colonel MacLeish.
“Hum. So, it seems His Grace is to be your host, Madam, at least temporarily.” He handed the note to the waiting butler, and took the hat the latter had taken from the nearby rack.
“I regret that our acquaintance should be so short, Mrs. Beauchamp. I was just leaving myself.” He glanced over his shoulder, to a short stairway that branched off the hall. The butler, dignity restored, was already mounting it, grubby note reposing on a salver held before him. “I see Walmisley has gone to tell His Grace of your arrival. I must go, or I shall miss the post-coach. Adieu, Mrs. Beauchamp.”
He turned to Mary, hanging back against the paneled wainscoting. “Goodbye, daughter. Do try to…well.” The corners of his mouth turned up in what was meant to be a fatherly smile. “Goodbye, Mary.”
“Goodbye, Papa,” she murmured, eyes on the ground. I glanced from one to the other. What on earth was Mary Hawkins, of all people, doing here? Plainly she was staying at the house; I supposed the owner must be some connection of her family’s.
“Mrs. Beauchamp?” A small, tubby footman was bowing at my elbow. “His Grace will see you now, Madam.”
Mary’s hands clutched at my sleeve as I turned to follow the footman. “B-b-b-but…” she began. In my keyed-up state, I didn’t think I could manage sufficient patience to hear her out. I smiled vaguely and patted her hand.
“Yes, yes,” I said. “Don’t worry, it will be all right.”
“B-but it’s my…”
The footman bowed and pushed open a door at the end of the corridor. Light within fell on the richness of brocade and polished wood. The chair I could see to one side had a family crest embroidered on its back; a clearer version of the worn stone shield I had seen outside.
A leopard couchant, holding in its paw a bunch of lilies—or were they crocuses? Alarm bells rang in my mind as the chair’s occupant rose, his shadow falling across the polished doorsill as he turned. Mary’s final anguished word made it out, neck and neck with the footman’s announcement.
“My g-g-godfather!” she said.
“His Grace, the Duke of Sandringham,” said the footman.
“Mrs.…Beauchamp?” said the Duke, his mouth dropping open in astonishment.
“Well,” I said weakly. “Something like that.”