* * *
I might have managed if it weren’t for the bloody nightingales. The dining salon was hot and crowded with courtiers and onlookers, one of the stays in my dress frame had come loose and was stabbing me viciously beneath the left kidney each time I drew breath, and I was suffering from that most ubiquitous plague of pregnancy, the urge to urinate every few minutes. Still, I might have managed. It was, after all, a serious breach of manners to leave the table before the King, even though luncheon was a casual affair, in comparison with the formal dinners customary at Versailles—or so I was given to understand. “Casual,” however, is a relative term.
True, there were only three varieties of spiced pickle, not eight. And one soup, clear, not thick. The venison was merely roasted, not presented en brochette, and the fish, while tastily poached in wine, was served fileted, not whole and riding on a sea of aspic filled with shrimp.
As though frustrated by so much rustic simplicity, though, one of the chefs had provided a charming hors d’oeuvre—a nest, cunningly built from strips of pastry, ornamented with real sprigs of flowering apple, on the edge of which perched two nightingales, skinned and roasted, stuffed with apple and cinnamon, then redressed in their feathers. And in the nest was the entire family of baby birds, tiny stubs of outstretched wings brown and crispy, tender bare skins glazed with honey, blackened mouths agape to show the merest hint of the almond-paste stuffing within.
After a triumphal tour of the table to show it off—to the accompaniment of murmurs of admiration all round—the dainty dish was set before the King, who turned from his conversation with Madame de La Tourelle long enough to pluck one of the nestlings from its place and pop it into his mouth.
Crunch, crunch, crunch went Louis’s teeth. Mesmerized, I watched the muscles of his throat ripple, and felt the rubble of small bones slide down my own gullet. Brown fingers reached casually for another baby.
At this point, I concluded that there were probably worse things than insulting His Majesty by leaving the table, and bolted.
Rising from my knees amid the shrubbery a few minutes later, I heard a sound behind me. Expecting to meet the eye of a justifiably irate gardener, I turned guiltily to meet the eye of an irate husband.
“Damn it, Claire, d’ye have to do this all the time?” he demanded.
“In a word—yes,” I said, sinking exhaustedly onto the rim of an ornamental fountain. My hands were damp, and I smoothed them over my skirt. “Did you think I did it for fun?” I felt light-headed, and closed my eyes, trying to regain my internal balance before I fell into the fountain.
Suddenly there was a hand at the small of my back, and I half-leaned, half-fell into his arms as he sat beside me and gathered me in.
“Oh, God. I’m sorry, mo duinne. Are ye all right, Claire?”
I pushed away enough to look up at him and smile.
“I’m all right. Just a bit light-headed, is all.” I reached up and tried to smooth away the deep line of concern on his forehead. He smiled back, but the line stayed, a thin vertical crease between the thick sandy curves of his eye-brows. He swished a hand in the fountain and smoothed it over my cheeks. I must have looked rather pale.
“I’m sorry,” I added. “Really, Jamie, I couldn’t help it.”
His damp hand squeezed the back of my neck reassuringly, strong and steady. A fine spray of droplets from the mouth of a bug-eyed dolphin misted my hair.
“Och, dinna mind me, Sassenach. I didna mean to snap at ye. It’s only…” He made a helpless gesture with one hand. “…only that I feel such a thick-heided clot. I see ye in a misery, and I know I’ve done it to ye, and there isna the slightest thing I can do to aid you. So I blame ye for it instead, and act cross and growl at you…why do ye no just tell me to go to the devil, Sassenach?” he burst out.
I laughed until my sides hurt under the tight corseting, holding on to his arm.
“Go to hell, Jamie,” I said at last, wiping my eyes. “Go directly to hell. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. There. Do you feel better now?”
“Aye, I do,” he said, his expression lightening. “When ye start to talk daft, I know you’re all right. Do you feel better, Sassenach?”
“Yes,” I said, sitting up and beginning to take notice of my surroundings. The grounds of Versailles were open to the public, and small groups of merchants and laborers mingled oddly with the brightly colored nobles, all enjoying the good weather.
Suddenly the nearby door onto the terrace burst open, spilling the King’s guests out into the garden in a tide of chatter. The exodus from luncheon had been augmented by a new deputation, apparently just decanted from the two large coaches I could see driving past the edge of the garden toward distant stables.
It was a large group of people, men and women, soberly clad by comparison with the bright colors of the courtiers around them. It was the sound of them, though, rather than the appearance, that had caught my attention. French, spoken by a number of people at a distance, strongly resembles the quacking conversation of ducks and geese, with its nasal elements. English, on the other hand, has a slower pace, and much less rise and fall in its intonations. Spoken at a distance where individual voices are impossible to distinguish, it has the gruff, friendly monotony of a sheepdog’s barking. And the general effect of the mass exodus presently coming in our direction was of a gaggle of geese being driven to market by a pack of dogs.
The English party had arrived, somewhat belatedly. No doubt they were being tactfully shooed into the garden while the kitchen staff hastily prepared another dinner and reset the massive table for them.
I scanned the group curiously. The Duke of Sandringham I knew, of course, having met him once before in Scotland at Castle Leoch. His barrelchested figure was easy to pick out, walking side by side with Louis, modish wig tilted in polite attention.
Most of the other people were strangers, though I thought the stylish lady of middle age just coming through the doors must be the Duchess of Claymore, whom I had heard was expected. The Queen, normally left behind at some country house to amuse herself as best she could, had been trotted out for the occasion. She was talking to the visitor, her sweet, anxious face flushed with the unaccustomed excitement of the occasion.
The young girl just behind the Duchess caught my eye. Quite plainly dressed, she had the sort of beauty that would make her stand out in any crowd. She was small, fine-boned but nicely rounded in figure, with dark, shiny, unpowdered hair and the most extraordinary white skin, flushed across the cheeks with a clear deep pink that made her look exactly like a flower petal.
Her coloring reminded me of a dress I’d once had in my own time, a light cotton frock decorated with red poppies. The thought for some reason struck me with a sudden unexpected wave of homesickness, and I gripped the edge of the marble bench, eyelids prickling with longing. It must be hearing plain bluff English spoken, I thought, after so many months among the lilt of Scotland and the quacking of France. The visitors sounded like home.
Then I saw him. I could feel all of the blood draining from my head as my eye traced disbelievingly over the elegant curve of the skull, dark-haired and bold amid the powdered wigs around it. Alarms rang in my head like air-raid sirens, as I fought to accept and repel the impressions that assaulted me. My subconscious saw the line of the nose, thought “Frank,” and turned my body to fly toward him in welcome. “Not-Frank,” came the slightly higher, rational center of my brain, freezing me in my tracks as I saw the familiar curve of a half-smiling mouth, repeating, “You know it’s not Frank” as the muscles of my calves knotted. And then the lurch into panic and the clenching of hands and stomach, as the slower processes of logical thought came doggedly on the trail of instinct and knowledge, seeing the high brow and the arrogant tilt of the head, assuring me of the unthinkable. It could not be Frank. And if it were not, then it could only be…
“Jack Randall.” It wasn’t my voice that spoke, but Jamie’s, sounding oddly calm and detached. Attention attracted by my peculiar behavior, he had looked where I was looking, and had seen what I had seen.
He didn’t move. So far as I could tell through the increasing haze of panic, he didn’t breathe. I was dimly aware of a nearby servant peering curiously upward at the towering form of the frozen Scottish warrior next to me, silent as a statue of Mars. But all my concern was for Jamie.
He was entirely still. Still as a lion is still, part of the grass of the plain, its stare hot and unblinking as the sun that burns the veldt. And I saw something move in the depths of his eyes. The telltale twitch of the stalking cat, the tiny jerk of the tuft at the end of the tail, precursor to carnage.
To draw arms in the presence of the King was death. Murtagh was on the far side of the garden, much too far away to help. Two more paces would bring Randall within hearing distance. Within sword’s reach. I laid a hand on his arm. It was rigid as the steel of the swordhilt under his hand. The blood roared in my ears.
“Jamie,” I said. “Jamie!” And fainted.
10
A LADY, WITH BROWN HAIR CURLING LUXURIANTLY
I swam up out of a flickering yellow haze composed of sunlight, dust, and fragmented memories, feeling completely disoriented.
Frank was leaning over me, face creased in concern. He was holding my hand, except that he wasn’t. The hand I held was much larger than Frank’s, and my fingers brushed the wiriness of coarse hairs on the wrist. Frank’s hands were smooth as a girl’s.
“Are you all right?” The voice was Frank’s, low and cultured.
“Claire!” That voice, deeper and rougher, wasn’t Frank’s at all. Neither was it cultured. It was full of fright and anguish.
“Jamie.” I found the name at last to match the mental image for which I had been seeking. “Jamie! Don’t…” I sat bolt upright, staring wildly from one face to the other. I was surrounded by a circle of curious faces, courtiers two and three deep around me, with a small clear space left for His Majesty, who was leaning over, peering down at me with an expression of sympathetic interest.
Two men knelt in the dust beside me. Jamie on the right, eyes wide and face pale as the hawthorn blossoms above him. And on my left…
“Are you all right, Madame?” The light hazel eyes held only respectful concern, the fine dark brows arched over them in inquiry. It wasn’t Frank, of course. Neither was it Jonathan Randall. This man was younger than the Captain by a good ten years, perhaps close to my own age, his face pale and unlined by exposure to weather. His lips had the same chiseled lines, but lacked the marks of ruthlessness that bracketed the Captain’s mouth.
“You.…” I croaked, leaning away from him. “You’re…”
“Alexander Randall, Esquire, Madame,” he answered quickly, making an abortive gesture toward his head, as though to doff a hat he wasn’t wearing. “I don’t believe we have met?” he said, with a hint of doubt.
“I, er, that is, no, we haven’t,” I said, sagging back against Jamie’s arm. The arm was steady as an iron railing, but the hand holding mine was trembling, and I pulled our clasped hands into the fold of my skirt to hide it.
“Rather an informal introduction, Mrs., er, no…it’s Lady Broch Tuarach, is it not?” The high, piping voice pulled my attention back above me, to the flushed, cherubic countenance of the Duke of Sandringham peering interestedly over the shoulders of the Comte de Sévigny and the Duc d’Orléans. He pushed his ungainly body through the narrow opening afforded, and extended a hand to help me to my feet. Still holding my sweaty palm in his own, he bowed in the direction of Alexander Randall, Esquire, who was frowning in a puzzled sort of way.
“Mr. Randall is in my employ as secretary, Lady Broch Tuarach. Holy Orders is a noble calling, but unfortunately nobility of purpose does not pay the cobbler’s bill, does it, Alex?” The young man flushed slightly at this barb, but he inclined his head civilly toward me, acknowledging his employer’s introduction. Only then did I notice the sober dark suit and high white stock that marked him as a junior cleric of some sort.
“His Grace is correct, my lady. And that being so, I must hold his offer of employment in the deepest gratitude.” A faint tightening of the lips at this speech seemed to indicate that the gratitude felt might not perhaps go so deep as all that, pleasant words notwithstanding. I glanced at the Duke, to find his small blue eyes creased against the sun, his expression blandly impenetrable.
This little tableau was broken by a clap of the King’s hands summoning two footmen, who, at Louis’s direction, grasped me by both arms and lifted me forcibly into a sedan chair, despite my protests.
“Certainly not, Madame,” he said, graciously dismissing both protests and thanks. “Go home and rest; we do not wish you to be indisposed for the ball tomorrow, non?” His large brown eyes twinkled at me as he raised my hand to his lips. Not taking his eyes from my face, he bowed formally toward Jamie, who had gathered his wits sufficiently to be making a gracious speech of thanks, and said, “I shall perhaps accept your thanks, my lord, in the form of your permission to request a dance from your lovely wife.”
Jamie’s lips tightened at this, but he bowed in return and said, “My wife shares my honor at your attention, Your Majesty.” He glanced in my direction. “If she is well enough to attend the ball tomorrow evening, I am sure she will look forward to dancing with Your Majesty.” He turned without waiting for formal dismissal, and jerked his head toward the chair-bearers.
“Home,” he said.