46
COMES A STRANGER
Roger bent his head and drank from cupped hands. A piece of luck, that flash of green, pointed out by a finger of sunlight stabbing down through the trees. Without it, he would never have seen the spring, so far off the trail as it was.
A clear trickle bubbled through a crack in the rock, cooling his hands and face. The rock itself was a smooth blackish green, and the ground all round was boggy, rumpled by tree roots and furred with a moss that grew brilliant as emeralds in the fleeting patch of sun.
The knowledge that he would see Brianna shortly—perhaps within the hour—soothed his annoyance as effectively as the cool water eased his dry throat. If he’d had to have his horse stolen, it was some consolation that he’d been close enough to reach his destination on foot.
The horse itself had been an ancient nag, barely worth stealing. At least he’d had the sense to keep his valuables on his person, not in the saddlebags. He clapped a hand against the side seam of his breeches, reassured to feel the small hardness snuggled against his thigh.
Beyond the horse itself, he hadn’t lost much more than a pistol—nearly as ancient as the horse and not half so reliable—a bit of food, and a leather water flask. The loss of the flask had troubled him for the last few miles of hot, dusty walking, but now that minor inconvenience was remedied.
His feet sank into the damp ground as he stood up, leaving dark streaks in the emerald moss. He stepped back and wiped the mud from his shoe soles on the carpet of dry leaves and crusted needles. Then he dusted down the skirts of his coat as well as he could, and straightened the grimy stock at his throat. His knuckles rasped the stubble on his jaw; his razor had been in the saddlebag.
He looked a right villain, he thought ruefully. No way to meet your in-laws. In truth, though, he wasn’t much concerned with what Claire and Jamie Fraser might think of him. His thoughts were all on Brianna.
She’d found her parents now; he could only hope that the reunion had been so satisfactory that she’d be in a mood to forgive his betrayal. Christ, he’d been stupid!
He made his way back toward the path, feet sinking in the soft leaf-layer. Stupid in underestimating her stubbornness, stupid not to have been honest with her, he amended. Stupid to have bullied her into secrecy. Trying to keep her safely in the future—no, that hadn’t been stupid at all, he thought, with a grimace at the things he’d seen and heard in the last few months.
He pushed aside an overhanging limb of loblolly pine, then ducked with an exclamation of alarm, as something black shot past his head.
A hoarse craawk! announced that his assailant was a raven. Similar cries gave notice of the arrival of reinforcements in the trees nearby, and within seconds, another black missile whizzed past, within inches of his ear.
“Hey, bugger off!” he exclaimed, ducking away from yet another croaking buzz bomb. He was plainly near a nest, and the ravens didn’t like it.
The first raven sailed back for another try. This pass knocked his hat into the dirt. The mobbing was unnerving, the sense of hostility out of all proportion to the size of his adversaries. Another came in, zooming low, and struck him a glancing blow as its claws ripped at the shoulder of his coat. Roger snatched up his hat and ran.
A hundred yards up the trail, he slowed to a walk and looked round. The birds were nowhere in sight; he’d passed their nesting place, then.
“And where’s Alfred Hitchcock when you need him?” he muttered to himself, trying to shake off the sense of danger.
His voice was damped at once by the thick vegetation; it was like talking into a pillow. He was breathing heavily, and his face felt flushed. All at once, it seemed very quiet in the forest. With the ceasing of the ravens’ racket, all the other birds seemed to have stopped as well. It was no wonder the old Scots thought ravens birds of bad omen; spend much longer here, and all the old ways that had been no more than curiosities would be flourishing away in his mind.
Dangerous, dirty, and uncomfortable as it was, he had to admit the fascination of being here—of experiencing at firsthand things he’d read about, seeing objects he knew as museum artifacts being casually used in daily life. If it wasn’t for Brianna, he might not regret the adventure, in spite of Stephen Bonnet and the things he had seen aboard the Gloriana.
Once more his hand went to his thigh. He had been luckier than he’d dared hope; Bonnet had had not one gemstone, but two. Would they really work? He ducked again, having to walk half crouched for several steps before the branches opened up again. Hard to believe that people lived up here, save that someone had cut this trail, and it must lead somewhere.
“You can’t miss it,” the girl at the mill had assured him, and he could see why. There wasn’t anyplace else to go.
He shaded his eyes, looking up the trail, but the drooping branches of pine and maple hid everything, presenting only a shadowy, mysterious tunnel through the trees. No telling how far it might be to the top of the ridge.
“You’ll make it by sundown, easy,” the girl had told him, and it was late midafternoon now. But that had been when he had a horse. Not wanting to be caught on the mountainside in the dark, he picked up his pace, straining his eyes for sunlight ahead that would show him the openness of the ridge at the end of the trail.
As he walked, his thoughts ran inevitably ahead of him, quick with speculation.
And how had it gone, Brianna’s reunion with her parents? What had she thought of Jamie Fraser? Was he the man she’d been imagining for the last year, or only a pale reflection of the image she had built up from her mother’s stories?
At least she had a father to know, he thought, with a queer little pang at the memory of Midsummer’s Eve, and that burst of light in the passage through the stones.
There it was! A lightening of the dense green shadow ahead; a brightening as tongues of sun struck autumn leaves in a flare of orange and yellow.
The sun dazzled him for a moment as he came out of the tunnel of greenery. He blinked once, and found himself not on the ridge, as he had expected, but in a small natural clearing, edged with scarlet maples and yellow scrub oak. It held the sunlight like a cup, dark forest spreading beyond on all sides.
As he turned about, searching for the continuation of the trail, he heard a horse’s whicker and whirled to find his own elderly mount, jerking its head against the pull of a rein tied to a tree at the edge of the clearing.
“Well, I’ll be buggered!” he exclaimed in astonishment. “How the hell did you get up here?”
“The same way you did,” a voice answered him. A tall young man emerged from the wood beside the horse, and stood pointing a pistol at Roger; his own, he saw, with a sense of outrage as well as apprehension. He took a deep breath and choked down his fear.
“You’ve got my horse and my gun,” Roger said coolly. “What else d’you want? My hat?” He held out the battered tricorne in invitation. The robber couldn’t possibly know what else he carried; he hadn’t shown them to anyone.
The young man—couldn’t be more than in his teens, in spite of his size, Roger thought—didn’t smile.
“A bit more than that, I expect.” For the first time, the young man took his eyes off Roger, shifting his glance to one side. Following the direction of his gaze, Roger felt a jolt like an electric shock.
He hadn’t seen the man at the edge of the clearing, though he must have been there all the time, standing motionless. He wore a faded hunting kilt whose browns and greens blended into the grass and brush, as his flaming hair blended with the brilliant leaves. He looked as if he’d grown out of the forest.
Beyond the sheer unexpectedness of his appearance, it was his looks that stunned Roger into speechlessness. It was one thing to have been told that Jamie Fraser resembled his daughter. It was another to see Brianna’s bold features transmuted into power by the stamp of years, and fronting a personality not only thoroughly masculine, but fierce in aspect.
It was like lifting his hand from the fur of a handsome ginger cat, only to find himself staring into the unblinking gaze of a tiger. Roger barely kept himself from taking an involuntary step backward, thinking as he did so that Claire had not exaggerated a single thing in her descriptions of Jamie Fraser.
“You’ll be Mr. MacKenzie,” the man said. It wasn’t a question. The voice was deep but not loud, barely lifted above the sound of the rustling leaves, but Roger had no difficulty hearing him.
“I am,” he said, taking a step forward. “And you’ll be…ah…Jamie Fraser?” He stretched out a hand, but quickly let it drop. Two pairs of eyes rested coldly on him.
“I am,” said the red-haired man. “You’ll know me?” The tone of the question was distinctly unfriendly.
Roger took a deep breath, cursing his own dishevelment. He didn’t know how Brianna might have described him to her father, but Fraser had evidently expected something a good deal more prepossessing.
“Well, you—look quite a bit like your daughter.”
The young man gave a loud snort, but Fraser didn’t look around.
“And what business have ye wi’ my daughter?” Fraser moved for the first time, stepping out from the shadow of the trees. No, Claire hadn’t exaggerated. He was big, even an inch or two taller than Roger himself.
Roger felt a stab of alarm, mingled with his confusion. What the hell had Brianna told him? Surely she couldn’t have been so angry that—well, he’d sort that out when he saw her.
“I’ve come to claim my wife,” he said boldly.
Something changed in Fraser’s eyes. Roger didn’t know what it was, but it made him drop his hat, and half raise his hands in reflex.
“Oh, no, ye’re not.” It was the boy who had spoken, in an odd tone of satisfaction.
Roger glanced at him, and was still more alarmed to see the lad’s big, bony knuckles white on the pistol’s grip.
“Here be careful! You don’t want that to go off by accident,” he said.
The young man’s lip lifted in a sneer.
“If it goes off, it’ll be no accident.”
“Ian.” Fraser’s voice stayed level, but the pistol lowered, reluctantly. The big man took another step forward. His eyes were fixed on Roger’s, deep blue and slanted; unnervingly like Brianna’s.
“I’ll ask only the once, and I mean to hear the truth,” he said, quite mildly. “Have ye taken my daughter’s maidenheid?”
Roger felt his face grow hot as a flood of warmth washed up from chest to hairline. Christ, what had she told her father? And for God’s sake, why? The last thing he had expected to meet was an infuriated father, bent on avenging his daughter’s virtue.
“It’s…ah…well, it’s not what you think,” he blurted. “I mean, we…that is…we meant to…”
“Did ye or no?” Fraser’s face was no more than a foot away, completely expressionless, save for whatever it was that burned, far back in his eyes.
“Look—I—damn it, yes! She wanted to—”
Fraser hit him, just under the ribs.
Roger doubled and staggered back, gasping from the blow. It didn’t hurt—yet—but he’d felt the force of it all the way to his spine. His principal feeling was one of amazement, tinged with anger.
“Stop,” he said, trying to get enough breath to talk. “Stop! For God’s sake, I said I—”
Fraser hit him again, this time on the side of the jaw. That one hurt, a glancing blow that scraped the skin and left his jawbone throbbing. Roger jerked back, fear turning rapidly to fury. The bloody sod was trying to kill him!
Fraser swung at him again, but missed as Roger ducked and whirled. Well, to fuck with good family relations, then!
He took a giant step backward, shrugging out of his coat. To his surprise, Fraser didn’t come after him, but stood there, fists at his sides, waiting.
The blood was drumming in Roger’s ears, and he had no eyes for anyone but Fraser. If it was a fight the bugger wanted, that’s what he’d get, then.
Roger crouched, hands up and ready. He’d been taken by surprise, but he wouldn’t be caught that way again. No brawler, still he’d been in his share of pub fights. They were well matched for height and reach, and he had more than fifteen years’ advantage on the man.
He saw Fraser’s right, ducked and countered, felt his fist brush linen as it passed Fraser’s side and then the left he hadn’t seen took him in the eye. Bloody stars and streaks of light exploded through the side of his head, and tears ran down his cheek as he launched himself at Fraser, roaring.
He hit the man; he could feel his fists strike flesh, but it seemed to make no difference. Through his one sound eye, he could see that broad-boned face, set in eerie calm, like a Viking berserker. He swung, and it disappeared, bobbed up again; he swung, grazing an ear. A blow struck him in the shoulder; he swung half around with it, recovered, and launched himself headfirst.
“She’s…mine,” Roger gritted between clenched teeth. He had his arms wrapped around Fraser’s body, felt the deep-sprung ribs give as he squeezed. He’d crack the bastard like a nut. “Mine…hear?”
Fraser rabbit-punched him in the back of the neck, a glancing blow, but hard enough to numb his left arm and shoulder. He let go his grip, hunched and drove his right shoulder hard into Fraser’s chest, trying to drive the older man off his feet.
Fraser took a short step back and hooked him hard, but the blow struck his ribs, not the soft flesh below. Still, it was hard enough to make him grunt and jerk back, crouching to protect himself.
Fraser lowered his head and butted him, straight on; he flew backward and landed hard. Blood from his nose ran down his mouth and chin; with a sense of remoteness, he watched the spatter of dark red drops grow and run together into a splotch on his shirt.
He rolled to one side to avoid the kick he saw coming, but not far enough. As he rolled frantically the other way, it occurred to him, in a detached sort of way, that while he might be fifteen years younger than his opponent, Jamie Fraser had likely spent every one of those fifteen years engaged in physical combat.
He had got momentarily out of range. Gulping air, he rolled up onto his hands and knees. Blood gurgled through smashed cartilage with each breath; he could taste it in the back of his throat, a taste like sheared metal.
“Nuff,” he panted. “No. ’Nuff!”
A hand grabbed his hair and jerked back his head. Blue eyes glittered six inches away, and he felt the man’s breath hot on his face.
“Not nearly enough,” Fraser said, and kneed him in the mouth. He fell over and rolled once, then struggled to his feet. The clearing blurred in a throb of orange and yellow; only instinct got him up and moving.
He was fighting for his life, and knew it. He hurled himself blindly at the weaving figure, got a grip of Fraser’s shirt and drove a punch at the man’s belly, as hard as he could. Fabric tore and his fist struck bone. Fraser shifted like a snake and shot a hand down between them. He grabbed Roger’s testicles and squeezed with all his strength.
Roger stood stock-still, then dropped as though his spinal cord had been severed. There was a split second, before the pain hit, when Roger was conscious of one last thought, cold and clear as a shard of ice. My God, he thought, I’m going to die before I’ve been born.