54
TêTE-à-TêTE, WITH CRUMBCAKE
SO EARLY IN THE YEAR, the kitchen in the cellar of the house was still in use, with the summer cookhouse reserved for messier or malodorous preparations. Roused by the commotion, all the slaves were up and working, though a few looked as though they would collapse into the nearest corner and go back to sleep at the first opportunity. The chief cook, though, was wide-awake, and it was clear that no one was sleeping on her watch.
The kitchen was warm and welcoming, the windows still dark, walls red with hearth-glow, and the air suffused with the comforting scents of broth, hot bread, and coffee. I thought this would be an excellent place to sit down and recuperate for a bit before toddling off to bed, but evidently Jamie had other ideas.
He paused in conversation with the cook, just long enough for politeness, acquiring in the process not only an entire fresh crumb cake, dusted with cinnamon and soaked with melted butter, but a large jug of freshly brewed coffee. Then he made his farewells, scooped me up off the stool onto which I had thankfully subsided, and we were off again, into the cool wind of the dying night.
I had a very odd sense of déjà vu as he turned down the brick path toward the stables. The light was just the same as it had been twenty-four hours earlier, with the same pinprick stars just fading from the same blue-gray sky. The same faint breath of spring passed by, and my skin shivered in memory.
But we were walking sedately side by side, not flying—and overlaid on my memories of the day before were the unsettling odors of blood and burning. With each step I felt as though I were about to reach out to push through the swinging doors of a hospital; that the hum of fluorescent light and the subdued reek of medicines and floor polish were about to engulf me.
“Lack of sleep,” I murmured to myself.
“Time enough for sleep later, Sassenach,” Jamie replied. He shook himself briefly, throwing off tiredness as a dog shakes off water. “There’s a thing or two to be done, first.” He shifted the paper-wrapped cake, though, and took hold of my elbow with his free hand, in case I was about to fall facefirst into the cabbage bed from fatigue.
I wasn’t. I had meant only that it was the lack of sleep that was giving me the mildly hallucinatory feeling of being back in a hospital. For years, as an intern, resident, and mother, I had worked through long sleepless shifts, learning to function—and function well—despite complete exhaustion.
It was that same feeling that was stealing over me now, as I passed through simple sleepiness and out again, into a state of artificially heightened alertness.
I felt cold and shrunken, as though I inhabited only the innermost core of my body, insulated from the world around me by a thick layer of inert flesh. At the same time, every tiny detail of my surroundings seemed unnaturally vivid, from the delicious fragrance of the food Jamie carried and the rustle of his coat skirts, to the sound of someone singing in the distant slave quarters and the spikes of sprouting corn in the vegetable beds beside the path.
The sense of lucid detachment stayed with me, even as we followed the turn of the path toward the stables. A thing to be done, he’d said. I supposed that he did not mean he intended to repeat yesterday’s performance. If he proposed a more sedate form of orgy, though, involving cake and coffee, it seemed peculiar to hold it in the stable, rather than the parlor.
The side door was unbarred; he pushed it open, and the warm scents of hay and sleeping animals rushed out.
“Who is it?” said a soft, deep voice from the shadows inside. Roger. Of course; he hadn’t been among the mob in Jocasta’s room.
“Fraser,” Jamie replied, equally softly, and drew me inside, closing the door behind us.
Roger stood silhouetted against the dim glow of a lantern, near the end of the row of loose-boxes. He was wrapped in a cloak, and the light shone in a reddish nimbus round his dark hair as he turned toward us.
“How is it, a Smeòraich?” Jamie handed him the jug of coffee. Roger’s cloak fell back as he reached for it, and I saw him thrust a pistol into the waist of his breeches with his other hand. Without comment, he pulled the cork and lifted the jug to his mouth, lowering it several moments later with an expression of sheer bliss. He sighed, breath steaming.
“Oh, God,” he said fervently. “That’s the best thing I’ve tasted in months.”
“Not quite.” Sounding faintly amused, Jamie took the jug back and handed him the wrapped crumb cake. “How is he, then?”
“Noisy at first, but he’s been quiet for a bit. I think he may be asleep.”
Already tearing at the butter-soaked wrappings, Roger nodded toward the loose-box. Jamie took down the lantern from its hook and held it high over the barred gate. Peering under his arm, I could see a huddled shape, half-buried in the straw at the back of the box.
“Mr. Wylie?” Jamie called, still softly. “Are ye asleep, sir?”
The shape stirred, with a rustling of hay.
“I am not, sir,” came the reply, in tones of cold bitterness. The shape began slowly to unfold itself, and Phillip Wylie rose to his feet, shaking straw from his clothes.
I had certainly seen him appear to better advantage. Several buttons were missing from his coat, one shoulder seam was split, and both knees of his breeches hung loose, the buckles burst and his stockings drooping in unseemly fashion about his shins. Someone had evidently hit him in the nose; a trickle of blood had dried on his upper lip, and there was a splotch of crusty brown on the embroidered silk of his waistcoat.
Despite the deficiencies of his wardrobe, his manner was unimpaired, being one of icy outrage.
“You will answer for this, Fraser, by God you will!”
“Aye, I will,” Jamie said, unperturbed. “At your pleasure, sir. But not before I’ve had answers from yourself, Mr. Wylie.” He unlatched the gate of the loose-box and swung it open. “Come out.”
Wylie hesitated, unwilling either to remain in the box, or to come out of it at Jamie’s command. I saw his nostrils twitch, though; evidently he had caught scent of the coffee. That seemed to decide him, and he came out of the box, head held high. He brushed within a foot of me, but kept his eyes straight ahead, affecting not to see me.
Roger had collected two stools and an upturned bucket. I took the latter and shoved it modestly into the shadows, leaving Jamie and Wylie to seat themselves within easy strangling distance of each other. Roger himself retired discreetly into the shadows beside me with the crumb cake, looking interested.
Wylie accepted the jug of coffee stiffly, but a few deep swallows seemed to restore his composure to a noticeable degree. He lowered it at last and breathed audibly, his features a little more relaxed.
“I thank you, sir.” He handed the jug back to Jamie with a small bow and sat bolt upright on his stool, tenderly adjusting his wig, which had survived the evening’s adventures, but was much the worse for its experiences. “Now, then. May I inquire the reason for this . . . this . . . unspeakable behavior?”
“Ye may, sir,” Jamie replied, drawing himself up straight in turn. “I wish to discover the nature of your associations with a certain Stephen Bonnet, and your knowledge of his present whereabouts.”
Wylie’s face went almost comically blank.
“Who?”
“Stephen Bonnet.”
Wylie began to turn toward me, to ask for clarification, then recalled that he was not acknowledging my presence. He glowered at Jamie, dark brows drawn down.
“I have no acquaintance with any gentleman of that name, Mr. Fraser, and thus no knowledge of his movements—though if I did, I greatly doubt that I should feel myself obliged to inform you of them.”
“No?” Jamie took a thoughtful sip of coffee, then handed the jug to me. “What of the obligations of a guest toward his host, Mr. Wylie?”
The dark brows rose in astonishment.
“What do you mean, sir?”
“I take it that you are not aware, sir, that Mrs. Innes and her husband were assaulted last evening, and an attempt at robbery made upon them?”
Wylie’s mouth fell open. Either he was a very good actor, or his surprise was genuine. Given my acquaintance with the young man to date, I thought he was no kind of actor.
“I was not. Who—” A thought struck him, and bewilderment vanished in renewed outrage. His eyes bulged slightly. “You think that I was concerned in this—this—”
“Dastardly enterprise?” Roger suggested. He seemed to be enjoying himself, relieved of the boredom of guard duty. “Aye, I expect we do. A bit of crumb cake with your coffee, sir?” He held out a chunk of cake; Wylie stared at it for a moment, then leaped to his feet, striking the cake out of Roger’s hand.
“You blackguard!” He rounded on Jamie, fists clenched. “You dare to imply that I am a thief?”
Jamie rocked back a little on his stool, chin lifted.
“Aye, I do,” he said coolly. “Ye tried to steal my wife from under my nose—why should ye scruple at my aunt’s goods?”
Wylie’s face flushed a deep and ugly crimson. Had it not been a wig, his hair would have stood on end.
“You . . . absolute . . . cunt!” he breathed. Then he launched himself at Jamie. Both of them went over with a crash, in a flurry of arms and legs.
I leaped back, clasping the coffee jug to my bosom. Roger lunged toward the fray, but I snatched at him, catching his cloak to hold him back.
Jamie had the advantage of size and skill, but Wylie was by no means a novice in the art of fisticuffs, and was in addition propelled by a berserk rage. Given a few moments more, Jamie would have him hammered into submission, but I was not inclined to wait.
Monstrously irritated with the pair of them, I stepped forward and upended the coffee jug. It wasn’t boiling, but hot enough. There were simultaneous yelps of surprise, and the two men rolled apart, scrambling and shaking themselves. I thought I heard Roger laugh behind me, but when I whirled on him, he had assumed a look of straight-faced interest. He raised his eyebrows at me, and crammed another chunk of cake into his mouth.
I turned back to find Jamie already on his feet, and Wylie rising from his knees, both soaked with coffee, and both with expressions implying that they intended to resume proceedings at the point where I had interrupted them. I pushed my way between them and stamped my foot.
“I have bloody well had enough of this!”
“I haven’t!” Wylie said hotly. “He has impugned my honor, and I demand—”
“Oh, to hell with your beastly honor—and yours, too!” I snarled, glaring from him to Jamie. Jamie, who had evidently been going to say something equally inflammatory, contented himself instead with a resounding snort.
I kicked one of the fallen stools, and pointed at it, still glaring at Jamie.
“Sit!”
Plucking the soaked fabric of his shirt away from his chest, he righted the stool and sat on it, with immense dignity.
Wylie was less inclined to pay attention to me, and was carrying on with further remarks about his honor. I kicked him in the shin. This time, I was wearing stout boots. He yelped and hopped on one foot, holding his affronted leg. The horses, thoroughly roused by the commotion, were stamping and snorting in their boxes, and the air was full of floating chaff.
“Ye dinna want to trifle with her when she’s in a temper,” Jamie told Wylie, with a wary glance at me. “She’s dangerous, aye?”
Wylie glowered at me, but his scowl altered to a look of uncertainty—whether because of the empty coffee jug, which I was now holding by the neck like a club, or because of his memories of the night before, when he had discovered me in the midst of Betty’s autopsy. With an effort, he swallowed whatever he had been going to say, and sat slowly down upon the other stool. He pulled a kerchief from his stained waistcoat pocket, and blotted a trickle of blood that was running down the side of his face from a cut above the brow.
“I would like,” he said, with exquisite politeness, “to know what is going on here, please.”
He had lost his wig; it was lying on the floor in a puddle of coffee. Jamie bent and picked it up, holding it gingerly, like a dead animal. He wiped a smear of mud off the side of his jaw with his free hand, and held the wig out, dripping, to Wylie.
“We are in agreement, then, sir.”
Wylie took the wig with a stiff nod of acknowledgment and laid it on his knee, disregarding the coffee soaking into his breeches. Both men looked at me, with identical expressions of skeptical impatience. Evidently, I had been appointed mistress of ceremonies.
“Robbery, murder, and heaven knows what else,” I said firmly. “And we mean to get to the bottom of it.”
“Murder?” Roger and Wylie spoke together, both sounding startled.
“Who has been murdered?” Wylie asked, looking wildly back and forth between me and Jamie.
“A slave woman,” Jamie said, with a nod toward me. “My wife suspected ill doing in her death, and so we meant to discover the truth of the matter. Thus our presence in the shed when you came upon us last night.”
“Presence,” Wylie echoed. His face was already pale, but he looked slightly ill at the recollection of what he had seen me doing in the shed. “Yes. I . . . see.” He darted a look at me from the corner of his eye.
“So she was killed?” Roger came into the circle of lantern light and set the bucket back in place, sitting down at my feet. He set the remains of the cake on the floor. “What killed her?”
“Someone fed her ground glass,” I said. “I found quite a lot of it still in her stomach.”
I paid particular attention to Phillip Wylie as I said this, but his face bore the same expression of blank astonishment as did Jamie’s and Roger’s.
“Glass.” Jamie was the first to recover. He sat up on his stool, shoving a disordered hank of hair behind his ear. “How long might that take to kill a body, Sassenach?”
I rubbed two fingers between my brows; the numbness of the early hour was giving way to a throbbing headache, made worse by the rich smell of coffee and the fact that I hadn’t gotten to drink any of it.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It would go into the stomach within minutes, but it might take quite a long time to do enough damage to cause major hemorrhage. Most of the damage would likely be to the small intestine; the glass particles would perforate the lining. And if the digestive system were somewhat impaired—by drink, say—and not moving well, then it might take even longer. Or if she’d taken a lot of food with it.”
“Is this the woman that you and Bree found in the garden?” Roger turned to Jamie, inquiring.
“Aye.” Jamie nodded, his eyes still fixed on me. “She was insensible wi’ the drink then. And when ye saw her later, Sassenach—were there signs of it, then?”
I shook my head.
“The glass might have been working then—but she was out cold. One thing—Fentiman did say she woke in the middle of the night, complaining of griping in her guts. So she was certainly affected by that time. But I can’t say for sure whether she’d been given the ground glass before you and Bree found her, or whether perhaps she roused from her stupor in the early evening, and someone gave it to her then.”
“Griping in the guts,” Roger murmured. He shook his head, mouth grim at the thought. “Christ, what a way to go.”
“Aye, it’s black wickedness,” Jamie agreed, nodding. “But why? Who should wish the woman’s death?”
“A good question,” Wylie said shortly. “However, I can assure you that it wasn’t I.”
Jamie gave him a long stare of assessment.
“Aye, maybe,” he said. “If not, though—how came ye to the shed last night? What business might ye have there, save perhaps to look upon the face of your victim?”
“My victim!” Wylie jerked bolt upright, stiff with renewed outrage. “It was not I in that shed, red to the elbow with the woman’s gore and snatching bits of bone and offal!” He snapped his head to the side, glaring up at me.
“My victim, indeed! It is a capital crime to defile a body, Mrs. Fraser. And I have heard things—oh, yes, I have heard things about you! I put it to you that it is you who did the woman to death, for the purpose of obtaining—”
His words ended in a gurgle, as Jamie’s hand jerked his shirtfront tight and twisted it hard about his neck. He punched Wylie in the stomach, hard, and the young man doubled up, coughed, and spewed coffee, bile, and a few more disagreeable substances all over the floor, his knees, and Jamie.
I sighed wearily. The briefly warming effects of the discussion had faded, and I was feeling cold and mildly disoriented again. The stench didn’t help.
“That’s not really helpful, you know,” I said reprovingly to Jamie, who had released Wylie and was now hastily removing his own outer garments. “Not that I don’t appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“Oh, aye,” he said, voice muffled in the shirt as he pulled it over his head. He popped out, glaring at me, and dropped the shirt on the floor with a splat. “D’ye think I’m going to sit idle and let this popinjay insult ye?”
“I don’t suppose he’ll do it again,” Roger said. He stood and bent over Wylie, who was still doubled up on his stool, rather green in the face. Roger glanced back over his shoulder at Jamie.
“Is he right, though? About it being a capital crime to tamper with a body?”
“I dinna ken,” Jamie said, rather shortly. Stripped to the waist, stained with blood and vomit, and with his red hair wild in the lantern light, he looked a far cry from the polished gentleman who had gone off to play whist.
“It scarcely matters,” he added, “as he isna going to tell anyone about it. Because if he does, I shall cut him like a stirk and feed both his ballocks and his lying tongue to the pigs.” He touched the hilt of his dirk, as though assuring himself that it was handy if wanted.
“But I am sure ye dinna mean to make any such unfounded accusations regarding my wife, do ye . . . sir?” he said to Wylie, with excessive politeness.
I was not surprised to see Phillip Wylie shake his head, evidently still incapable of speech. Jamie made a noise of grim satisfaction and stooped to pick up the cloak he had dropped earlier.
Feeling rather weak-kneed after this latest exhibition of the male sense of honor, I sat down on the bucket.
“All right,” I said, and pushed back a strand of hair. “Fine. If we’ve got all that settled, then . . . where were we?”
“Betty’s murder,” Roger prompted. “We don’t know who, we don’t know when, and we don’t know why—though for the sake of argument, might I suggest we assume that no one amongst the present company had anything to do with it?”
“Verra well.” Jamie dismissed murder with a brusque gesture and sat down. “What about Stephen Bonnet?”
Roger’s expression, hitherto one of interest, darkened at that.
“Aye, what about him? Is he involved in this business?”
“Not in the murder, perhaps—but my aunt and her husband were assaulted in their chamber last evening by two villains. One of whom was an Irishman.” Jamie wrapped his cloak about his bare shoulders, bending a sinister glance on Phillip Wylie, who had recovered sufficiently to sit up.
“I repeat,” he said coldly, hands still pressed against his stomach, “that I have no acquaintance with a gentleman of that name, whether Irishman or Hottentot.”
“Stephen Bonnet is not a gentleman,” Roger said. The words were mild enough, but carried an undertone that made Wylie glance up at him.
“I do not know the fellow,” he said firmly. He took a shallow breath by way of experiment, and finding it bearable, breathed deeper. “Why do you suppose that the Irishman who committed the outrage upon Mr. and Mrs. Innes should be this Bonnet? Did he leave his card, perchance?”
I laughed, surprising myself. In spite of everything, I had to admit to a certain amount of respect for Phillip Wylie. Held captive, battered, threatened, doused with coffee, and deprived of his wig, he retained a good deal more dignity than would most men in his situation.
Jamie glanced at me, then back at Wylie. I thought the corner of his mouth twitched, but it was impossible to tell in the dim light.
“No,” he said. “I do claim some acquaintance with Stephen Bonnet, who is a felon, a degenerate, and a thief. And I saw the man with ye, sir, when ye happened upon my wife and myself at the shed.”
“Yes,” I said. “I saw him, too—standing right behind you. And what were you doing there, anyway?” I asked, this question suddenly occurring to me.
Wylie’s eyes had widened at Jamie’s accusation. At my statement, he blinked. He took another deep breath and looked down, rubbing his knuckles beneath his nose. Then he looked up at Jamie, the bluster gone.
“I do not know him,” he said quietly. “I had some thought that I was followed, but, glancing behind me, I saw no one, and so paid it no great mind. When I . . . saw what lay within the shed”—his eyes flicked toward me, but would not quite meet my own—“I was too much shocked to give heed to aught but what lay before my eyes.”
That, I could believe.
Wylie lifted his shoulders, and let them fall.
“If this Bonnet was indeed behind me, then I must take your word for it, sir. And yet I assure you that he was not there by my doing, nor with my recognition.”
Jamie and Roger exchanged glances, but they could hear the ring of truth in Wylie’s words, just as I could. There was a brief silence, in which I could hear the horses moving in their stalls. They were no longer agitated, but were getting restive, anticipating food. Dawn light was filtering through the cracks beneath the eaves, a soft, smoky radiance that leached the air inside the stable of all color, and yet revealed the dim outlines of harness hanging on the wall, pitchforks and shovels standing in the corner.
“The grooms will be coming soon.” Jamie stirred and drew breath, drawing up his shoulders in a half-shrug. He glanced back at Wylie.
“Verra well, sir. I accept your word as a gentleman.”
“Do you? I am flattered.”
“Still,” Jamie went on, pointedly ignoring the sarcasm, “I should like to know what it was that brought ye to the shed last night.”
Wylie had half-risen from his seat. At this, he hesitated, then slowly sat again. He blinked once or twice, as though thinking, then sighed, giving up.
“Lucas,” he said simply. He didn’t look up, but kept his eyes fixed on his hands, hanging limp between his thighs. “I was there, the night he was foaled. I raised him, broke him to the saddle, trained him.” He swallowed once; I saw the tremor move beneath the frill at his neck. “I came to the stable to have a few moments alone with him . . . to bid him farewell.”
For the first time, Jamie’s face lost the shadow of dislike that it bore whenever he looked at Wylie. He breathed deep, and nodded slightly.
“Aye, I see,” he said quietly. “And then?”
Wylie straightened a little.
“When I left the stable, I thought I heard voices near the wall of the kitchen garden. And when I came nearer to see what might be afoot, I saw light shining through the cracks of the shed.” He shrugged. “I opened the door. And you know better than I what happened then, Mr. Fraser.”
Jamie rubbed a hand hard over his face, then shook his head hard.
“Aye,” he said. “I do. I went for Bonnet, and ye got in my way.”
“You attacked me,” Wylie said coldly. He hitched the ruined coat higher up on his shoulders. “I defended myself, as I had every right to do. And then you and your son-in-law seized me between you, frog-marched me in there”—he jerked his chin at the box stall behind him—“and held me captive half the night!”
Roger cleared his throat. So did Jamie, though with more dour intent.
“Aye, well,” he said. “We willna argue about it.” He sighed and stood back, gesturing to Wylie that he might go. “I suppose ye didna see in which direction Bonnet fled?”
“Oh, yes. Though I did not know his name, of course. I expect he is well beyond reach by now,” Wylie said. There was an odd note in his voice; something like satisfaction. Jamie turned sharply.
“What d’ye mean?”
“Lucas.” Wylie nodded down the dim aisle of the stable, toward the shadows at the farther end. “His stall is at the far end. I know his voice well, the sound of his movement. And I have not heard him this morning. Bonnet—if that was who it was—fled toward the stable.”
Before Wylie had finished talking, Jamie had seized the lantern and was striding down the stable. Horses thrust inquiring noses over their stall doors as he passed, snorting and whuffling in curiosity—but no black nose appeared at the end of the row, no black mane floated out in joyous greeting. The rest of us hastened after him, leaning to see past him as he held the lantern high.
The yellow light shone on empty straw.
We stood silent for a long moment, looking. Then Phillip Wylie sighed and drew himself up.
“If I no longer have him, Mr. Fraser—neither do you.” His eyes rested on me, then, darkly ironic. “But I wish you joy of your wife.”
He turned and walked away, stockings sagging, the red heels of his shoes winking in the growing light.
OUTSIDE, dawn was breaking, still and lovely. Only the river seemed to move, the spreading light flashing silver on its current beyond the trees.
Roger had gone off to the house, yawning, but Jamie and I lingered by the paddock. People would be stirring within minutes; there would be more questions, speculations, talk. Neither one of us wanted any more talk; not now.
At last, Jamie put his arm about my shoulders, and with an air of decision, turned away from the house. I didn’t know where he was going, and didn’t much care, though I did hope I could lie down when we got there.
We passed the smithy, where a small, sleepy-looking boy was blowing up the forge with a pair of bellows, making red sparks float and flash like fireflies in the shadows. Past the outbuildings, around a corner, and then we were in front of a nondescript shed with a large double door. Jamie lifted the latch and swung one door open a bit, beckoning me inside.
“I canna think why I never thought of this place,” he said, “when I was looking for a spot to be private.”
We were in the carriage shed. A wagon and a small buggy stood in the shadows, as did Jocasta’s phaeton. An open carriage like a large sleigh on two wheels, it had a bench seat with blue velvet squabs, and a scroll-like singletree like the prow of a ship. Jamie picked me up by the waist and swung me in, then clambered up after me. There was a buffalo robe lying across the squabs; he pulled this off and spread it on the floor of the phaeton. There was just room for two people to curl up there, if they didn’t mind lying close together.
“Come on, Sassenach,” he said, sinking to his knees. “Whatever comes next . . . it can wait.”
I quite agreed. Though on the verge of unconsciousness, I couldn’t help drowsily asking, “Your aunt . . . do you trust her? What she said, about the gold and all?”
“Oh, aye, of course I do,” he mumbled in my ear. His arm was heavy where it lay over my waist. “At least as far as I could throw her.”