KEEPING SCORE
JAMIE SAW THE GREYS out of the house and came back with an air of grim satisfaction. I would have laughed if it hadn’t hurt to do it, but settled for smiling at him.
“Your son, your nephew, your wife,” I said. “Fraser, three; Grey, nil.”
He gave me a startled look, but then his face truly relaxed for the first time in days. “You’re feeling better, then,” he said, and, coming across the room, bent and kissed me. “Talk daft to me some more, aye?” He sat down heavily on the stool and sighed, but with relief.
“Mind,” he said, “I havena the slightest idea how I’m going to keep ye, with no money, no commission, and no profession. But keep ye I will.”
“No profession, forsooth,” I said comfortably. “Name one thing you can’t do.”
“Sing.”
“Oh. Well, besides that.”
He spread his hands on his knees, looking critically at the scars on his maimed right hand.
“I doubt I could make a living as a juggler or a pickpocket, either. Let alone a scribe.”
“You haven’t got to write,” I said. “You have a printing press—Bonnie, by name.”
“Well, aye,” he admitted, a certain light coming into his eyes. “I do. But she’s in Wilmington at the moment.” His press had been shipped from Edinburgh in the care of Richard Bell, who was—presumably—keeping her in trust until her real owner should come to repossess her.
“We’ll go and get her. And then—” But I stopped, afraid to jinx the future by planning too far. It was an uncertain time for everyone, and no telling what the morrow might bring.
“But first,” I amended, reaching out to squeeze his hand, “you should rest. You look as though you’re about to die.”
“Dinna talk that sort of daft,” he said, and laughed and yawned simultaneously, nearly breaking his jaw.
“Lie down,” I said firmly. “Sleep—at least until Lieutenant Bixby shows up again with more cheese.” The American army had withdrawn to Englishtown, some seven miles away, only an hour’s ride. The British army had decamped entirely, but as many of the militia units’ enlistments had expired soon afterward, the roads were still very busy with men going home, mostly afoot.
He did lie down on his pallet, with surprisingly little protest—a good indication of just how exhausted he really was—and was asleep in seconds.
I was very tired myself, still very weak and easily exhausted, even by something like the Greys’ visit, and I lay back and dozed, stirring to wakefulness every so often when some sound roused me, but Jamie slept deeply, and it eased my heart to hear his soft, regular snore.
I woke some time later, hearing a distant knocking below. As I raised my head blearily off the pillow, I heard a voice shouting, “Hallo, the house!” and snapped into instant alertness. I knew that voice.
I glanced quickly down, but Jamie was dead asleep, curled up like a hedgehog. With excruciating slowness, I managed to swing my legs off the bed and—moving like a geriatric tortoise and clinging to the bed frame—took the two steps that brought me to the window, where I clung to the sill.
There was a handsome bay mule in the dooryard, with a half-naked body laid over the saddle. I gasped—and immediately doubled in pain, but didn’t let go the sill. I bit my lip hard, not to call out. The body was wearing buckskins, and his long brown hair sported a couple of bedraggled turkey feathers.
“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” I breathed, through gritted teeth. “Please, God, don’t let him be—” But the prayer was answered before I’d finished speaking it; the door below opened, and in the next moment William and Lieutenant Macken walked out and lifted Ian off the mule, put his arms about their shoulders, and carried him into the house.
I turned, instinctively reaching for my medical bag—and nearly fell. I saved myself by a grab at the bed frame but let out an involuntary groan that brought Jamie up into a crouch, staring wildly about.
“It’s . . . all right,” I said, willing my belly muscles into immobility. “I’m fine. It’s—Ian. He’s come back.”
Jamie sprang to his feet, shook his head to clear it, and at once went to the window. I saw him stiffen and, clutching my side, followed him. William had come out of the house and was preparing to mount the mule. He was dressed in shirt and breeches, very grubby, and the sun licked his dark chestnut hair with streaks of red. Mrs. Macken said something from the door, and he turned to answer her. I don’t think I made a noise, but something made him look up suddenly and he froze. I felt Jamie freeze, too, as their eyes met.
William’s face didn’t change, and after a long moment he turned to the mule again, mounted, and rode away. After another long moment, Jamie let out his breath.
“Let me put ye back to bed, Sassenach,” he said calmly. “I’ll have to go and find Denny to put Ian right.”
I WILL NOT HAVE THEE BE ALONE
SOMEONE HAD GIVEN HIM laudanum before setting to work on his shoulder. Strange stuff, that. He’d had it before, he thought, a long time ago, though he hadn’t known the name at the time. Now Ian lay on his back, blinking slowly as the drug ebbed from his mind, trying to decide where he was and what was real. He was pretty sure most of what he was looking at right now wasn’t.
Pain. That was real and something to use as an anchor. It hadn’t entirely gone away—he’d been aware of it, but remotely, as a disagreeable muddy green strand like a stream of dirty water meandering through his dreams. Now that he was awake, though, it was becoming more disagreeable by the minute. His eyes didn’t want to focus yet, but he forced them to roll about in search of something familiar.
He found it at once.
Girl. Lass. Ifrinn, what was her—“Rachel,” he croaked, and she rose instantly from what she was doing and came to him, her face worried but alight.
“Rachel?” he said again, uncertain, and she took hold of his good hand, pressing it to her bosom.
“Thee is awake, I see,” she said softly, her eyes searching his face. “But still much fevered, from the heat of thy skin. How does thee feel?”
“Better for seein’ ye, lass.” He tried to lick his dry lips. “Is there maybe water?”
She made a small sound of distress that he’d had to ask, and hurried to bring a cup to his lips. It was perhaps the best thing he’d ever tasted, made better by her holding his head in her hand as he drank—he was very dizzy. He didn’t want to stop, but she took the cup away.
“More presently,” she promised. “Thee must not drink too much, too fast, or thee will vomit. And between the dirt and the blood, thee has made enough mess already,” she said, smiling.
“Mmphm,” he said, lying back. He was mostly clean, he discovered. Someone had washed away the last of the deer fat and paint, and a good deal of sweat and blood with it. His shoulder was bound up with a poultice of some kind; it smelled tangy and familiar, but his hazy mind was a long way yet from allowing him to think of the name of the herb.
“Did Auntie Claire bind my arm?” he asked. Rachel glanced at him, her brows furrowing.
“Thy aunt is ill,” she said carefully. “Thee remembers I told thee that she was wounded—shot—in the battle?”
“No,” he said, feeling blank and confused. He had no recollection of the last couple of days or of battle. “No. What—is she all right, then?”
“Denny removed the ball, and thy uncle Jamie is with her. Both of them say very firmly that she will be well.” Her mouth twitched a bit, halfway between a smile and worry. He did his best to smile back.
“Then she’ll be fine,” he said. “Uncle Jamie’s a verra stubborn man. Can I have more water?”
This time he drank more slowly and got more down before she took it away. There was a regular clanging noise somewhere; for a time he had taken it for some phantom of hearing left over from the dreams, but now it ceased for a moment, punctuated by a loud curse.
“What—where are we?” he asked, beginning to be able to look at things again. His wavering sight convinced him that he was indeed in a tiny cow byre; it was new hay he’d been smelling, and the warm scent of fresh cow dung. He was lying on a blanket spread over a mound of hay, but the cow was absent for the moment.
“A place called Freehold. The battle was fought nearby; Washington and the army have withdrawn to Englishtown, but a good many wounded soldiers have been given refuge by the inhabitants here. We currently enjoy the hospitality of the local smith, a gentleman named Heughan.”
“Oh.” The forge. That was the source of the clanging and cursing. He closed his eyes; that helped with the dizziness, but he could see shadows of his dreams on the inside of his eyelids and opened them again. Rachel was still there; that was good.
“Who won the battle?” he asked.
She shrugged, impatient. “So far as anyone has said anything sensible about it, no one. The Americans are cock-a-hoop at not having been defeated, to be sure—but the British army surely wasn’t, either. All I care about is thee. And thee will be fine,” she said, and laid her hand gently on his forehead. “I say so. And I am as stubborn as any Scot thee cares to name—including thyself.”
“I need to tell ye something, lass.” He hadn’t meant to say that, but the words felt familiar in his mouth, as though he’d said them before.
“Something different?” She had been turning away but paused now, looking wary.
“Different? Did I tell ye things while I was . . .” He tried to wave a hand in illustration, but even his good arm was heavy as lead.
Rachel caught her upper lip between her teeth, regarding him.
“Who is Geillis?” she asked abruptly. “And what in the name of—of goodness did she do to thee?”
He blinked, startled and yet relieved to hear the name. Yes, that was what he’d been dreaming—oh, Jesus. The relief departed at once.
“What did I say?” he asked warily.
“If thee doesn’t recall it, I don’t wish to bring it back to thee.” She knelt down by him, skirts rustling.
“I remember what happened—I just want to ken what I said about it.”
“What happened,” she repeated slowly, watching his face. “In thy dreams, thee means? Or—” She broke off, and he saw her throat move as she swallowed.
“Likely both, lass,” he said softly, and managed to reach for her hand. “I spoke of Geillis Abernathy, though?”
“Thee only said ‘Geillis,’” she said, and covered his hand with both of hers, holding fast. “Thee was afraid. And thee called out in pain—but of course thee was in pain, so . . . but then . . . it—whatever thee saw, it—”
Color rose slowly up her neck and washed her face, and with a slight relapse into the dream, he saw her for an instant as an orchid with a dusky throat into which he could plunge his—He cut that vision off and found that he was breathing fast.
“It seemed that thee experienced something other than pain,” she said, frowning.
“Aye, I did,” he said, and swallowed. “Can I have a bit more water?”
She gave it to him, but with a fixed look indicating that she didn’t mean to be distracted from his story by his physical needs.
He sighed and lay back again. “It was a long time agone, a nighean, and nothing to fash about now. I was taken—kidnapped—for a brief time, when I was maybe fourteen or so. I stayed wi’ a woman named Geillis Abernathy, on Jamaica, until my uncle found me. It wasna very pleasant, but I wasna damaged, either.”
Rachel raised an elegant brow. He loved to watch her do that, but sometimes more than others.
“There were other lads there,” he said, “and they were not so lucky.” For a long time afterward, he’d been afraid to close his eyes at night, because he saw their faces. But they’d faded away, little by little—and now he felt a spasm of guilt because he’d let them go into darkness.
“Ian,” Rachel said softly, and her hand stroked his cheek. He felt the rasp of his beard stubble as she touched him, and a pleasant gooseflesh ran down his jaw and shoulder. “Thee needn’t speak of it. I would not bring it back to thee.”
“It’s all right,” he said, and swallowed a little easier. “I’ll tell ye—but later. It’s an old story, and one ye dinna need to hear just now. But—” He stopped short and she raised the other brow.
“But what I do have to tell ye, lass . . .” And he told her. Much of the previous two days’ events was still a blur, but he recalled vividly the two Abenaki who had hunted him. And what he’d finally done, in the British camp.
She was silent for so long that he began to wonder whether he’d really waked and had this conversation or was still dreaming.
“Rachel?” he said, shifting uneasily on his bed of prickly hay. The door of the byre was open and there was light enough, but he couldn’t read her face at all. Her gaze rested on his own face, though, hazel-eyed and distant, as though she were looking through him. He was afraid she was.
He could hear Heughan the smith outside, walking to and fro and making clanking sounds, pausing to apostrophize some uncooperative implement in coarse terms. He could hear his own heart beating, too, an uncomfortable, jerky thump.
Finally a shiver went over Rachel, as though she shook herself awake, and she put a hand on his forehead, smoothing back his hair as she looked into his eyes, her own now soft and fathomless. Her thumb came down and traced the tattooed line across his cheekbones, very slowly.
“I think we can’t wait any longer to be married, Ian,” she said softly. “I will not have thee face such things alone. These are bad times, and we must be together.”
He closed his eyes and all the air went out of him. When he drew breath again, it tasted of peace.
“When?” he whispered.
“As soon as thee can walk without help,” she said, and kissed him, lightly as a falling leaf.