Voyager(Outlander #3)

26

WHORE’S BRUNCH

From years of answering the twin calls of motherhood and medicine, I had developed the ability to wake from even the soundest sleep at once and completely. I woke so now, immediately aware of the worn linen sheets around me, the dripping of the eaves outside, and the warm scent of Jamie’s body mingling with the cold, sweet air that breathed through the crack of the shutters above me.

Jamie himself was not in bed; without reaching out or opening my eyes, I knew that the space beside me was empty. He was close by, though. There was a sound of stealthy movement, and a faint scraping noise nearby. I turned my head on the pillow and opened my eyes.

The room was filled with a gray light that washed the color from everything, but left the pale lines of his body clear in the dimness. He stood out against the darkness of the room, solid as ivory, vivid as though he were etched upon the air. He was naked, his back turned to me as he stood in front of the chamber pot he had just pulled from its resting place beneath the washstand.

I admired the squared roundness of his buttocks, the small muscular hollow that dented each one, and their pale vulnerability. The groove of his backbone, springing in a deep, smooth curve from hips to shoulders. As he moved slightly, the light caught the faint silver shine of the scars on his back, and the breath caught in my throat.

He turned around then, face calm and faintly abstracted. He saw me watching him, and looked slightly startled.

I smiled but stayed silent, unable to think of anything to say. I kept looking at him, though, and he at me, the same smile upon his lips. Without speaking, he moved toward me and sat on the bed, the mattress shifting under his weight. He laid his hand open on the quilt, and I put my own into it without hesitation.

“Sleep well?” I asked idiotically.

A grin broadened across his face. “No,” he said. “Did you?”

“No.” I could feel the heat of him, even at this distance, in spite of the chilly room. “Aren’t you cold?”

“No.”

We fell quiet again, but could not take our eyes away from each other. I looked him over carefully in the strengthening light, comparing memory to reality. A narrow blade of early sun knifed through the shutters’ crack, lighting a lock of hair like polished bronze, gilding the curve of his shoulder, the smooth flat slope of his belly. He seemed slightly larger than I had remembered, and one hell of a lot more immediate.

“You’re bigger than I remembered,” I ventured. He tilted his head, looking down at me in amusement.

“You’re a wee bit smaller, I think.”

His hand engulfed mine, fingers delicately circling the bones of my wrist. My mouth was dry; I swallowed and licked my lips.

“A long time ago, you asked me if I knew what it was between us,” I said.

His eyes rested on mine, so dark a blue as to be nearly black in a light like this.

“I remember,” he said softly. His fingers tightened briefly on mine. “What it is—when I touch you; when ye lie wi’ me.”

“I said I didn’t know.”

“I didna ken either.” The smile had faded a bit, but was still there, lurking in the corners of his mouth.

“I still don’t,” I said. “But—” and stopped to clear my throat.

“But it’s still there,” he finished for me, and the smile moved from his lips, lighting his eyes. “Aye?”

It was. I was still as aware of him as I might have been of a lighted stick of dynamite in my immediate vicinity, but the feeling between us had changed. We had fallen asleep as one flesh, linked by the love of the child we had made, and had waked as two people—bound by something different.

“Yes. Is it—I mean, it’s not just because of Brianna, do you think?”

The pressure on my fingers increased.

“Do I want ye because you’re the mother of my child?” He raised one ruddy eyebrow in incredulity. “Well, no. Not that I’m no grateful,” he added hastily. “But—no.” He bent his head to look down at me intently, and the sun lit the narrow bridge of his nose and sparked in his lashes.

“No,” he said. “I think I could watch ye for hours, Sassenach, to see how you have changed, or how ye’re the same. Just to see a wee thing, like the curve of your chin”—he touched my jaw gently, letting his hand slide up to cup my head, thumb stroking my earlobe—“or your ears, and the bittie holes for your earbobs. Those are all the same, just as they were. Your hair—I called ye mo nighean donn, d’ye recall? My brown one.” His voice was little more than a whisper, his fingers threading my curls between them.

“I expect that’s changed a bit,” I said. I hadn’t gone gray, but there were paler streaks where my normal light brown had faded to a softer gold, and here and there, the glint of a single silver strand.

“Like beechwood in the rain,” he said, smiling and smoothing a lock with one forefinger, “and the drops coming down from the leaves across the bark.”

I reached out and stroked his thigh, touching the long scar that ran down it.

“I wish I could have been there to take care of you,” I said softly. “It was the most horrible thing I ever did—leaving you, knowing…that you meant to be killed.” I could hardly bear to speak the word.

“Well, I tried hard enough,” he said, with a wry grimace that made me laugh, in spite of my emotion. “It wasna my fault I didna succeed.” He glanced dispassionately at the long, thick scar that ran down his thigh. “Not the fault of the Sassenach wi’ the bayonet, either.”

I heaved myself up on one elbow, squinting at the scar. “A bayonet did that?”

“Aye, well. It festered, ye see,” he explained.

“I know; we found the journal of the Lord Melton who sent you home from the battlefield. He didn’t think you’d make it.” My hand tightened on his knee, as though to reassure myself that he was in fact here before me, alive.

He snorted. “Well, I damn nearly didn’t. I was all but dead when they pulled me out of the wagon at Lallybroch.” His face darkened with memory.

“God, sometimes I wake up in the night, dreaming of that wagon. It was two days’ journey, and I was fevered or chilled, or both together. I was covered wi’ hay, and the ends of it sticking in my eyes and my ears and through my shirt, and fleas hopping all through it and eating me alive, and my leg killing me at every jolt in the road. It was a verra bumpy road, too,” he added broodingly.

“It sounds horrible,” I said, feeling the word quite inadequate. He snorted briefly.

“Aye. I only stood it by imagining what I’d do to Melton if I ever met him again, to get back at him for not shooting me.”

I laughed again, and he glanced down at me, a wry smile on his lips.

“I’m not laughing because it’s funny,” I said, gulping a little. “I’m laughing because otherwise I’ll cry, and I don’t want to—not now, when it’s over.”

“Aye, I know.” He squeezed my hand.

I took a deep breath. “I—I didn’t look back. I didn’t think I could stand to find out—what happened.” I bit my lip; the admission seemed a betrayal. “It wasn’t that I tried—that I wanted—to forget,” I said, groping clumsily for words. “I couldn’t forget you; you shouldn’t think that. Not ever. But I—”

“Dinna fash yourself, Sassenach,” he interrupted. He patted my hand gently. “I ken what ye mean. I try not to look back myself, come to that.”

“But if I had,” I said, staring down at the smooth grain of the linen, “if I had—I might have found you sooner.”

The words hung in the air between us like an accusation, a reminder of the bitter years of loss and separation. Finally he sighed, deeply, and put a finger under my chin, lifting my face to his.

“And if ye had?” he said. “Would ye have left the lassie there without her mother? Or come to me in the time after Culloden, when I couldna care for ye, but only watch ye suffer wi’ the rest, and feel the guilt of bringing ye to such a fate? Maybe see ye die of the hunger and sickness, and know I’d killed ye?” He raised one eyebrow in question, then shook his head.

“No. I told ye to go, and I told ye to forget. Shall I blame ye for doing as I said, Sassenach? No.”

“But we might have had more time!” I said. “We might have—” He stopped me by the simple expedient of bending and putting his mouth on mine. It was warm and very soft, and the stubble of his face was faintly scratchy on my skin.

After a moment he released me. The light was growing, putting color in his face. His skin glowed bronze, sparked with the copper of his beard. He took a deep breath.

“Aye, we might. But to think of that—we cannot.” His eyes met mine steadily, searching. “I canna look back, Sassenach, and live,” he said simply. “If we have no more than last night, and this moment, it is enough.”

“Not for me, it isn’t!” I said, and he laughed.

“Greedy wee thing, are ye no?”

“Yes,” I said. The tension broken, I returned my attention to the scar on his leg, to keep away for the moment from the painful contemplation of lost time and opportunity.

“You were telling me how you got that.”

“So I was.” He rocked back a little, squinting down at the thin white line down the top of his thigh.

“Well, it was Jenny—my sister, ye ken?” I did indeed remember Jenny; half her brother’s size, and dark as he was blazing fair, but a match and more for him in stubbornness.

“She said she wasna going to let me die,” he said, with a rueful smile. “And she didn’t. My opinion didna seem to have anything to do wi’ the matter, so she didna bother to ask me.”

“That sounds like Jenny.” I felt a small glow of comfort at the thought of my sister-in-law. Jamie hadn’t been alone as I feared, then; Jenny Murray would have fought the Devil himself to save her brother—and evidently had.

“She dosed me for the fever, and put poultices on my leg to draw the poison, but nothing worked, and it only got worse. It swelled and stank, and then began to go black and rotten, so they thought they must take the leg off, if I was to live.”

He recounted this quite matter-of-factly, but I felt a little faint at the thought.

“Obviously they didn’t,” I said. “Why not?”

Jamie scratched his nose and rubbed a hand back through his hair, wiping the wild spill of it out of his eyes. “Well, that was Ian,” he said. “He wouldna let her do it. He said he kent well enough what it was like to live wi’ one leg, and while he didna mind it so much himself, he thought I wouldna like to—all things considered,” he added, with a wave of the hand and a glance at me that encompassed everything—the loss of the battle, of the war, of me, of home and livelihood—of all the things of his normal life. I thought Ian might well have been right.

“So instead Jenny made three of the tenants come to sit on me and hold me still, and then she slit my leg to the bone wi’ a kitchen knife and washed the wound wi’ boiling water,” he said casually.

“Jesus H. Christ!” I blurted, shocked into horror.

He smiled faintly at my expression. “Aye, well, it worked.”

I swallowed heavily, tasting bile. “Jesus. I’d think you’d have been a cripple for life!”

“Well, she cleansed it as best she could, and stitched it up. She said she wasna going to let me die, and she wasna going to have me be a cripple, and she wasna going to have me lie about all the day feelin’ sorry for myself, and—” He shrugged, resigned. “By the time she finished tellin’ me all the things she wouldna let me do, it seemed the only thing left to me was to get well.”

I echoed his laugh, and his smile broadened at the memory. “Once I could get up, she made Ian take me outside after dark and make me walk. Lord, we must ha’ been a sight, Ian wi’ his wooden leg, and me wi’ my stick, limping up and down the road like a pair of lame cranes!”

I laughed again, but had to blink back tears; I could see all too well the two tall, limping figures, struggling stubbornly against darkness and pain, leaning on each other for support.

“You lived in a cave for a time, didn’t you? We found the story of it.”

His eyebrows went up in surprise. “A story about it? About me, ye mean?”

“You’re a famous Highland legend,” I told him dryly, “or you will be, at least.”

“For living in a cave?” He looked half-pleased, half-embarrassed. “Well, that’s a foolish thing to make a story about, aye?”

“Arranging to have yourself betrayed to the English for the price on your head was maybe a little more dramatic,” I said, still more dryly. “Taking rather a risk there, weren’t you?”

The end of his nose was pink, and he looked somewhat abashed.

“Well,” he said awkwardly, “I didna think prison would be verra dreadful, and everything considered.…”

I spoke as calmly as I could, but I wanted to shake him, suddenly and ridiculously furious with him in retrospect.

“Prison, my arse! You knew perfectly well you might have been hanged, didn’t you? And you bloody did it anyway!”

“I had to do something,” he said, shrugging. “And if the English were fool enough to pay good money for my lousy carcass—well, there’s nay law against takin’ advantage of fools, is there?” One corner of his mouth quirked up, and I was torn between the urge to kiss him and the urge to slap him.

I did neither, but sat up in bed and began combing the tangles out of my hair with my fingers.

“I’d say it’s open to question who the fool was,” I said, not looking at him, “but even so, you should know that your daughter’s very proud of you.”

“She is?” He sounded thunderstruck, and I looked up at him, laughing despite my irritation.

“Well, of course she is. You’re a bloody hero, aren’t you?”

He went quite red in the face at this, and stood up, looking thoroughly disconcerted.

“Me? No!” He rubbed a hand through his hair, his habit when thinking or disturbed in his mind.

“No. I mean,” he said slowly, “I wasna heroic at all about it. It was only…I couldna bear it any longer. To see them all starving, I mean, and not be able to care for them—Jenny, and Ian and the children; all the tenants and their families.” He looked helplessly down at me. “I really didna care if the English hanged me or not,” he said. “I didna think they would, because of what ye’d told me, but even if I’d known for sure it meant that—I would ha’ done it, Sassenach, and not minded. But it wasna bravery—not at all.” He threw up his hands in frustration, turning away. “There was nothing else I could do!”

“I see,” I said softly, after a moment. “I understand.” He was standing by the chiffonier, still naked, and at this, he turned half-round to face me.

“Do ye, then?” His face was serious.

“I know you, Jamie Fraser.” I spoke with more certainty than I had felt at any time since the moment I stepped through the rock.

“Do ye, then?” he asked again, but a faint smile shadowed his mouth.

“I think so.”

The smile on his lips widened, and he opened his mouth to reply. Before he could speak, though, there was a knock upon the chamber door.

I started as though I had touched a hot stove. Jamie laughed, and bent to pat my hip as he went to the door.

“I expect it’s the chambermaid with our breakfast, Sassenach, not the constable. And we are marrit, aye?” One eyebrow rose quizzically.

“Even so, shouldn’t you put something on?” I asked, as he reached for the doorknob.

He glanced down at himself.

“I shouldna think it’s likely to come as a shock to anyone in this house, Sassenach. But to honor your sensibilities—” He grinned at me, and taking a linen towel from the washstand, wrapped it casually about his loins before pulling open the door.

I caught sight of a tall male figure standing in the hall, and promptly pulled the bedclothes over my head. This was a reaction of pure panic, for if it had been the Edinburgh constable or one of his minions, I could scarcely expect much protection from a couple of quilts. But then the visitor spoke, and I was glad that I was safely out of sight for the moment.

“Jamie?” The voice sounded rather startled. Despite the fact that I had not heard it in twenty years, I recognized it at once. Rolling over, I surreptitiously lifted a corner of the quilt and peeked out beneath it.

“Well, of course it’s me,” Jamie was saying, rather testily. “Have ye no got eyes, man?” He pulled his brother-in-law, Ian, into the room and shut the door.

“I see well enough it’s you,” Ian said, with a note of sharpness. “I just didna ken whether to believe my eyes!” His smooth brown hair showed threads of gray, and his face bore the lines of a good many years’ hard work. But Joe Abernathy had been right; with his first words, the new vision merged with the old, and this was the Ian Murray I had known before.

“I came here because the lad at the printshop said ye’d no been there last night, and this was the address Jenny sends your letters to,” he was saying. He looked round the room with wide, suspicious eyes, as though expecting something to leap out from behind the armoire. Then his gaze flicked back to his brother-in-law, who was making a perfunctory effort to secure his makeshift loincloth.

“I never thought to find ye in a kittle-hoosie, Jamie!” he said. “I wasna sure, when the…the lady answered the door downstairs, but then—”

“It’s no what ye think, Ian,” Jamie said shortly.

“Oh, it’s not, aye? And Jenny worrying that ye’d make yourself ill, living without a woman so long!” Ian snorted. “I’ll tell her she needna concern herself wi’ your welfare. And where’s my son, then, down the hall with another o’ the harlots?”

“Your son?” Jamie’s surprise was evident. “Which one?”

Ian stared at Jamie, the anger on his long, half-homely face fading into alarm.

“Ye havena got him? Wee Ian’s not here?”

“Young Ian? Christ, man, d’ye think I’d bring a fourteen-year-old lad into a brothel?”

Ian opened his mouth, then shut it, and sat down on the stool.

“Tell ye the truth, Jamie, I canna say what ye’d do anymore,” he said levelly. He looked up at his brother-in-law, jaw set. “Once I could. But not now.”

“And what the hell d’ye mean by that?” I could see the angry flush rising in Jamie’s face.

Ian glanced at the bed, and away again. The red flush didn’t recede from Jamie’s face, but I saw a small quiver at the corner of his mouth. He bowed elaborately to his brother-in-law.

“Your pardon, Ian, I was forgettin’ my manners. Allow me to introduce ye to my companion.” He stepped to the side of the bed and pulled back the quilts.

“No!” Ian cried, jumping to his feet and looking frantically at the floor, the wardrobe, anywhere but at the bed.

“What, will ye no give your regards to my wife, Ian?” Jamie said.

“Wife?” Forgetting to look away, Ian goggled at Jamie in horror. “Ye’ve marrit a whore?” he croaked.

“I wouldn’t call it that, exactly,” I said. Hearing my voice, Ian jerked his head in my direction.

“Hullo,” I said, waving cheerily at him from my nest of bedclothes. “Been a long time, hasn’t it?”

I’d always thought the descriptions of what people did when seeing ghosts rather exaggerated, but had been forced to revise my opinions in light of the responses I had been getting since my return to the past. Jamie had fainted dead away, and if Ian’s hair was not literally standing on end, he assuredly looked as though he had been scared out of his wits.

Eyes bugging out, he opened and closed his mouth, making a small gobbling noise that seemed to entertain Jamie quite a lot.

“That’ll teach ye to go about thinkin’ the worst of my character,” he said, with apparent satisfaction. Taking pity on his quivering brother-in-law, Jamie poured out a tot of brandy and handed him the glass. “Judge not, and ye’ll no be judged, eh?”

I thought Ian was going to spill the drink on his breeches, but he managed to get the glass to his mouth and swallow.

“What—” he wheezed, eyes watering as he stared at me. “How—?”

“It’s a long story,” I said, with a glance at Jamie. He nodded briefly. We had had other things to think about in the last twenty-four hours besides how to explain me to people, and under the circumstances, I rather thought explanations could wait.

“I don’t believe I know Young Ian. Is he missing?” I asked politely.

Ian nodded mechanically, not taking his eyes off me.

“He stole away from home last Friday week,” he said, sounding rather dazed. “Left a note that he’d gone to his uncle.” He took another swig of brandy, coughed and blinked several times, then wiped his eyes and sat up straighter, looking at me.

“It’ll no be the first time, ye see,” he said to me. He seemed to be regaining his self-confidence, seeing that I appeared to be flesh and blood, and showed no signs either of getting out of bed, or of putting my head under my arm and strolling round without it, in the accepted fashion of Highland ghosts.

Jamie sat down on the bed next to me, taking my hand in his.

“I’ve not seen Young Ian since I sent him home wi’ Fergus six months ago,” he said. He was beginning to look as worried as Ian. “You’re sure he said he was coming to me?”

“Well, he hasna got any other uncles that I know of,” Ian said, rather acerbically. He tossed back the rest of the brandy and set the cup down.

“Fergus?” I interrupted. “Is Fergus all right, then?” I felt a surge of joy at the mention of the French orphan whom Jamie had once hired in Paris as a pickpocket, and brought back to Scotland as a servant lad.

Distracted from his thoughts, Jamie looked down at me.

“Oh, aye, Fergus is a bonny man now. A bit changed, of course.” A shadow seemed to cross his face, but it cleared as he smiled, pressing my hand. “He’ll be fair daft at seein’ you once more, Sassenach.”

Uninterested in Fergus, Ian had risen and was pacing back and forth across the polished plank floor.

“He didna take a horse,” he muttered. “So he’d have nothing anyone would rob him for.” He swung round to Jamie. “How did ye come, last time ye brought the lad here? By the land round the Firth, or did ye cross by boat?”

Jamie rubbed his chin, frowning as he thought. “I didna come to Lallybroch for him. He and Fergus crossed through the Carryarrick Pass and met me just above Loch Laggan. Then we came down through Struan and Weem and…aye, now I remember. We didna want to cross the Campbell lands, so we came to the east, and crossed the Forth at Donibristle.”

“D’ye think he’d do that again?” Ian asked. “If it’s the only way he knows?”

Jamie shook his head doubtfully. “He might. But he kens the coast is dangerous.”

Ian resumed his pacing, hands clasped behind his back. “I beat him ’til he could barely stand, let alone sit, the last time he ran off,” Ian said, shaking his head. His lips were tight, and I gathered that Young Ian was perhaps rather a trial to his father. “Ye’d think the wee fool would think better o’ such tricks, aye?”

Jamie snorted, but not without sympathy.

“Did a thrashing ever stop you from doing anything you’d set your mind on?”

Ian stopped his pacing and sat down on the stool again, sighing.

“No,” he said frankly, “but I expect it was some relief to my father.” His face cracked into a reluctant smile, as Jamie laughed.

“He’ll be all right,” Jamie declared confidently. He stood up and let the towel drop to the floor as he reached for his breeches. “I’ll go and put about the word for him. If he’s in Edinburgh, we’ll hear of it by nightfall.”

Ian cast a glance at me in the bed, and stood up hastily.

“I’ll go wi’ ye.”

I thought I saw a shadow of doubt flicker across Jamie’s face, but then he nodded and pulled the shirt over his head.

“All right,” he said, as his head popped through the slit. He frowned at me.

“I’m afraid ye’ll have to stay here, Sassenach,” he said.

“I suppose I will,” I said dryly. “Seeing that I haven’t any clothes.” The maid who brought our supper had removed my dress, and no replacement had as yet appeared.

Ian’s feathery brows shot up to his hairline, but Jamie merely nodded.

“I’ll tell Jeanne on the way out,” he said. He frowned slightly, thinking. “It may be some time, Sassenach. There are things—well, I’ve business to take care of.” He squeezed my hand, his expression softening as he looked at me.

“I dinna want to leave ye,” he said softly. “But I must. You’ll stay here until I come again?”

“Don’t worry,” I assured him, waving a hand at the linen towel he had just discarded. “I’m not likely to go anywhere in that.”

The thud of their feet retreated down the hall and faded into the sounds of the stirring house. The brothel was rising, late and languid by the stern Scottish standards of Edinburgh. Below me I could hear the occasional slow muffled thump, the clatter of shutters thrust open nearby, a cry of “Gardyloo!” and a second later, the splash of slops flung out to land on the street far below.

Voices somewhere far down the hall, a brief inaudible exchange, and the closing of a door. The building itself seemed to stretch and sigh, with a creaking of timbers and a squeaking of stairs, and a sudden puff of coal-smelling warm air came out from the back of the cold hearth, the exhalation of a fire lit on some lower floor, sharing my chimney.

I relaxed into the pillows, feeling drowsy and heavily content. I was slightly and pleasantly sore in several unaccustomed places, and while I had been reluctant to see Jamie go, there was no denying that it was nice to be alone for a bit to mull things over.

I felt much like one who has been handed a sealed casket containing a long-lost treasure. I could feel the satisfying weight and the shape of it, and know the great joy of its possession, but still did not know exactly what was contained therein.

I was dying to know everything he had done and said and thought and been, through all the days between us. I had of course known that if he had survived Culloden, he would have a life—and knowing what I did of Jamie Fraser, it was unlikely to be a simple one. But knowing that, and being confronted with the reality of it, were two different things.

He had been fixed in my memory for so long, glowing but static, like an insect frozen in amber. And then had come Roger’s brief historical sightings, like peeks through a keyhole; separate pictures like punctuations, alterations; adjustments of memory, each showing the dragonfly’s wings raised or lowered at a different angle, like the single frames of a motion picture. Now time had begun to run again for us, and the dragonfly was in flight before me, flickering from place to place, so I saw little more yet than the glitter of its wings.

There were so many questions neither of us had had a chance to ask yet—what of his family at Lallybroch, his sister Jenny and her children? Obviously Ian was alive, and well, wooden leg notwithstanding—but had the rest of the family and the tenants of the estate survived the destruction of the Highlands? If they had, why was Jamie here in Edinburgh?

And if they were alive—what would we tell them about my sudden reappearance? I bit my lip, wondering whether there was any explanation—short of the truth—which might make sense. It might depend on what Jamie had told them when I disappeared after Culloden; there had seemed no need to concoct a reason for my vanishing at the time; it would simply be assumed that I had perished in the aftermath of the Rising, one more of the nameless corpses lying starved on the rocks or slaughtered in a leafless glen.

Well, we’d manage that when we came to it, I supposed. I was more curious just now about the extent and the danger of Jamie’s less legitimate activities. Smuggling and sedition, was it? I was aware that smuggling was nearly as honorable a profession in the Scottish Highlands as cattle-stealing had been twenty years before, and might be conducted with relatively little risk. Sedition was something else, and seemed like an occupation of dubious safety for a convicted ex-Jacobite traitor.

That, I supposed, was the reason for his assumed name—or one reason, at any rate. Disturbed and excited as I had been when we arrived at the brothel the night before, I had noticed that Madame Jeanne referred to him by his own name. So presumably he smuggled under his own identity, but carried out his publishing activities—legal and illegal—as Alex Malcolm.

I had seen, heard and felt enough, during the all too brief hours of the night, to be fairly sure that the Jamie Fraser I had known still existed. How many other men he might be now remained to be seen.

There was a tentative rap at the door, interrupting my thoughts. Breakfast, I thought, and not before time. I was ravenous.

“Come in,” I called, and sat up in bed, pulling up the pillows to lean against.

The door opened very slowly, and after quite a long pause, a head poked its way through the opening, much in the manner of a snail emerging from its shell after a hailstorm.

It was topped with an ill-cut shag of dark brown hair so thick that the cropped edges stuck out like a shelf above a pair of large ears. The face beneath was long and bony; rather pleasantly homely, save for a pair of beautiful brown eyes, soft and huge as a deer’s, that rested on me with a mingled expression of interest and hesitancy.

The head and I regarded each other for a moment.

“Are you Mr. Malcolm’s…woman?” it asked.

“I suppose you could say so,” I replied cautiously. This was obviously not the chambermaid with my breakfast. Neither was it likely to be one of the other employees of the establishment, being evidently male, though very young. He seemed vaguely familiar, though I was sure I hadn’t seen him before. I pulled the sheet a bit higher over my breasts. “And who are you?” I inquired.

The head thought this over for some time, and finally answered, with equal caution, “Ian Murray.”

“Ian Murray?” I shot up straight, rescuing the sheet at the last moment. “Come in here,” I said peremptorily. “If you’re who I think you are, why aren’t you where you’re supposed to be, and what are you doing here?” The face looked rather alarmed, and showed signs of withdrawal.

“Stop!” I called, and put a leg out of bed to pursue him. The big brown eyes widened at the sight of my bare limb, and he froze. “Come in, I said.”

Slowly, I withdrew the leg beneath the quilts, and equally slowly, he followed it into the room.

He was tall and gangly as a fledgling stork, with perhaps nine stone spread sparsely over a six-foot frame. Now that I knew who he was, the resemblance to his father was clear. He had his mother’s pale skin, though, which blushed furiously red as it occurred to him suddenly that he was standing next to a bed containing a naked woman.

“I…er…was looking for my…for Mr. Malcolm, I mean,” he murmured, staring fixedly at the floorboards by his feet.

“If you mean your uncle Jamie, he’s not here,” I said.

“No. No, I suppose not.” He seemed unable to think of anything to add to this, but remained staring at the floor, one foot twisted awkwardly to the side, as though he were about to draw it up under him, like the wading bird he so much resembled.

“Do ye ken where…” he began, lifting his eyes, then, as he caught a glimpse of me, lowered them, blushed again and fell silent.

“He’s looking for you,” I said. “With your father,” I added. “They left here not half an hour ago.”

His head snapped up on its skinny neck, goggling.

“My father?” he gasped. “My father was here? Ye know him?”

“Why, yes,” I said, without thinking. “I’ve known Ian for quite a long time.”

He might be Jamie’s nephew, but he hadn’t Jamie’s trick of inscrutability. Everything he thought showed on his face, and I could easily trace the progression of his expressions. Raw shock at learning of his father’s presence in Edinburgh, then a sort of awestruck horror at the revelation of his father’s long-standing acquaintance with what appeared to be a woman of a certain occupation, and finally the beginnings of angry absorption, as the young man began an immediate revision of his opinions of his father’s character.

“Er—” I said, mildly alarmed. “It isn’t what you think. I mean, your father and I—it’s really your uncle and I, I mean—” I was trying to figure out how to explain the situation to him without getting into even deeper waters, when he whirled on his heel and started for the door.

“Wait a minute,” I said. He stopped, but didn’t turn around. His well-scrubbed ears stood out like tiny wings, the morning light illuminating their delicate pinkness. “How old are you?” I asked.

He turned around to face me, with a certain painful dignity. “I’ll be fifteen in three weeks,” he said. The red was creeping up his cheeks again. “Dinna worry, I’m old enough to know—what sort of place this is, I mean.” He jerked his head toward me in an attempt at a courtly bow.

“Meaning no offense to ye, mistress. If Uncle Jamie—I mean, I—” he groped for suitable words, failed to find any, and finally blurted, “verra pleased to meet ye, mum!” turned and bolted through the door, which shut hard enough to rattle in its frame.

I fell back against the pillows, torn between amusement and alarm. I did wonder what the elder Ian was going to say to his son when they met—and vice versa. As long as I was wondering, I wondered what had brought the younger Ian here in search of Jamie. Evidently, he knew where his uncle was likely to be found; yet judging from his diffident attitude, he had never before ventured into the brothel.

Had he extracted the information from Geordie at the printshop? That seemed unlikely. And yet, if he hadn’t—then that meant he had learned of his uncle’s connection with this place from some other source. And the most likely source was Jamie himself.

But in that case, I reasoned, Jamie likely already knew that his nephew was in Edinburgh, so why pretend he hadn’t seen the boy? Ian was Jamie’s oldest friend; they had grown up together. If whatever Jamie was up to was worth the cost of deceiving his brother-in-law, it was something serious.

I had got no further with my musings, when there came another knock on the door.

“Come in,” I said, smoothing out the quilts in anticipation of the breakfast tray to be placed thereon.

When the door opened, I had directed my attention at a spot about five feet above the floor, where I expected the chambermaid’s head to materialize. Upon the last opening of the door, I had had to adjust my vision upward a foot, to accommodate the appearance of Young Ian. This time, I was obliged to drop it.

“What in the bloody hell are you doing here?” I demanded as the diminutive figure of Mr. Willoughby entered on hands and knees. I sat up and hastily tucked my feet underneath me, pulling not only sheet but quilts well up around my shoulders.

In answer, the Chinese advanced to within a foot of the bed, then let his head fall to the floor with a loud clunk. He raised it and repeated the process with great deliberation, making a horrid sound like a melon being cleaved with an ax.

“Stop that!” I exclaimed, as he prepared to do it a third time.

“Thousand apology,” he explained, sitting up on his heels and blinking at me. He was quite a bit the worse for wear, and the dark red mark where his forehead had smacked the floor didn’t add anything to his appearance. I trusted he didn’t mean he’d been going to hit his head on the floor a thousand times, but I wasn’t sure. He obviously had the hell of a hangover; for him to have attempted it even once was impressive.

“That’s quite all right,” I said, edging cautiously back against the wall. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“Yes, apology,” he insisted. “Tsei-mi saying wife. Lady being most honorable First Wife, not stinking whore.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said. “Tsei-mi? You mean Jamie? Jamie Fraser?”

The little man nodded, to the obvious detriment of his head. He clutched it with both hands and closed his eyes, which promptly disappeared into the creases of his cheeks.

“Tsei-mi,” he affirmed, eyes still closed. “Tsei-mi saying apology to most honored First Wife. Yi Tien Cho most humble servant.” He bowed deeply, still holding onto his head. “Yi Tien Cho,” he added, opening his eyes and tapping his chest to indicate that that was his name; in case I should be confusing him with any other humble servants in the vicinity.

“That’s quite all right,” I said. “Er, pleased to meet you.”

Evidently heartened by this, he slid bonelessly onto his face, prostrating himself before me.

“Yi Tien Cho lady’s servant,” he said. “First Wife please to walk on humble servant, if like.”

“Ha,” I said coldly. “I’ve heard about you. Walk on you, eh? Not bloody likely!”

A slit of gleaming black eye showed, and he giggled, so irrepressibly that I couldn’t help laughing myself. He sat up again, smoothing down the spikes of dirt-stiffened black hair that sprang, porcupine-like, from his skull.

“I wash First Wife’s feet?” he offered, grinning widely.

“Certainly not,” I said. “If you really want to do something helpful, go and tell someone to bring me breakfast. No, wait a minute,” I said, changing my mind. “First, tell me where you met Jamie. If you don’t mind,” I added, to be polite.

He sat back on his heels, head bobbing slightly. “Docks,” he said. “Two year ago. I come China, long way, no food. Hiding barrel,” he explained, reaching his arms in a circle, to demonstrate his means of transportation.

“A stowaway?”

“Trade ship,” he nodded. “On docks here, stealing food. Stealing brandy one night, getting stinking drunk. Very cold to sleep; die soon, but Tsei-mi find.” He jabbed a thumb at his chest once more. “Tsei-mi’s humble servant. Humble servant First Wife.” He bowed to me, swaying alarmingly in the process, but came upright again without mishap.

“Brandy seems to be your downfall,” I observed. “I’m sorry I haven’t anything to give you for your head; I don’t have any medicines with me at the moment.”

“Oh, not worry,” he assured me. “I having healthy balls.”

“How nice for you,” I said, trying to decide whether he was gearing up for another attempt on my feet, or merely still too drunk to distinguish basic anatomy. Or perhaps there was some connection in Chinese philosophy, between the well-being of head and testicles? Just in case, I looked round for something that might be used as a weapon, in case he showed a disposition to begin burrowing under the bedclothes.

Instead, he reached into the depths of one baggy blue-silk sleeve and with the air of a conjuror, drew out a small white silk bag. He upended this, and two balls dropped out into his palm. They were larger than marbles and smaller than baseballs; about the size, in fact, of the average testicle. A good deal harder, though, being apparently made of some kind of polished stone, greenish in color.

“Healthy balls,” Mr. Willoughby explained, rolling them together in his palm. They made a pleasant clicking noise. “Streaked jade, from Canton,” he said. “Best kind of healthy balls.”

“Really?” I said, fascinated. “And they’re medicinal—good for you, that’s what you’re saying?”

He nodded vigorously, then stopped abruptly with a faint moan. After a pause, he spread out his hand, and rolled the balls to and fro, keeping them in movement with a dextrous circling of his fingers.

“All body one part; hand all parts,” he said. He poked a finger toward his open palm, touching delicately here and there between the smooth green spheres. “Head there, stomach there, liver there,” he said. “Balls make all good.”

“Well, I suppose they’re as portable as Alka-Seltzer,” I said. Possibly it was the reference to stomach that caused my own to emit a loud growl at this point.

“First Wife wanting food,” Mr. Willoughby observed shrewdly.

“Very astute of you,” I said. “Yes, I do want food. Do you suppose you could go and tell someone?”

He dumped the healthy balls back into their bag at once, and springing to his feet, bowed deeply.

“Humble servant go now,” he said, and went, crashing rather heavily into the door post on his way out.

* * *

This was becoming ridiculous, I thought. I harbored substantial doubt as to whether Mr. Willoughby’s visit would result in food; he’d be lucky to make it to the bottom of the stair without falling on his head, if I was any judge of his condition.

Rather than go on sitting here in the nude, receiving random deputations from the outside world, I thought it time to take steps. Rising and carefully wrapping a quilt around my body, I took a few, out into the corridor.

The upper floor seemed deserted. Aside from the room I had left, there were only two other doors up here. Glancing up, I could see unadorned rafters overhead. We were in the attic then; chances were that the other rooms here were occupied by servants, who were presumably now employed downstairs.

I could hear faint noises drifting up the stairwell. Something else drifted up, as well—the scent of frying sausage. A loud gustatory rumble informed me that my stomach hadn’t missed this, and furthermore, that my innards considered the consumption of one peanut butter sandwich and one bowl of soup in one twenty-four-hour period a wholly inadequate level of nutrition.

I tucked the ends of the quilt in, sarong-fashion, just above my breasts, and picking up my trailing skirts, followed the scent of food downstairs.

The smell—and the clinking, clattering, sloshing noises of a number of people eating—were coming from a closed door on the first floor above ground level. I pushed it open, and found myself at the end of a long room equipped as a refectory.

The table was surrounded by twenty-odd women, a few gowned for day, but most of them in a state of dishabille that made my quilt modest by comparison. A woman near the end of the table caught sight of me hovering in the doorway, and beckoned, companionably sliding over to make room for me on the end of the long bench.

“You’ll be the new lass, aye?” she said, looking me over with interest. “You’re a wee bit older than Madame usually takes on—she likes ’em no more than five and twenty. You’re no bad at all, though,” she assured me hastily. “I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

“Good skin and a pretty face,” observed the dark-haired lady across from us, sizing me up with the detached air of one appraising horseflesh. “And nice bubbies, what I can see.” She lifted her chin slightly, peering across the table at what could be seen of my cleavage.

“Madame doesna like us to take the kivvers off the beds,” my original acquaintance said reprovingly. “Ye should wear your shift, if ye havena something pretty to show yourself in yet.”

“Aye, be careful with the quilt,” advised the dark-haired girl, still scrutinizing me. “Madame’ll dock your wages, an’ ye get spots on the bedclothes.”

“What’s your name, my dearie?” A short, rather plump girl with a round, friendly face leaned past the dark girl’s elbow to smile at me. “Here we’re all chatterin’ at ye, and not welcomed ye proper at all. I’m Dorcas, this is Peggy”—she jerked a thumb at the dark-haired girl, then pointed across the table to the fair-haired woman beside me—“and that’s Mollie.”

“My name is Claire,” I said, smiling and hitching the quilt a bit higher in self-consciousness. I wasn’t sure how to correct their impression that I was Madame Jeanne’s newest recruit; for the moment, that seemed less important than getting some breakfast.

Apparently divining my need, the friendly Dorcas reached to the sideboard behind her, passed me a wooden plate, and shoved a large dish of sausages in my direction.

The food was well-cooked and would have been good in any case; starved as I was, it was ambrosial. A hell of a lot better than the hospital cafeteria’s breakfasts, I observed to myself, taking another ladle of fried potatoes.

“Had a rough one for your first, aye?” Millie, next to me, nodded at my bosom. Glancing down, I was mortified to see a large red patch peeking above the edge of my quilt. I couldn’t see my neck, but the direction of Millie’s interested gaze made it clear that the small tingling sensations there were evidence of further bite-marks.

“Your nose is a wee bit puffed, too,” Peggy said, frowning at me critically. She reached across the table to touch it, disregarding the fact that the gesture caused her flimsy wrap to fall open to the waist. “Slap ye, did he? If they get too rough, ye should call out, ye know; Madame doesna allow the customers to mistreat us—give a good screech and Bruno will be in there in a moment.”

“Bruno?” I said, a little faintly.

“The porter,” Dorcas explained, busily spooning eggs into her mouth. “Big as a bear—that’s why we call him Bruno. What’s his name really?” she asked the table at large, “Horace?”

“Theobald,” corrected Millie. She turned to call to a servingmaid at the end of the room, “Janie, will ye fetch in more ale? The new lassie’s had none yet!”

“Aye, Peggy’s right,” she said, turning back to me. She wasn’t at all pretty, but had a nicely shaped mouth and a pleasant expression. “If ye get a man likes to play a bit rough, that’s one thing—and don’t sic Bruno on a good customer, or there’ll be hell to pay, and you’ll do the paying. But if ye think ye might really be damaged, then just give a good skelloch. Bruno’s never far away during the night. Oh, here’s the ale,” she added, taking a big pewter mug from the servingmaid and plonking it in front of me.

“She’s no damaged,” Dorcas said, having completed her survey of the visible aspects of my person. “A bit sore between the legs, though, aye?” she said shrewdly, grinning at me.

“Ooh, look, she’s blushing,” said Mollie, giggling with delight. “Ooh, you are a fresh one, aren’t ye?”

I took a deep gulp of the ale. It was dark, rich, and extremely welcome, as much for the width of the cup rim that hid my face as for its taste.

“Never mind.” Mollie patted my arm kindly. “After breakfast, I’ll show ye where the tubs are. Ye can soak your parts in warm water, and they’ll be good as new by tonight.”

“Be sure to show her where the jars are, too,” put in Dorcas. “Sweet herbs,” she explained to me. “Put them in the water before ye sit in it. Madame likes us to smell sweet.”

“Eef ze men want to lie wiz a feesh, zey would go to ze docks; eet ees more cheap,” Peggy intoned, in what was patently meant to be an imitation of Madame Jeanne. The table erupted in giggles, which were rapidly quelled by the sudden appearance of Madame herself, who entered through a door at the end of the room.

Madame Jeanne was frowning in a worried fashion, and seemed too preoccupied to notice the smothered hilarity.

“Tsk!” murmured Mollie, seeing the proprietor. “An early customer. I hate it when they come in the middle o’ breakfast,” she grumbled. “Stop ye digesting your food proper, it does.”

“Ye needn’t worry, Mollie; it’s Claire’ll have to take him,” Peggy said, tossing her dark plait out of the way. “Newest lass takes the ones no one wants,” she informed me.

“Stick your finger up his bum,” Dorcas advised me. “That brings ’em off faster than anything. I’ll save ye a bannock for after, if ye like.”

“Er…thanks,” I said. Just then, Madame Jeanne’s eye lit upon me, and her mouth dropped open in a horrified “O.”

“What are you doing here?” she hissed, rushing up to grab me by the arm.

“Eating,” I said, in no mood to be snatched at. I detached my arm from her grasp and picked up my ale cup.

“Merde!” she said. “Did no one bring you food this morning?”

“No,” I said. “Nor yet clothes.” I gestured at the quilt, which was in imminent danger of falling off.

“Nez de Cleopatre!” she said violently. She stood up and glanced around the room, eyes flashing daggers. “I will have the worthless scum of a maid flayed for this! A thousand apologies, Madame!”

“That’s quite all right,” I said graciously, aware of the looks of astonishment on the faces of my breakfast companions. “I’ve had a wonderful meal. Nice to have met you all, ladies,” I said, rising and doing my best to bow graciously while clutching my quilt. “Now, Madame…about my gown?”

* * *

Amid Madame Jeanne’s agitated protestations of apology, and reiterated hopes that I would not find it necessary to tell Monsieur Fraser that I had been exposed to an undesirable intimacy with the working members of the establishment, I made my clumsy way up two more flights of stairs, and into a small room draped with hanging garments in various stages of completion, with bolts of cloth stacked here and there in the corners of the chamber.

“A moment, please,” Madame Jeanne said, and with a deep bow, left me to the company of a dressmaker’s dummy, with a large number of pins protruding from its stuffed bosom.

Apparently this was where the costuming of the inmates took place. I walked around the room, quilt trailing, and observed several flimsy silk wrappers under construction, together with a couple of elaborate gowns with very low necks, and a number of rather imaginative variations on the basic shift and camisole. I removed one shift from its hook, and put it on.

It was made of fine cotton, with a low, gathered neck, and embroidery in the form of multiple hands that curled enticingly under the bosom and down the sides of the waist, spreading out into a rakish caress atop the hips. It hadn’t been hemmed, but was otherwise complete, and gave me a great deal more freedom of movement than had the quilt.

I could hear voices in the next room, where Madame was apparently haranguing Bruno—or so I deduced the identity of the male rumble.

“I do not care what the miserable girl’s sister has done,” she was saying, “do you not realize that the wife of Monsieur Jamie was left naked and starving—”

“Are you sure she’s his wife?” the deep male voice asked. “I had heard—”

“So had I. But if he says this woman is his wife, I am not disposed to argue, n’est-ce pas?” Madame sounded impatient. “Now, as to this wretched Madeleine—”

“It’s not her fault, Madame,” Bruno broke in. “Have you not heard the news this morning—about the Fiend?”

Madame gave a small gasp. “No! Not another?”

“Yes, Madame.” Bruno’s voice was grim. “No more than a few doors away—above the Green Owl tavern. The girl was Madeleine’s sister; the priest brought the news just before breakfast. So you can see—”

“Yes, I see.” Madame sounded a little breathless. “Yes, of course. Of course. Was it—the same?” Her voice quivered with distaste.

“Yes, Madame. A hatchet or a big knife of some sort.” He lowered his voice, as people do when recounting horrid things. “The priest told me that her head had been completely severed. Her body was near the door of her room, and her head”—his voice dropped even lower, almost to a whisper—“her head was sitting on the mantelpiece, looking into the room. The landlord swooned when he found her.”

A heavy thud from the next room suggested that Madame Jeanne had done likewise. Gooseflesh rippled up my arms, and my own knees felt a trifle watery. I was beginning to agree with Jamie’s fear that his installing me in a house of prostitution had been injudicious.

At any rate, I was now clad, if not entirely dressed, and I went into the room next door, to find Madame Jeanne in semi-recline on the sofa of a small parlor, with a burly, unhappy-looking man sitting on the hassock near her feet.

Madame started up at the sight of me. “Madame Fraser! Oh, I am so sorry! I did not mean to leave you waiting, but I have had…” she hesitated, looking for some delicate expression “…some distressing news.”

“I’d say so,” I said. “What’s this about a Fiend?”

“You heard?” She was already pale; now her complexion went a few shades whiter, and she wrung her hands. “What will he say? He will be furious!” she moaned.

“Who?” I asked. “Jamie, or the Fiend?”

“Your husband,” she said. She looked about the parlor, distracted. “When he hears that his wife has been so shamefully neglected, mistaken for a fille de joie and exposed to—to—”

“I really don’t think he’ll mind,” I said. “But I would like to hear about the Fiend.”

“You would?” Bruno’s heavy eyebrows rose. He was a big man, with sloping shoulders and long arms that made him look rather like a gorilla; a resemblance enhanced by a low brow and a receding chin. He looked eminently suited to the role of bouncer in a brothel.

“Well,” he hesitated, glancing at Madame Jeanne for guidance, but the proprietor caught sight of the small enameled clock on the mantelpiece and jumped to her feet with an exclamation of shock.

“Crottin!” she exclaimed. “I must go!” And with no more than a perfunctory wave in my direction, she sped from the room, leaving Bruno and me looking after her in surprise.

“Oh,” he said, recovering himself. “That’s right, it was coming at ten o’clock.” It was a quarter-past ten, by the enamel clock. Whatever “it” was, I hoped it would wait.

“Fiend,” I prompted.

Like most people, Bruno was only too willing to reveal all the gory details, once past a pro forma demur for the sake of social delicacy.

The Edinburgh Fiend was—as I had deduced from the conversation thus far—a murderer. Like an early-day Jack the Ripper, he specialized in women of easy virtue, whom he killed with blows from a heavy-bladed instrument. In some cases, the bodies had been dismembered or otherwise “interfered with,” as Bruno said, in lowered voice.

The killings—eight in all—had occurred at intervals over the last two years. With one exception, the women had been killed in their own rooms; most lived alone—two had been killed in brothels. Hence Madame’s agitation, I supposed.

“What was the exception?” I asked.

Bruno crossed himself. “A nun,” he whispered, the words evidently still a shock to him. “A French Sister of Mercy.”

The Sister, coming ashore at Edinburgh with a group of nuns bound for London, had been abducted from the docks, without any of her companions noticing her absence in the confusion. By the time she was discovered in one of Edinburgh’s wynds, after nightfall, it was far too late.

“Raped?” I asked, with clinical interest.

Bruno eyed me with considerable suspicion.

“I do not know,” he said formally. He rose heavily to his feet, his simian shoulders drooping with fatigue. I supposed he had been on duty all night; it must be his bedtime now. “If you will excuse me, Madame,” he said, with remote formality, and went out.

I sat back on the small velvet sofa, feeling mildly dazed. Somehow I hadn’t realized that quite so much went on in brothels in the daytime.

There was a sudden loud hammering at the door. It didn’t sound like knocking, but as though someone really were using a metal-headed hammer to demand admittance. I got to my feet to answer the summons, but without further warning, the door burst open, and a slender imperious figure strode into the room, speaking French in an accent so pronounced and an attitude so furious that I could not follow it all.

“Are you looking for Madame Jeanne?” I managed to put in, seizing a small pause when he stopped to draw breath for more invective. The visitor was a young man of about thirty, slightly built and strikingly handsome, with thick black hair and brows. He glared at me under these, and as he got a good look at me, an extraordinary change went across his face. The brows rose, his black eyes grew huge, and his face went white.

“Milady!” he exclaimed, and flung himself on his knees, embracing me about the thighs as he pressed his face into the cotton shift at crotch level.

“Let go!” I exclaimed, shoving at his shoulders to detach him. “I don’t work here. Let go, I say!”

“Milady!” he was repeating in tones of rapture. “Milady! You have come back! A miracle! God has restored you!”

He looked up at me, smiling as tears streamed down his face. He had large white perfect teeth. Suddenly memory stirred and shifted, showing me the outlines of an urchin’s face beneath the man’s bold visage.

“Fergus!” I said. “Fergus, is that really you? Get up, for God’s sake—let me see you!”

He rose to his feet, but didn’t pause to let me inspect him. He gathered me into a rib-cracking hug, and I clutched him in return, pounding his back in the excitement of seeing him again. He had been ten or so when I last saw him, just before Culloden. Now he was a man, and the stubble of his beard rasped against my cheek.

“I thought I was seeing a ghost!” he exclaimed. “It is really you, then?”

“Yes, it’s me,” I assured him.

“You have seen milord?” he asked excitedly. “He knows you are here?”

“Yes.”

“Oh!” He blinked and stepped back half a pace, as something occurred to him. “But—but what about—” He paused, clearly confused.

“What about what?”

“There ye are! What in the name of God are ye doing up here, Fergus?” Jamie’s tall figure loomed suddenly in the doorway. His eyes widened at the sight of me in my embroidered shift. “Where are your clothes?” he asked. “Never mind,” he said then, waving his hand impatiently as I opened my mouth to answer. “I havena time just now. Come along, Fergus, there’s eighteen ankers of brandy in the alleyway, and the excisemen on my heels!”

And with a thunder of boots on the wooden staircase, they were gone, leaving me alone once more.

* * *

I wasn’t sure whether I should join the party downstairs or not, but curiosity got the better of discretion. After a quick visit to the sewing room in search of more extensive covering, I made my way down, a large shawl half-embroidered with hollyhocks flung round my shoulders.

I had gathered only a vague impression of the layout of the house the night before, but the street noises that filtered through the windows made it clear which side of the building faced the High Street. I assumed the alleyway to which Jamie had referred must be on the other side, but wasn’t sure. The houses of Edinburgh were frequently constructed with odd little wings and twisting walls, to take advantage of every inch of space.

I paused on the large landing at the foot of the stairs, listening for the sound of rolling casks as a guide. As I stood there, I felt a sudden draft on my bare feet, and turned to see a man standing in the open doorway from the kitchen.

He seemed as surprised as I, but after blinking at me, he smiled and stepped forward to grip me by the elbow.

“And a good morning to you, my dear. I didn’t expect to find any of you ladies up and about so early in the morning.”

“Well, you know what they say about early to bed and early to rise,” I said, trying to extricate my elbow.

He laughed, showing rather badly stained teeth in a narrow jaw. “No, what do they say about it?”

“Well, it’s something they say in America, come to think of it,” I replied, suddenly realizing that Benjamin Franklin, even if currently publishing, probably didn’t have a wide readership in Edinburgh.

“Got a wit about you, chuckie,” he said, with a slight smile. “Send you down as a decoy, did she?”

“No. Who?” I said.

“The madam,” he said, glancing around. “Where is she?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “Let go!”

Instead, he tightened his grip, so that his fingers dug uncomfortably into the muscles of my upper arm. He leaned closer, whispering in my ear with a gust of stale tobacco fumes.

“There’s a reward, you know,” he murmured confidentially. “A percentage of the value of the seized contraband. No one would need to know but you and me.” He flicked one finger gently under my breast, making the nipple stand up under the thin cotton. “What d’ye say, chuck?”

I stared at him. “The excisemen are on my heels,” Jamie had said. This must be one, then; an officer of the Crown, charged with the prevention of smuggling and the apprehension of smugglers. What had Jamie said? “The pillory, transportation, flogging, imprisonment, ear-nailing,” waving an airy hand as though such penalties were the equivalent of a traffic ticket.

“Whatever are you talking about?” I said, trying to sound puzzled. “And for the last time, let go of me!” He couldn’t be alone, I thought. How many others were there around the building?

“Yes, please let go,” said a voice behind me. I saw the exciseman’s eyes widen as he glanced over my shoulder.

Mr. Willoughby stood on the second stair in rumpled blue silk, a large pistol gripped in both hands. He bobbed his head politely at the excise officer.

“Not stinking whore,” he explained, blinking owlishly. “Honorable wife.”

The exciseman, clearly startled by the unexpected appearance of a Chinese, gawked from me to Mr. Willoughby and back again.

“Wife?” he said disbelievingly. “You say she’s your wife?”

Mr. Willoughby, clearly catching only the salient word, nodded pleasantly.

“Wife,” he said again. “Please letting go.” His eyes were mere bloodshot slits, and it was apparent to me, if not to the exciseman, that his blood was still approximately 80 proof.

The exciseman pulled me toward himself and scowled at Mr. Willoughby. “Now, listen here—” he began. He got no further, for Mr. Willoughby, evidently assuming that he had given fair warning, raised the pistol and pulled the trigger.

There was a loud crack, an even louder shriek, which must have been mine, and the landing was filled with a cloud of gray powder-smoke. The exciseman staggered back against the paneling, a look of intense surprise on his face, and a spreading rosette of blood on the breast of his coat.

Moving by reflex, I leapt forward and grasped the man under the arms, easing him gently down to the floorboards of the landing. There was a flurry of noise from above, as the inhabitants of the house crowded chattering and exclaiming onto the upper landing, attracted by the shot. Bounding footsteps came up the lower stairs two at a time.

Fergus burst through what must be the cellar door, a pistol in his hand.

“Milady,” he gasped, catching sight of me sitting in the corner with the exciseman’s body sprawled across my lap. “What have you done?”

“Me?” I said indignantly. “I haven’t done anything; it’s Jamie’s pet Chinaman.” I nodded briefly toward the stair, where Mr. Willoughby, the pistol dropped unregarded by his feet, had sat down on the step and was now regarding the scene below with a benign and bloodshot eye.

Fergus said something in French that was too colloquial to translate, but sounded highly uncomplimentary to Mr. Willoughby. He strode across the landing, and reached out a hand to grasp the little Chinaman’s shoulder—or so I assumed, until I saw that the arm he extended did not end in a hand, but in a hook of gleaming dark metal.

“Fergus!” I was so shocked at the sight that I stopped my attempts to stanch the exciseman’s wound with my shawl. “What—what—” I said incoherently.

“What?” he said, glancing at me. Then, following the direction of my gaze, said, “Oh, that,” and shrugged. “The English. Don’t worry about it, milady, we haven’t time. You, canaille, get downstairs!” He jerked Mr. Willoughby off the stairs, dragged him to the cellar door and shoved him through it, with a callous disregard for safety. I could hear a series of bumps, suggesting that the Chinese was rolling downstairs, his acrobatic skills having temporarily deserted him, but had no time to worry about it.

Fergus squatted next to me, and lifted the exciseman’s head by the hair. “How many companions are with you?” he demanded. “Tell me quickly, cochon, or I slit your throat!”

From the evident signs, this was a superfluous threat. The man’s eyes were already glazing over. With considerable effort, the corners of his mouth drew back in a smile.

“I’ll see…you…burn…in…hell,” he whispered, and with a last convulsion that fixed the smile in a hideous rictus upon his face, he coughed up a startling quantity of bright red foamy blood, and died in my lap.

More feet were coming up the stairs at a high rate of speed. Jamie charged through the cellar door and barely stopped himself before stepping on the excise officer’s trailing legs. His eyes traveled up the body’s length and rested on my face with horrified amazement.

“What have ye done, Sassenach?” he demanded.

“Not her—the yellow pox,” Fergus put in, saving me the trouble. He thrust the pistol into his belt and offered me his real hand. “Come, milady, you must get downstairs!”

Jamie forestalled him, bending over me as he jerked his head in the direction of the front hall.

“I’ll manage here,” he said. “Guard the front, Fergus. The usual signal, and keep your pistol hidden unless there’s need.”

Fergus nodded and vanished at once through the door to the hall.

Jamie had succeeded in bundling the corpse awkwardly in the shawl; he lifted it off me, and I scrambled to my feet, greatly relieved to be rid of it, in spite of the blood and other objectionable substances soaking the front of my shift.

“Ooh! I think he’s dead!” An awestruck voice floated down from above, and I looked up to see a dozen prostitutes peering down like cherubim from on high.

“Get back to your rooms!” Jamie barked. There was a chorus of frightened squeals, and they scattered like pigeons.

Jamie glanced around the landing for traces of the incident, but luckily there were none—the shawl and I had caught everything.

“Come on,” he said.

The stairs were dim and the cellar at the foot pitch-black. I stopped at the bottom, waiting for Jamie. The exciseman had not been lightly built, and Jamie was breathing hard when he reached me.

“Across to the far side,” he said, gasping. “A false wall. Hold my arm.”

With the door above shut, I couldn’t see a thing; luckily Jamie seemed able to steer by radar. He led me unerringly past large objects that I bumped in passing, and finally came to a halt. I could smell damp stone, and putting out a hand, felt a rough wall before me.

Jamie said something loudly in Gaelic. Apparently it was the Celtic equivalent of “Open Sesame,” for there was a short silence, then a grating noise, and a faint glowing line appeared in the darkness before me. The line widened into a slit, and a section of the wall swung out, revealing a small doorway, made of a wooden framework, upon which cut stones were mounted so as to look like part of the wall.

The concealed cellar was a large room, at least thirty feet long. Several figures were moving about, and the air was ripely suffocating with the smell of brandy. Jamie dumped the body unceremoniously in a corner, then turned to me.

“God, Sassenach, are ye all right?” The cellar seemed to be lighted with candles, dotted here and there in the dimness. I could just see his face, skin drawn tight across his cheekbones.

“I’m a little cold,” I said, trying not to let my teeth chatter. “My shift is soaked with blood. Otherwise I’m all right. I think.”

“Jeanne!” He turned and called toward the far end of the cellar, and one of the figures came toward us, resolving itself into a very worried-looking madam. He explained the situation in a few words, causing the worried expression to grow considerably worse.

“Horreur!” she said. “Killed? On my premises? With witnesses?”

“Aye, I’m afraid so.” Jamie sounded calm. “I’ll manage about it. But in the meantime, ye must go up. He might not have been alone. You’ll know what to do.”

His voice held a tone of calm assurance, and he squeezed her arm. The touch seemed to calm her—I hoped that was why he had done it—and she turned to leave.

“Oh, and Jeanne,” Jamie called after her. “When ye come back, can ye bring down some clothes for my wife? If her gown’s not ready, I think Daphne is maybe the right size.”

“Clothes?” Madame Jeanne squinted into the shadows where I stood. I helpfully stepped out into the light, displaying the results of my encounter with the exciseman.

Madame Jeanne blinked once or twice, crossed herself, and turned without a word, to disappear through the concealed doorway, which swung to behind her with a muffled thud.

I was beginning to shake, as much with reaction as with the cold. Accustomed as I was to emergency, blood, and even sudden death, the events of the morning had been more than a little harrowing. It was like a bad Saturday night in the emergency room.

“Come along, Sassenach,” Jamie said, putting a hand gently on the small of my back. “We’ll get ye washed.” His touch worked on me as well as it had on Madame Jeanne; I felt instantly better, if still apprehensive.

“Washed? In what? Brandy?”

He gave a slight laugh at that. “No, water. I can offer ye a bathtub, but I’m afraid it will be cold.”

It was extremely cold.

“Wh-wh-where did this water come from?” I asked, shivering. “Off a glacier?” The water gushed out of a pipe set in the wall, normally kept plugged with an insanitary-looking wad of rags, wrapped to form a rough seal around the chunk of wood that served as a plug.

I pulled my hand out of the chilly stream and wiped it on the shift, which was too far gone for anything to make much difference. Jamie shook his head as he maneuvered the big wooden tub closer to the spout.

“Off the roof,” he answered. “There’s a rainwater cistern up there. The guttering pipe runs down the side of the building, and the cistern pipe is hidden inside it.” He looked absurdly proud of himself, and I laughed.

“Quite an arrangement,” I said. “What do you use the water for?”

“To cut the liquor,” he explained. He gestured at the far side of the room, where the shadowy figures were working with notable industry among a large array of casks and tubs. “It comes in a hundred and eighty degrees above proof. We mix it here wi’ pure water, and recask it for sale to the taverns.”

He shoved the rough plug back into the pipe, and bent to pull the big tub across the stone floor. “Here, we’ll take it out of the way; they’ll be needing the water.” One of the men was in fact standing by with a small cask clasped in his arms; with no more than a curious glance at me, he nodded to Jamie and thrust the cask beneath the stream of water.

Behind a hastily arranged screen of empty barrels, I peered dubiously down into the depths of my makeshift tub. A single candle burned in a puddle of wax nearby, glimmering off the surface of the water and making it look black and bottomless. I stripped off, shivering violently, thinking that the comforts of hot water and modern plumbing had seemed a hell of a lot easier to renounce when they were close at hand.

Jamie groped in his sleeve and pulled out a large handkerchief, at which he squinted dubiously.

“Aye, well, it’s maybe cleaner than your shift,” he said, shrugging. He handed it to me, then excused himself to oversee operations at the other end of the room.

The water was freezing and so was the cellar, and as I gingerly sponged myself, the icy trickles running down my stomach and thighs brought on small fits of shivering.

Thoughts of what might be happening overhead did little to ease my feelings of chilly apprehension. Presumably, we were safe enough for the moment, so long as the false cellar wall deceived any searching excisemen.

But if the wall failed to hide us, our position was all but hopeless. There appeared to be no way out of this room but by the door in the false wall—and if that wall were breached, we would not only be caught red-handed in possession of quite a lot of contraband brandy, but also in custody of the body of a murdered King’s Officer.

And surely the disappearance of that officer would provoke an intensive search? I had visions of excisemen combing the brothel, questioning and threatening the women, emerging with complete descriptions of myself, Jamie, and Mr. Willoughby, as well as several eyewitness accounts of the murder. Involuntarily, I glanced at the far corner, where the dead man lay beneath his bloodstained shroud, covered with pink and yellow hollyhocks. The Chinaman was nowhere to be seen, having apparently passed out behind the ankers of brandy.

“Here, Sassenach. Drink this; your teeth are chattering so, you’re like to bite through your tongue.” Jamie had reappeared by my seal hole like a St. Bernard dog, bearing a firkin of brandy.

“Th-thanks.” I had to drop the washcloth and use both hands to steady the wooden cup so it wouldn’t clack against my teeth, but the brandy helped; it dropped like a flaming coal into the pit of my stomach and sent small curling tendrils of warmth through my frigid extremities as I sipped.

“Oh, God, that’s better,” I said, stopping long enough to gasp for breath. “Is this the uncut version?”

“No, that would likely kill ye. This is maybe a little stronger than what we sell, though. Finish up and put something on; then ye can have a bit more.” Jamie took the cup from my hand and gave me back the handkerchief washcloth. As I hurriedly finished my chilly ablutions, I watched him from the corner of my eye. He was frowning as he gazed at me, clearly deep in thought. I had imagined that his life was complicated; it hadn’t escaped me that my presence was undoubtedly complicating it a good bit more. I would have given a lot to know what he was thinking.

“What are you thinking about, Jamie?” I said, watching him sidelong as I swabbed the last of the smudges from my thighs. The water swirled around my calves, disturbed by my movements, and the candlelight lit the waves with sparks, as though the dark blood I had washed from my body now glowed once more live and red in the water.

The frown vanished momentarily as his eyes cleared and fixed on my face.

“I am thinking that you’re verra beautiful, Sassenach,” he said softly.

“Maybe if one has a taste for gooseflesh on a large scale,” I said tartly, stepping out of the tub and reaching for the cup.

He grinned suddenly at me, teeth flashing white in the dimness of the cellar.

“Oh, aye,” he said. “Well, you’re speaking to the only man in Scotland who has a terrible cockstand at sight of a plucked chicken.”

I spluttered in my brandy and choked, half-hysterical from tension and terror.

Jamie quickly shrugged out of his coat and wrapped the garment around me, hugging me close against him as I shivered and coughed and gasped.

“Makes it hard to pass a poulterer’s stall and stay decent,” he murmured in my ear, briskly rubbing my back through the fabric. “Hush, Sassenach, hush now. It’ll be fine.”

I clung to him, shaking. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m all right. It’s my fault, though. Mr. Willoughby shot the exciseman because he thought he was making indecent advances to me.”

Jamie snorted. “That doesna make it your fault, Sassenach,” he said dryly. “And for what it’s worth, it’s no the first time the Chinaman’s done something foolish, either. When he’s drink taken, he’ll do anything, and never mind how mad it is.”

Suddenly Jamie’s expression changed as he realized what I had said. He stared down at me, eyes wide. “Did ye say ‘exciseman,’ Sassenach?”

“Yes, why?”

He didn’t answer, but let go my shoulders and whirled on his heel, snatching the candle off the cask in passing. Rather than be left in the dark, I followed him to the corner where the corpse lay under its shawl.

“Hold this.” Jamie thrust the candle unceremoniously into my hand and knelt by the shrouded figure, pulling back the stained fabric that covered the face.

I had seen quite a few dead bodies; the sight was no shock, but it still wasn’t pleasant. The eyes had rolled up beneath half-closed lids, which did nothing to help the generally ghastly effect. Jamie frowned at the dead face, drop-jawed and waxy in the candlelight, and muttered something under his breath.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. I had thought I would never be warm again, but Jamie’s coat was not only thick and well-made, it held the remnants of his own considerable body heat. I was still cold, but the shivering had eased.

“This isna an exciseman,” Jamie said, still frowning. “I know all the Riding Officers in the district, and the superintending officers, too. But I’ve no seen this fellow before.” With some distaste, he turned back the sodden flap of the coat and groped inside.

He felt about gingerly but thoroughly inside the man’s clothing, emerging at last with a small penknife, and a small booklet bound in red paper.

“‘New Testament,’” I read, with some astonishment.

Jamie nodded, looking up at me with one brow raised. “Exciseman or no, it seems a peculiar thing to bring with ye to a kittle-hoosie.” He wiped the little booklet on the shawl, then drew the folds of fabric quite gently back over the face, and rose to his feet, shaking his head.

“That’s the only thing in his pockets. Any Customs inspector or exciseman must carry his warrant upon his person at all times, for otherwise he’s no authority to carry out a search of premises or seize goods.” He glanced up, eyebrows raised. “Why did ye think he was an exciseman?”

I hugged the folds of Jamie’s coat around myself, trying to remember what the man had said to me on the landing. “He asked me whether I was a decoy, and where the madam was. Then he said that there was a reward—a percentage of seized contraband, that’s what he said—and that no one would know but him and me. And you’d said there were excisemen after you,” I added. “So naturally I thought he was one. Then Mr. Willoughby turned up and things rather went to pot.”

Jamie nodded, still looking puzzled. “Aye, well. I havena got any idea who he is, but it’s a good thing that he isna an exciseman. I thought at first something had come verra badly unstuck, but it’s likely all right.”

“Unstuck?”

He smiled briefly. “I’ve an arrangement with the Superintending Customs Officer for the district, Sassenach.”

I gaped at him. “Arrangement?”

He shrugged. “Well, bribery then, if ye like to be straight out about it.” He sounded faintly irritated.

“No doubt that’s standard business procedure?” I said, trying to sound tactful. One corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

“Aye, it is. Well, in any case, there’s an understanding, as ye might say, between Sir Percival Turner and myself, and to find him sending excise officers into this place would worry me considerably.”

“All right,” I said slowly, mentally juggling all the half-understood events of the morning, and trying to make a pattern of them. “But in that case, what did you mean by telling Fergus the excisemen were on your heels? And why has everyone been racing round like chickens with their heads off?”

“Oh, that.” He smiled briefly, and took my arm, turning me away from the corpse at our feet. “Well, it’s an arrangement, as I said. And part of it is that Sir Percival must satisfy his own masters in London, by seizing sufficient amounts of contraband now and again. So we see to it that he’s given the opportunity. Wally and the lads brought down two wagonloads from the coast; one of the best brandy, and the other filled with spiled casks and the punked wine, topped off with a few ankers of cheap swill, just to give it all flavor.

“I met them just outside the city this morning, as we planned, and then we drove the wagons in, takin’ care to attract the attention of the Riding Officer, who just happened to be passing with a small number of dragoons. They came along and we led them a canty chase through the alleyways, until the time for me and the good tubs to part company wi’ Wally and his load of swill. Wally jumped off his wagon then, and made awa’, and I drove like hell down here, wi’ two or three dragoons following, just for show, like. Looks well in a report, ye ken.” He grinned at me, quoting, “‘The smugglers escaped in spite of industrious pursuit, but His Majesty’s valiant soldiers succeeded in capturing an entire wagonload of spirits, valued at sixty pounds, ten shillings.’ You’ll know the sort of thing?”

“I expect so,” I said. “Then it was you and the good liquor that was arriving at ten? Madame Jeanne said—”

“Aye,” he said, frowning. “She was meant to have the cellar door open and the ramp in place at ten sharp—we havena got long to get everything unloaded. She was bloody late this morning; I had to circle round twice to keep from bringing the dragoons straight to the door.”

“She was a bit distracted,” I said, remembering suddenly about the Fiend. I told Jamie about the murder at the Green Owl, and he grimaced, crossing himself.

“Poor lass,” he said.

I shuddered briefly at the memory of Bruno’s description, and moved closer to Jamie, who put an arm about my shoulders. He kissed me absently on the forehead, glancing again at the shawl-covered shape on the ground.

“Well, whoever he was, if he wasna an exciseman, there are likely no more of them upstairs. We should be able to get out of here soon.”

“That’s good.” Jamie’s coat covered me to the knees, but I felt the covert glances cast from the far end of the room at my bare calves, and was all too uncomfortably aware that I was naked under it. “Will we be going back to the printshop?” What with one thing and another, I didn’t think I wanted to take advantage of Madame Jeanne’s hospitality any longer than necessary.

“Maybe for a bit. I’ll have to think.” Jamie’s tone was abstracted, and I could see that his brow was furrowed in thought. With a brief hug, he released me, and began to walk about the cellar, staring meditatively at the stones underfoot.

“Er…what did you do with Ian?”

He glanced up, looking blank; then his face cleared.

“Oh, Ian. I left him making inquiries at the taverns above the Market Cross. I’ll need to remember to meet him, later,” he muttered, as though making a note to himself.

“I met Young Ian, by the way,” I said conversationally.

Jamie looked startled. “He came here?”

“He did. Looking for you—about a quarter of an hour after you left, in fact.”

“Thank God for small mercies!” He rubbed a hand through his hair, looking simultaneously amused and worried. “I’d have had the devil of a time explaining to Ian what his son was doing here.”

“You know what he was doing here?” I asked curiously.

“No, I don’t! He was supposed to be—ah, well, let it be. I canna be worrit about it just now.” He relapsed into thought, emerging momentarily to ask, “Did Young Ian say where he was going, when he left ye?”

I shook my head, gathering the coat around myself, and he nodded, sighed, and took up his slow pacing once more.

I sat down on an upturned tub and watched him. In spite of the general atmosphere of discomfort and danger, I felt absurdly happy simply to be near him. Feeling that there was little I could do to help the situation at present, I settled myself with the coat wrapped round me, and abandoned myself to the momentary pleasure of looking at him—something I had had no chance to do, in the tumult of events.

In spite of his preoccupation, he moved with the surefooted grace of a swordsman, a man so aware of his body as to be able to forget it entirely. The men by the casks worked by torchlight; it gleamed on his hair as he turned, lighting it like a tiger’s fur, with stripes of gold and dark.

I caught the faint twitch as two fingers of his right hand flickered together against the fabric of his breeches, and felt a strange little lurch of recognition in the gesture. I had seen him do that a thousand times as he was thinking, and seeing it now again, felt as though all the time that had passed in our separation was no more than the rising and setting of a single sun.

As though catching my thought, he paused in his strolling and smiled at me.

“You’ll be warm enough, Sassenach?” he asked.

“No, but it doesn’t matter.” I got off my tub and went to join him in his peregrinations, slipping a hand through his arm. “Making any progress with the thinking?”

He laughed ruefully. “No. I’m thinking of maybe half a dozen things together, and half of them things I canna do anything about. Like whether Young Ian’s where he should be.”

I stared up at him. “Where he should be? Where do you think he should be?”

“He should be at the printshop,” Jamie said, with some emphasis. “But he should ha’ been with Wally this morning, and he wasn’t.”

“With Wally? You mean you knew he wasn’t at home, when his father came looking for him this morning?”

He rubbed his nose with a finger, looking at once irritated and amused. “Oh, aye. I’d promised Young Ian I wouldna say anything to his Da, though, until he’d a chance to explain himself. Not that an explanation is likely to save his arse,” he added.

Young Ian had, as his father said, come to join his uncle in Edinburgh without the preliminary bother of asking his parents’ leave. Jamie had discovered this dereliction fairly quickly, but had not wanted to send his nephew alone back to Lallybroch, and had not yet had time to escort him personally.

“It’s not that he canna look out for himself,” Jamie explained, amusement winning in the struggle of expressions on his face. “He’s a nice capable lad. It’s just—well, ye ken how things just happen around some folk, without them seeming to have anything much to do wi’ it?”

“Now that you mention it, yes,” I said wryly. “I’m one of them.”

He laughed out loud at that. “God, you’re right, Sassenach! Maybe that’s why I like Young Ian so well; he ’minds me of you.”

“He reminded me a bit of you,” I said.

Jamie snorted briefly. “God, Jenny will maim me, and she hears her baby son’s been loitering about a house of ill repute. I hope the wee bugger has the sense to keep his mouth shut, once he’s home.”

“I hope he gets home,” I said, thinking of the gawky almost-fifteen-year-old I had seen that morning, adrift in an Edinburgh filled with prostitutes, excisemen, smugglers, and hatchet-wielding Fiends. “At least he isn’t a girl,” I added, thinking of this last item. “The Fiend doesn’t seem to have a taste for young boys.”

“Aye, well, there are plenty of others who have,” Jamie said sourly. “Between Young Ian and you, Sassenach, I shall be lucky if my hair’s not gone white by the time we get out of this stinking cellar.”

“Me?” I said in surprise. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I don’t?” He dropped my arm and rounded on me, glaring. “I dinna need to worry about ye? Is that what ye said? Christ! I leave ye safely in bed waiting for your breakfast, and not an hour later, I find ye downstairs in your shift, clutching a corpse to your bosom! And now you’re standing in front of me bare as an egg, with fifteen men over there wondering who in hell ye are—and how d’ye think I’m going to explain ye to them, Sassenach? Tell me that, eh?” He shoved a hand through his hair in exasperation.

“Sweet bleeding Jesus! And I’ve to go up the coast in two days without fail, but I canna leave ye in Edinburgh, not wi’ Fiends creepin’ about with hatchets, and half the people who’ve seen ye thinking you’re a prostitute, and…and…” The lacing around his pigtail broke abruptly under the pressure, and his hair fluffed out round his head like a lion’s mane. I laughed. He glared for a moment longer, but then a reluctant grin made its way slowly through the frown.

“Aye, well,” he said, resigned. “I suppose I’ll manage.”

“I suppose you will,” I said, and stood on tiptoe to brush his hair back behind his ears. Working on the same principle that causes magnets of opposing polarities to snap together when placed in close proximitry, he bent his head and kissed me.

“I had forgotten,” he said, a moment later.

“Forgotten what?” His back was warm through the thin shirt.

“Everything.” He spoke very softly, mouth against my hair. “Joy. Fear. Fear, most of all.” His hand came up and smoothed my curls away from his nose.

“I havena been afraid for a verra long time, Sassenach,” he whispered. “But now I think I am. For there is something to be lost, now.”

I drew back a little, to look up at him. His arms were locked tight around my waist, his eyes dark as bottomless water in the dimness. Then his face changed and he kissed me quickly on the forehead.

“Come along, Sassenach,” he said, taking me by the arm. “I’ll tell the men you’re my wife. The rest of it will just have to bide.”