Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)

Was he? She sat back and examined him, her own face carefully bland. True, he had informants everywhere; after listening to him do business all day behind the latticework, she dreamed of spiders all night, busy in their webs. Spinning, climbing, hunting along the sleek silk paths that ran hidden through the sticky stuff. And sometimes just hanging there, round as marbles in the air, motionless. Watching with their thousands of eyes.

But the spiders had their own concerns, and for the most part she wasn’t one of them. She smiled suddenly at her father, dimpling, and was pleased to see a flicker of unease in his eyes. She lowered her lashes and buried the smile in her wine.

He coughed.

“So,” he said, sitting up straight. “How would you like to visit London, my darling?”

London…

She tilted her head from side to side, considering.

“The food’s terrible, but the beer’s not bad. Still, it rains all the time.”

“You could have a new dress.”

That was interesting—not purely a book-buying excursion, then—but she feigned indifference.

“Only one?”

“That depends somewhat on your success. You might need…something special.”

That made something twitch behind her ears.

“Why do you bother with this nonsense?” she demanded, putting her glass down with a thump. “You know you can’t cozen me into things anymore. Just tell me what you have in mind, and we’ll discuss it. Like rational beings.”

That made him laugh but not unkindly.

“You do know that women aren’t rational, don’t you?”

“I do. Neither are men.”

“Well, you have a point,” he admitted, patting a dribble of wine off his chin with a napkin. “But they do have patterns. And women’s patterns are…” He paused, squinting over the gold rims of his spectacles, in search of the word.

“More complex?” she suggested, but he shook his head.

“No, no—superficially they seem chaotic, but in fact women’s patterns are brutally simple.”

“If you mean the influence of the moon, I might point out that every lunatic I’ve met has been a man.”

His eyebrows rose. They were beginning to thicken and gray, to grow unruly; she saw of a sudden that he was becoming elderly, and her heart gave a small lurch at the thought.

He didn’t ask how many lunatics she’d met—in the book business, such people were a weekly occurrence—but shook his head.

“No, no, such things are mere physical calendar-keeping. I mean the patterns that cause women to do what they do. And those all come down to survival.”

“The day I marry a man merely to survive…” She didn’t bother finishing the sentence but flicked her fingers scornfully and rose to take the steaming kettle off its spirit lamp and refresh the teapot. Two glasses of wine were her strict limit—particularly when dealing with her father—and today of all days she wanted her wits about her.

“Well, you do have rather higher standards than most women.” Her father took the cup of tea she brought him, smiling at her over it. “And—I flatter myself—more resources with which to support them. But the fact remains that you are a woman. Which means that you can conceive. And that, my dear, is where a woman’s pattern becomes brutal indeed.”

“Really,” she said, but not in a tone to invite him to expand upon his point. It was London she wanted to hear about. She’d need to be careful, though.

“What are we looking for, then?” she asked, pouring tea into her own cup so she could keep her eyes fixed on the amber stream. “In London, I mean.”

“Not we,” her father corrected. “Not this time. I have a bit of business to do in Sweden—speaking of Jacobites. You—”

“There are Swedish Jacobites?”

Her father sighed and rubbed his temples with the forefingers of each hand.

“My dear, you have no idea. They spring up like weeds—and like the grass of the field, in the evening they are cut down and wither. Just when you think they’re finally dead, though, something happens, and suddenly—but that’s of no matter to you. You’re to deliver a package to a particular gentleman and to receive information from a list of contacts that I’ll give you. You needn’t question them, just take whatever they hand over. And naturally—”

“Tell them nothing,” she finished. She dropped a sugar lump into her own tea. “Of course not, Father; what sort of nincompoop do you think I am?”

That made him laugh, deep lines of amusement creasing his eyes almost shut.

“Where did you get that word?”

“Everyone says nincompoop,” she informed him. “You hear it in the street in London a dozen times a day.”

“Oh, I doubt it,” he said. “Know where it comes from, do you?”

“Samuel Johnson told me it was from non compos mentis.”

“Oh, that’s where you got it.” He’d stopped laughing but still looked amused. “Well, Mr. Johnson would know. You’re still corresponding with him? He’s an Englishman, I grant you, but not at all what I have in mind for you, my girl. Bats in the belfry and not a penny to his name. Married, too,” he added as an afterthought. “Lives on his wife’s money.”

That surprised her, and not in a pleasant way. But he was entirely straightforward; his tone was the same as he used when instructing her closely in some important aspect of the work. They didn’t fence or mess each other about when it came to the work, and she sat back a little, indicating by the inclination of her head that she was ready to listen.

“Mind you,” her father said, raising one ink-stained finger, “many folk would tell you that women have nothing on their minds but clothes, or parties, or what Lady Whatnot said about Sir Fart-Catcher at yesterday’s salon. And that’s a reasonable observation, but it’s only an observation. When you see something like that, you ask what’s behind it. Or, perhaps, under it,” he admitted judiciously. “Push the wine over, sweetheart. I’m done with business for the day.”

“I daresay you are,” she said tartly, and plunked the decanter of Madeira in front of him. He’d been out all morning, nominally visiting booksellers and collectors of rarities but in reality talking—talking and listening. And he never drank alcohol when working.

He refilled his glass and made to top hers up, as well, but she shook her head and reached for the teapot. She’d been right about needing her wits.

“Chalk up another woman’s pattern there,” she said, sardonic. “They can’t hold drink in the quantities that men do—but they’re much less likely to become drunk.”

“Clearly you’ve never been down Gropecunt Lane in London after dark, my dear,” her father said imperturbably. “Not that I recommend it, mind. Women drink for the same reasons men do: in order to ignore circumstance or to obliterate themselves. Given the right circumstance, either sex will drown itself. Women care much more about staying alive than men do, though. But enough talk—cut me a fresh pen, my dear, and let me tell you who you’ll see in London.”

He reached into one of the pigeonholes along the wall and came out with a shabby notebook.

“Ever heard of the Duke of Pardloe?”





Précis: Harold Grey, Duke of Pardloe