Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)

Hal kept his temper, though he was beginning to feel slightly breathless from suppressed rage.

“In that case, Major Grierson may have less space in which to distinguish himself,” he riposted smartly. “Whereas with us, sir…” He bowed to Grierson and felt momentarily giddy when he raised his head. “With us,” he repeated more strongly, “you would have the satisfaction of helping to shape a fine regiment in…your own likeness, so to speak.”

Harry chuckled in support, and Grierson smiled but politely. He’d also have the not-inconsiderable risk of failure and knew it.

Hal felt Harry stir uncomfortably next to him and took a deep breath, preparing to say something forceful about…about…The word had gone. Simply gone. He’d breathed in, and a trace of scent from the cockspur in Harry’s buttonhole had touched his brain. He closed his eyes abruptly.

Major Grierson had luckily asked a question; Hal could hear Twelvetrees replying in a gruff, matter-of-fact way. Grierson said something else and Twelvetrees’s voice relaxed a little, and quite suddenly it was Nathaniel’s voice, and he opened his eyes and saw nothing of the cozy morning room, of the men there with him. He was cold, shaking with cold…

And his fingers were squeezing the cold pistol in his hand so hard the metal would leave marks on his palm. He’d fucked Esmé before he left to kill her lover. Waked her in the dark and taken her, and she’d wanted him—ferociously—or perhaps she had pretended it was Nathaniel in the dark. He knew it was the last time…

“Colonel?” A voice, a dim voice. “Lord Melton!”

“Hal?” Harry’s voice, full of alarm. Harry, with him on the lawn, rain running down his face in a sunless dawn. He swallowed, tried to swallow, tried to breathe, but there was no air.

His eyes were open, but he couldn’t see anything. The cold was spreading down the sides of his jaws, and he realized suddenly that…

He looked straight into Nathaniel’s eyes and felt the bang and then it was…



HARRY HAD INSISTED on calling a carriage to take them home. Hal refused brusquely and strode—knees shaking, but he could walk, he would walk, dammit—away from Winstead Terrace.

He made it to the far side of the private garden—well away from the cockspur tree—where he stopped and gripped the cold black iron of the fence and carefully lowered himself to the pavement. His mouth tasted of brandy; Grierson had forced it down him, when he could breathe again.

“I’ve never bloody fainted in my life,” he said. He was sitting, back against the fence, forehead on his knees. “Not even when they told me about Father.”

“I know.” Harry had sat down beside him. Hal thought briefly what flats they must look, two young soldiers got up in scarlet and gold lace, sitting on the pavement like a pair of beggars. He really didn’t care.

“Actually,” Hal said after a minute, “that’s not true, is it? I passed out in the ham at tea last week, didn’t I?”

“You just felt a bit queasy,” Harry said stoutly. “Not eating for days, then two dozen sardines—enough to fell anyone.”

“Two dozen?” Hal asked, and laughed despite everything. Not much of a laugh, but he turned his head and looked at Harry. Harry’s face was creased with anxiety but relaxed a little when he saw Hal looking at him.

“At least that many. With mustard, too.”

They sat a few moments, feeling easier. Neither of them wanted to say anything about what had just happened, and they didn’t, but each could tell the other was thinking of it—how could they not?

“If it falls apart…” Harry began at last, then bent and looked at him searchingly. “You going to faint again?”

“No.” Hal swallowed twice, then took a shallow breath—the only kind he could manage—and pushed himself to his feet, holding on to the iron fence. He had to let Harry know he could go, that he didn’t have to try to carry on with this doomed enterprise, this fool’s game. Though the thought of it made his throat close. He cleared it, hard, and repeated Harry’s words: “If it does fall apart—”

Harry’s hand on his arm stopped him. Harry’s face was six inches from his own, the brown eyes clear and steady.

“Then we’ll start again, old man,” he said. “That’s all. Come on; I need a drink, and so do you.”





5





STRATEGY AND TACTICS


IT TOOK LESS THAN five minutes over the cake plate at Rumm’s for Minnie to realize the depths of her father’s treachery.

“Your style is very good, my dear,” said Lady Buford. The chaperone was a thin, gray-haired lady with an aristocratically long nose and sharp gray eyes under heavy lids that had probably been languorously appealing in her youth. She gave a small, approving nod at the delicate white daisies embroidered on Minnie’s pink linen jacket. “I had thought, with your portion, that we might set our sights on a London merchant, but with your personal attractions, it might be possible to aim a little higher.”

“My…portion?”

“Yes, five thousand pounds is quite attractive—we’ll have a good selection, I assure you. You could have your pick of army officers”—she made an elegantly dismissive gesture, then wrapped long, bony fingers around the handle of her teacup—“and there are a few that are quite appealing, I admit. But there’s the perpetual absences to be considered…and postings in insalubrious spots, should your husband wish you to accompany him. Now, if he’s killed, there’s a reasonable pension, but it’s nothing to what a sound merchant might leave—and if he should be wounded to such an extent as to exclude him from service…” She took a long, considering sip, then shook her head.

“No. We can certainly do better than the army. Or the navy, God help us. Sailors tend to be somewhat…un. Couth,” she said, leaning toward Minnie and pursing her wrinkled lips in a whisper.

“God help us,” Minnie repeated in a pious tone, though her fist was knotted in the folds of the tablecloth. You utter weasel! she thought toward her absent father. Establish a social life for me, eh?

Despite her astonished annoyance, though, she had to admit to being somewhat impressed. Five thousand pounds?

If he actually meant it…the cynical part of her mind put in. But he likely did. It would be just like him. He’d see it as killing two birds with one stone: getting her access to likely sources of salable information and simultaneously marrying her off to one of them, with Lady Buford as his unwitting accomplice.

And he had, to be fair, told her that he wanted an Englishman for her. She just hadn’t thought he’d meant now. Really, she had to admire her father’s twisted genius; who but a marriage procuress would know more—and have less hesitation in revealing what she knew—about the intimate familial and financial details of wealthy men?