Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)

TAKING FLIGHT


Amsterdam, Kalverstraat 18

January 3, 1745

MINNIE CAREFULLY BRUSHED powdered sugar off the ledger. The early queasiness of pregnancy had mostly passed, replaced by the appetite of a ravening owl, according to her father.

“An owl?” she’d said, and he nodded, smiling. His shock had passed along with her queasiness, and his face took on a rapt look sometimes when she caught him watching her.

“You look at food, ma chère, and turn your head to and then fro, as though you expect it to bolt, and then you swoop on it and—gulp!—it’s gone.”

“Bah,” she said now, and looked to see if there were more oliebollen in the pottery jar, but, no, she’d finished them. Mortimer’s antics had abated and he’d fallen into a stupor, as he usually did when she ate, but she was still hungry.

“Is dinner nearly ready?” she called downstairs to her father. In the usual Amsterdam style, the house was long and narrow, the shop on the ground floor, living quarters above, and the kitchen in the basement. A savory smell of roasting chicken had been creeping up the steps for the last hour, and she was famished, in spite of the oliebollen.

Instead of an answer, she heard the sound of her father’s feet coming up the stairs, accompanied by a rattle of stoneware and pewter.

“It’s not even noon,” he said mildly, setting down a tray on the counter. “Dinner won’t be ready for another hour at least. But I’ve brought you some coffee and rolls with honey.”

“Honey?” She sniffed pleasurably. Even though the queasiness had mostly gone, the acute sensitivity to smells remained, and the strong aroma of coffee with fresh buttered rolls ravished her.

“That child is nearly as big as you are now,” her father observed, with an eye to her protuberant belly. “When did you say it will be born?”

“In about three months,” she said, reaching for a roll and ignoring the implication. “And the midwife says it will be just about double in size by then.” She glanced down at Mortimer’s bulge. “I don’t actually think such a thing is possible, but that’s what she says.”

Her father laughed and, leaning across the counter, rested a hand lightly on the curve of his grandchild.

“Comment ?a va, mon petit?” he said.

“What makes you think it’s a boy?” she asked, though she didn’t move away. It touched her when he spoke to the baby; he always did so with the greatest tenderness.

“Well, you call him—it—Mortimer,” he pointed out, and with a gentle pat withdrew his hand. “I suppose that means you think he’s a male.”

“I was just taken by the advertisement on a bottle of English patent medicine: Mortimer’s Dissolving, Resolving, and Absolving Tonic—removes stains of any kind: physical, emotional, or moral.”

That took him aback; he wasn’t sure whether she was joking. She saved him by laughing herself and waved him away to the kitchen. She loved Sundays, when Hulda, the maid of all work, stayed at home with her family, leaving the two Snyders—Willem Snyder being her father’s nom de guerre in the Low Countries—to fend for themselves. Her father was a much better cook, and it was peaceful without Hulda’s solicitous questions and repeated suggestions of “nice gentlemen” among the shop’s clientele who might be willing to take on a young widow with a child, if Mr. Snyder was able to offer a sufficiently generous inducement….

Frankly, she thought her father wouldn’t be above it. But he wouldn’t push her into anything, either. She thought he was actually loath to part with her—and Mortimer, no doubt.

She closed her eyes, savoring the contrast of bitter coffee followed by a bite of buttered roll dripping with honey. As though stimulated by the coffee, Mortimer suddenly stretched himself as far as possible, making her clutch her belly and gasp.

“You little bastard,” she said to him, and paused to swallow the last of the honeyed bite. “Sorry. You’re not a bastard.” At least he wouldn’t be, as far as he or the rest of the world knew. He’d be the posthumous child of…Well, she hadn’t quite decided. For the moment he was the child of a Spanish captain of rifles named Mondragon, dead of fever in some conveniently obscure campaign, but she’d think of something better by the time Mortimer was old enough to ask questions.

Perhaps a German; there were enough small duchies and principalities among which to hide an irregular birth—though the Germans were annoyingly methodical about registering people. Italy—now, there was an unmethodical country for you, and it was warm….

He wouldn’t be an Englishman, though. She sighed and put a hand over the little foot poking inquisitively under her liver. Mortimer could be a girl, she supposed, but Minnie couldn’t think of him as anything other than male. Because she couldn’t think of him without thinking of his father.

Maybe she would marry. Eventually.

Time enough for such considerations. For the moment, there was an inconsistency in the accounts between September and October, and she took a fresh sheet of foolscap and picked up her quill, on the trail of an errant three guilders.

Half an hour later, the stray guilders finally captured and pinned firmly to their proper column, she stretched, groaned, and hoisted herself to her feet. Her belly, much given to odd noises of late, was gurgling in ominous fashion. If dinner wasn’t ready yet, she was going to—

The bell over the door tinged briskly, and she looked up, surprised. The virtuous Protestants of Amsterdam would never think of going anywhere on Sunday but to church. The man standing in the doorway, though, was neither Dutch nor virtuous. He was wearing a British uniform.

“Your…Grace?” she said stupidly.

“Hal,” he said. “My name’s Hal.” Then he caught full sight of her and turned as white as the spilled sugar on the counter. “Jesus Christ.”

“It’s not…” she began, sliding out from behind the counter, “what you think…” she ended faintly.

It didn’t matter. He took an enormous breath and strode toward her. She dimly heard her father coming up the stairs but saw nothing but that bone-white face, caught between shock and determination.

He reached her, bent his knees, and picked her up.

“Jesus Christ!” he said again, this time in response to her weight, which was considerable. Clenching his teeth, he clutched her tightly and wove his way across the shop, staggering only slightly. He smelled wonderfully of bay leaves and leather.

The door stood open, with Harry Quarry holding it and a blast of cold winter air coming in. His solid, square face broke into an enormous grin as he met her eyes.