The Scottish Prisoner: A Novel Read online

“What?” Jamie stared at him, uncomprehending.

  “Well, you’ll not want to linger in such company as that, will ye?” Quinn half-turned his head toward Argus House. He turned back, passing a critical eye over Jamie’s worn clothes.

  “Aye, thus, very well thus. We’ve to move briskly for a bit, but once into the Rookery, no one would glance twice at you. Ah … perhaps twice,” he amended, squinting up at Jamie’s height. “But not three times, surely.”

  It occurred belatedly to Jamie that Quinn was suggesting that they abscond. Right now.

  “I canna do that!”

  Quinn looked surprised.

  “Why not?”

  Jamie’s mouth opened but without the slightest notion what might come out.

  “We wouldna make it to the edge of the park, for one thing. See yon fellow in the gray? He’s watching me.”

  Quinn squinted in the direction indicated. “He’s not watchin’ ye just this minute,” he pointed out. He took Jamie by the hand, pulling. “Come on, then. Walk fast!”

  “No!” He jerked loose and cast a wild glance at the footman, willing the man to turn round. He didn’t, and Jamie turned back to Quinn, speaking firm again.

  “I’ve told ye once, and I’ll say it again. I’ll have nothing to do wi’ any such crack-brained notion. The Cause is dead, and I’ve no intent to follow it into the grave. Aye?”

  Quinn affected not to have heard this, instead looking thoughtfully at Argus House.

  “That’s the Duke of Pardloe’s house, they say,” he remarked, scratching his head. “Why did the sojers bring ye here, I wonder?”

  “I dinna ken. They didna tell me.” This had the virtue of being half true, and he had no compunction about lying to the Irishman in any case.

  “Hmm. Well, I’ll tell ye, sir, was it me in the hands of the English, I’d not wait to find out.”

  Jamie had no wish to see Quinn in English hands, either, annoying as the man was.

  “Ye should go, Quinn,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”

  “Odd, is it not?” Quinn said meditatively, as usual taking no heed. “On the one hand, they snatch ye from Helwater under armed guard and take ye to London without a word. On the other … they let ye wander about outside? Even with a watcher, that seems unusually trusting. Does it not strike ye that way?”

  Why would the bloody footman not turn round?

  “I’ve no idea,” he said, unwilling to stand about discussing Pardloe and that gentleman’s very individual convictions as to honor. For lack of anything to add to that, he walked away down the nearest path, pursued by the Irishman. At least if the footman ever did turn round, he’d see Jamie gone and start looking for him. At this point, any interruption whatever would be welcome, even if it meant being dragged back in chains.

  That casual thought flickered through his mind like sheet lightning, illuminating dark corners. Chains. A dream of chains.

  He was paying no attention, either to where he went or to what Quinn was saying, yammering at his side. There was a crowd ahead; he made for it. Surely even Quinn, talkative as a parrot, wouldn’t be scheming out loud in the midst of a crowd. He had to shut the man up long enough to figure how to get rid of him.

  The dreams. He’d pushed the thought from his mind the instant he saw it. It pushed back, though, strong. That was it. The dreams that took him back to dreadful places, the ones he only half-remembered. He’d had one last night. That was why seeing Quarry suddenly, without warning, had made him like to faint.

  Chains, he thought, and knew that if he lingered on that thought for more than an instant, he’d find himself in the dream again, sweating and ill, crouched against a stone wall, unable to lift his hand to wipe the vomit from his beard, the fetters too heavy, the metal hot from his fever, inescapable, eternal captivity …

  “No,” he said fiercely, and turned abruptly off the path, coming to a halt in front of a puppet show, surrounded by people, all calling out and laughing. Noise. Color. Anything to fill his senses, to keep the clank of chains at bay.

  Quinn was still talking, but Jamie ignored him, affecting to watch the play before them. He’d seen things like this in Paris, often. Wee puppets posturing and squeaking. These were long-nosed, ugly ones, shouting in shrill insult and hitting one another with sticks.

  He was breathing easier now, dizziness and fear leaving him as the sheer ordinariness of the day closed round him like warm water. Punchinello—that was the man-puppet’s name—and his wife was Judy. She had a stick, Judy did, and tried to strike Punch on the head with it, but he seized the stick. She whipped it up, and Punch, clinging to it, sailed across the tiny stage with a long drawn-out “Shiiiiiit!” to crash against the wall. The crowd shrieked with delight.

  Willie would like it, and at thought of the boy he felt at once much better and much worse.

  He could get rid of Quinn without much trouble; the man couldn’t force him to go to Inchcleraun, after all. The Duke of Pardloe was another matter. He could force Jamie to go to Ireland, but at least that venture didn’t involve risking his neck or the possibility of lifelong imprisonment. He could do it, finish the job as quickly as possible, and then go back. To Helwater and Willie.

  He missed the boy with a sudden pang, wishing he had Willie perched on his shoulders now, grabbing at his ears and giggling at the puppets. Would Willie remember him if he was gone for months?

  Well, he’d just have to find Siverly fast. Because he was going back to Helwater.

  He could feel the child’s imagined weight on his shoulders, warm and heavy, smelling faintly of wee and strawberry jam. There were some chains you wore because you wanted to.

  “WHERE THE BLOODY HELL have you been?” Hal demanded without preamble. “And what in God’s name happened to you?” His eye roamed over Grey’s clothes, retrieved from the Beefsteak. The club’s steward had done his best, but the overall effect was shrunken, stained, faded, and generally far from fashionable.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I got soaked in the rain and stopped the night with a friend,” Grey replied equably. He felt cheerful. Relaxed and solidly at peace. Not even Hal’s bad temper or the imminent prospect of meeting Jamie Fraser could disturb him. “And where is our guest?”

  Hal drew in a long, exasperated breath.

  “He’s sitting under a tree in the park.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. Harry Quarry came for tea—I was expecting you to be here, by the way”—Hal gave him an eyeball, which he ignored—“and when Fraser came in, he took one look at Harry and walked straight out of the house without a by-your-leave. I only know where he is because I’d told one of the footmen to follow him if he went out.”

  “He’ll like that, I’m sure,” Grey said. “For God’s sake, Hal. Harry was governor at Ardsmuir before me; surely you knew that?”

  Hal looked irritably blank. “Possibly. So?”

  “He put Fraser in irons. For eighteen months—and left him that way when he came back to London.”

  “Oh.” Hal considered that, frowning. “I see. How was I meant to know that, for heaven’s sake?”

  “Well, you would have,” Grey replied crushingly, “if you’d had the common sense to tell me what the devil you were doing, rather than—oh, hallo, Harry. Didn’t know you were still here.”

  “So I gathered. Where did Fraser go?”

  Harry looked rather grim, Grey saw. And he was in full uniform. No bloody wonder Fraser had left; he’d likely seen Harry’s presence as a calculated insult, an attempt to further impress his own helplessness upon him.

  This realization appeared to be dawning on Hal, too.

  “Damn, Harry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had a history with Fraser.”

  History, Grey thought. One way of putting it. Just as well he hadn’t arrived in time for tea. He’d no idea what James Fraser might have done—confronted simultaneously and without warning by the man who’d put him in fetter
s, and by the one who’d had him flogged, in addition to the man who was currently blackmailing him—but whatever he might have done, Grey wouldn’t have blamed him for doing it.

  “I’d asked Harry to come so that we might discuss the Siverly affair and so that Harry could tell you what—and who—he knows in Ireland,” Hal went on, turning to Grey. “But I didn’t think to tell Harry about Fraser ahead of time.”

  “Not your fault, old man,” Harry said, gruff. He squared his shoulders and straightened his lapels. “I’d best go and talk to him, hadn’t I?”

  “And say what, exactly?” Grey asked, out of sheer inability to imagine what could be said in the circumstances.

  Harry shrugged. “Offer him satisfaction, if he likes. Don’t see that there’s much else to be done.”

  The Grey brothers exchanged a look of perfect comprehension and suppressed horror. The implications of a duel between a regimental colonel and a paroled prisoner in the custody of the colonel of the regiment, putting aside the complete illegality of the proceedings, and the very real possibility that one of them might well kill or maim the other …

  “Harry—” Hal began, in measured tones, but John interrupted him.

  “I’ll be your second, Harry,” he said hastily. “If it’s necessary. I’ll go and … er … inquire about the arrangements, shall I?”

  Not waiting for an answer, he pulled open the front door and ran down the steps, too fast for any following shouts to reach him. He dodged across Kensington Road, ducking under the nose of an oncoming horse and being roundly cursed by its rider, and stepped into the open precincts of Hyde Park, where he paused, heart hammering, to look around.

  Fraser wasn’t immediately visible. After yesterday’s savage downpour, today had dawned soft and clear, with the kind of pale bright sky that made one long to be a bird. Consequently, there were large numbers of people in the park, families lounging and eating under the trees, couples strolling on the paths, and pickpockets hanging about the fringes of the crowds round the Speakers’ Corner and the Punch and Judy in hopes of an unguarded purse.

  Ought he to go back and ask which footman had been following Fraser and where he’d last been seen? No, he decided, striding firmly into the park. He wasn’t about to give Harry or Hal a chance to interfere; they’d caused quite enough trouble already.

  Given Fraser’s height and appearance, Grey had no doubt of his ability to pick the Scot out of any crowd. If he’d been sitting under a tree to begin with, he wasn’t doing it now. Where would he go, he wondered, if he were Fraser? If he’d been living for several years on a horse farm in the Lake District and, prior to that, in a remote Scottish prison?

  Right. He turned at once in the direction of the Punch and Judy show and was gratified as he came in sight of it to see a tall, red-haired man at the back of the crowd, easily able to see over the sea of heads and plainly absorbed in the play before him.

  He didn’t want to pull Fraser away from the entertainment, so kept a short distance away. Perhaps the play would put the Scot in better temper—though, hearing the shrieks from the crowd as Judy beat Punch into a cocked hat, he began to feel that the influence of the proceedings might not have quite the calmative effect he’d hoped for. He would himself pay considerable money for the privilege of seeing Fraser beat Hal into a cocked hat, though it would cause complications.

  He kept one eye on Fraser, the other on the play. The puppet master, an Irishman, was both adroit with his puppets and inventive with his epithets, and Grey felt an unexpected flash of pleasure at seeing Fraser smile.

  He leaned against a tree, a little distance away, enjoying the sense of temporary invisibility. He’d wondered how he’d feel, seeing Jamie Fraser in the flesh again, and was relieved to find that the episode in the stable at Helwater now seemed sufficiently distant that he could put it aside. Not forget it, unfortunately, but not have it be uppermost in his mind, either.

  Now Fraser bent his head to one side, listening to something said to him by a thin, curly-headed man beside him, though without taking his eyes off the stage. The sight of the curls brought Percy briefly to mind, but Percy, too, was in the past, and he shoved the thought firmly down.

  He hadn’t consciously thought what he’d say or how he might start the conversation, but when the play ended, he found himself upright and walking fast, so as to come onto the path slightly in front of Fraser as he turned back toward the edge of the park.

  He had no notion what had led him to do this, to let the Scot make the first move, but it seemed natural, and he heard Fraser snort behind him, a small sound with which he was familiar; it signified something between derision and amusement.

  “Good afternoon, Colonel,” Fraser said, sounding resigned as he swung into step beside Grey.

  “Good afternoon, Captain Fraser,” he replied politely, and felt rather than saw Fraser’s startled glance at him. “Did you enjoy the show?”

  “I thought I’d gauge how long my chain is,” Fraser said, ignoring the question. “Within sight o’ the house, is it?”

  “For the moment,” Grey said honestly. “But I did not come to retrieve you. I have a message from Colonel Quarry.”

  Fraser’s wide mouth tightened involuntarily. “Oh, aye?”

  “He wishes to offer you satisfaction.”

  “What?” Fraser stared at him blankly.

  “Satisfaction for what injury you may have received at his hands,” Grey elaborated. “If you wish to call him out—he’ll come.”

  Fraser stopped dead.

  “He’s offering to fight a duel with me. Is that what ye’re saying?”

  “Yes,” Grey said patiently. “I am.”

  “Jesus God.” The big Scot stood still, ignoring the flow of pedestrians—all of whom gave him a wide, side-glancing berth—and rubbing a finger up and down the bridge of his nose. He stopped doing this and shook his head, in the manner of one dislodging flies.

  “Quarry canna think ye’d let me. You and His Grace, I mean.”

  Grey’s heart gave a slight jerk; Christ, he was thinking about it. Seriously.

  “I personally have nothing to say regarding the matter,” he said politely. “As for my brother, he said nothing to me that indicated he would interfere.” Since he hadn’t had a chance. Christ, what would Hal do if Fraser did call Harry out? Besides kill Grey himself for not preventing it, that is.

  Fraser made a thoroughly Scotch sort of noise in his throat. Not quite a growl, but it lifted the hairs on Grey’s neck, and for the first time he began to worry that Fraser just might send back a challenge. He hadn’t thought—he’d thought Fraser would be startled by the notion, but then … He swallowed and blurted, “Should you wish to call him out, I will second you.”

  Whatever Fraser had thought of Quarry’s original offer, Grey’s startled him a good deal more. He stared at Grey, blue eyes narrowed, looking to see whether this was an ill-timed joke.

  Grey’s heart was thumping hard enough to cause small sparks of pain on the left side of his chest, even though the wounds there were long since healed. Fraser’s hands had curled into fists, and Grey had a sudden, vivid recollection of their last meeting, when Fraser had come within a literal inch of smashing in his face with one of those massive fists.

  “Have you ever been out—fought a duel, I mean—before?”

  “I have,” Fraser said shortly.

  The color had risen in the Scot’s face. He was outwardly immobile, but whatever was going on inside his head was moving fast. Grey watched, fascinated.

  That process reached its conclusion, though, and the big fists relaxed—consciously—and Fraser uttered a short, humorless laugh, his eyes focusing again on Grey.

  “Why?” he said.

  “Why, what? Why does Colonel Quarry offer you satisfaction? Because his sense of honor demands it, I suppose.”

  Fraser said something under his breath in what Grey supposed to be Erse. He further supposed it to be a comment on Quarry’s honor but didn’t inqu
ire. The blue eyes were boring into his.

  “Why offer to second me? D’ye dislike Quarry?”

  “No,” Grey said, startled. “Harry Quarry’s one of my best friends.”

  One thick, ruddy brow went up. “Why would ye not be his second, then?”

  Grey took a deep breath.

  “Well … actually … I am. There’s nothing in the rules of duello preventing it,” he added. “Though I admit it’s not usual.”

  Fraser closed his eyes for an instant, frowning, then opened them again.

  “I see,” he said, very dry. “So was I to kill him, ye’d be obliged to fight me? And if he killed me, ye’d fight him? And should we kill each other, what then?”

  “I suppose I’d call a surgeon to dispose of your bodies and then commit suicide,” Grey said, a little testily. “But let us not be rhetorical. You have no intent of calling him out, do you?”

  “I’ll admit the prospect has its attractions,” Fraser said evenly. “But ye may tell Colonel Quarry I decline his offer.”

  “Do you wish to tell him that yourself? He’s still at the house.”

  Fraser had begun to walk again, but stopped dead at this. His gaze shifted toward Grey in a most uncomfortable way, rather like a large cat making a decision regarding the edibility of some small animal in its vicinity.

  “Um … if you do not choose to meet him,” Grey said carefully, “I will leave you here for a quarter of an hour and make sure that he is gone before you return to the house.”

  Fraser turned on him with such sudden violence as to make Grey steel himself not to step backward.

  “And let the gobshite think I am afraid of him? Damn you, Englishman! Dare ye to suggest such a thing? Were I to call someone out, it would be you, mhic a diabhail—and ye know it.”

  He whirled on his heel and stalked toward the house, scattering loungers like pigeons before him.

  THEY SAW HIM COMING; the door opened before Jamie reached the top step, and he walked past the butler with a curt nod. The man looked apprehensive. Surely to God he must be familiar with an atmosphere of violence, Jamie thought, working in this nest of vipers.