Dragonfly in Amber Read online

  “Fine opinion he’s got of wives,” I said. “What does he think of your marrying, in spite of all this helpful advice?”

  Jamie laughed. “Well, I havena got any money to start with, so I can hardly be worse off. He thinks you’re verra decorative; he says I must buy ye a new gown, though.”

  I spread the skirt of the apple-green velvet, more than a little the worse for wear.

  “I suppose so,” I agreed. “Or I’ll go round wrapped in a bedsheet after a while; this is already tight in the waist.”

  “Elsewhere, too,” he said, grinning as he looked me over. “Got your appetite back, have ye, Sassenach?”

  “Oaf,” I said coldly. “You know perfectly well that Annabelle MacRannoch is the general size and shape of a shovel handle, whereas I am not.”

  “You are not,” he agreed, eyeing me with appreciation. “Thank God.” He patted me familiarly on the bottom.

  “I’m to join Jared at the warehouse this morning to go over the ledgers, then we’re going to call on some of his clients, to introduce me. Will ye be all right by yourself?”

  “Yes, of course,” I said. “I’ll explore the house a bit, and get acquainted with the servants.” I had met the servants en masse when we had arrived late in the previous afternoon, but since we had dined simply in our room, I had seen no one since but the footman who brought the food, and the maid who had come in early in the morning to put back the curtains, lay and light the fire, and carry away the chamber pot. I quailed a bit at the thought of suddenly being in charge of a “staff,” but reassured myself by thinking that it couldn’t be much different from directing orderlies and junior nurses, and I’d done that before, as a senior nurse at a French field station in 1943.

  After Jamie’s departure, I took my time in making what toilette could be made with a comb and water, which were the only grooming implements available. If Jared was serious about my holding dinner parties, I could see that a new gown was going to be merely the start of it.

  I did have, in the side pocket of my medicine chest, the frayed willow twigs with which I cleaned my teeth, and I got one of these and set to work, thinking over the amazing fortune which had brought us here.

  Essentially barred from Scotland, we would have had to find a place to make our future, either in Europe or by emigrating to America. And given what I now knew about Jamie’s attitude toward ships, I wasn’t at all surprised that he should have looked to France from the start.

  The Frasers had strong ties with France; many of them, like Abbot Alexander and Jared Fraser, had made lives here, seldom if ever returning to their native Scotland. And there were many Jacobites as well, Jamie had told me, those who had followed their king into exile, and now lived as best they could in France or Italy while awaiting his restoration.

  “There’s always talk of it,” he had said. “In the houses, mostly, not the taverns. And that’s why nothing’s come of it. When it gets to the taverns, you’ll know it’s serious.”

  “Tell me,” I said, watching him brush the dust from his coat, “are all Scots born knowing about politics, or is it just you?”

  He laughed, but quickly sobered as he opened the huge armoire and hung up the coat. It looked worn and rather pathetic, hanging by itself in the enormous, cedar-scented space.

  “Well, I’ll tell ye, Sassenach, I’d as soon not know. But born as I was, between the MacKenzies and the Frasers, I’d little choice in the matter. And ye don’t spend a year in French society and two years in an army without learning how to listen to what’s being said, and what’s being meant, and how to tell the difference between the two. Given these times, though, it isna just me; there’s neither laird nor cottar in the Highlands who can stand aside from what’s to come.”

  “What’s to come.” What was to come? I wondered. What would come, if we were not successful in our efforts here, was an armed rebellion, an attempt at restoration of the Stuart monarchy, led by the son of the exiled king, Prince Charles Edward (Casimir Maria Sylvester) Stuart.

  “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” I said softly to myself, looking over my reflection in the large pier glass. He was here, now, in the same city, perhaps not too far away. What would he be like? I could think of him only in terms of his usual historical portrait, which showed a handsome, slightly effeminate youth of sixteen or so, with soft pink lips and powdered hair, in the fashion of the times. Or the imagined paintings, showing a more robust version of the same thing, brandishing a broadsword as he stepped out of a boat onto the shore of Scotland.

  A Scotland he would ruin and lay waste in the effort to reclaim it for his father and himself. Doomed to failure, he would attract enough support to cleave the country, and lead his followers through civil war to a bloody end on the field of Culloden. Then he would flee back to safety in France, but the retribution of his enemies would be exacted upon those he left behind.

  It was to prevent such a disaster that we had come. It seemed incredible, thinking about it in the peace and luxury of Jared’s house. How did one stop a rebellion? Well, if risings were fomented in taverns, perhaps they could be stopped over dinner tables. I shrugged at myself in the mirror, blew an errant curl out of one eye, and went down to cozen the cook.

  * * *

  The staff, at first inclined to view me with frightened suspicion, soon realized that I had no intention of interfering with their work, and relaxed into a mood of wary obligingness. I had thought at first, in my blur of fatigue, that there were at least a dozen servants lined up in the hallway for my inspection. In fact, there were sixteen of them, counting the groom, the stable-lad and the knife-boy, whom I hadn’t noticed in the general scrum. I was still more impressed at Jared’s success in business, until I realized just how little the servants were paid: a new pair of shoes and two livres per year for the footmen, a trifle less for the housemaids and kitchenmaids, a little more for such exalted personages as Madame Vionnet, the cook, and the butler, Magnus.

  While I explored the mechanics of the household and stored up what information I could glean at home from the gossip of the parlormaids, Jamie was out with Jared every day, calling upon customers, meeting people, preparing himself to “assist His Highness” by making those social connections that might prove of value to an exiled prince. It was among the dinner guests that we might find allies—or enemies.

  “St. Germain?” I said, suddenly catching a familiar name in the midst of Marguerite’s chatter as she polished the parquet floor. “The Comte St. Germain?”

  “Oui, Madame.” She was a small, fat girl, with an oddly flattened face and popeyes that made her look like a turbot, but she was friendly and eager to please. Now she pursed her mouth up into a tiny circle, portending the imparting of some really scandalous tidbit. I looked as encouraging as possible.

  “The Comte, Madame, has a very bad reputation,” she said portentously.

  Since this was true—according to Marguerite—of virtually everyone who came to dinner, I arched my brows and waited for further details.

  “He has sold his soul to the Devil, you know,” she confided, lowering her voice and glancing around as though that gentleman might be lurking behind the chimney breast. “He celebrates the Black Mass, at which the blood and flesh of innocent children are shared amongst the wicked!”

  A fine specimen you picked to make an enemy of, I thought to myself.

  “Oh, everyone knows, Madame,” Marguerite assured me. “But it does not matter; the women are mad for him, anyway; wherever he goes, they throw themselves at his head. But then, he is rich.” Plainly this last qualification was at least sufficient to balance, if not to outweigh, the blood-drinking and flesh-eating.

  “How interesting,” I said. “But I thought that Monsieur le Comte was a competitor of Monsieur Jared; doesn’t he also import wines? Why does Monsieur Jared invite him here, then?”

  Marguerite looked up from her floor-polishing and laughed.

  “Why, Madame! It is so that Monsieur Jared can serve the best Beaune at
dinner, tell Monsieur le Comte that he has just acquired ten cases, and at the conclusion of the meal, generously offer him a bottle to take home!”

  “I see,” I said, grinning. “And is Monsieur Jared similarly invited to dine with Monsieur le Comte?”

  She nodded, white kerchief bobbing over her oil-bottle and rag. “Oh, yes, Madame. But not as often!”

  The Comte St. Germain was fortunately not invited for this evening. We dined simply en famille, so that Jared could rehearse Jamie in the few details left to be arranged before his departure. Of these, the most important was the King’s lever at Versailles.

  Being invited to attend the King’s lever was a considerable mark of favor, Jared explained over dinner.

  “Not to you, lad,” he said kindly, waving a fork at Jamie. “To me. The King wants to make sure I’m coming back from Germany—or Duverney, the Minister of Finance, does, at least. The latest wave of taxes hit the merchants hard, and a good many of the foreigners left—with the ill effects on the Royal Treasury you can imagine.” He grimaced at the thought of taxes, scowling at the baby eel on his fork.

  “I mean to be gone by Monday-week. I’m waiting only for word that the Wilhelmina’s come in safe to Calais; then I’m off.” Jared took another bite of eel and nodded at Jamie, talking around the mouthful of food. “I’m leaving the business in good hands, lad; I’ve no worry on that score. We might talk a bit before I go about other matters, though. I’ve arranged with the Earl Marischal that we’ll go with him to Montmartre two days hence, for you to pay your respects to His Highness, Prince Charles Edward.”

  I felt a sudden thump of excitement in the pit of my stomach, and exchanged a quick glance with Jamie. He nodded at Jared, as though this were nothing startling, but his eyes sparkled with anticipation as he looked at me. So this was the start of it.

  “His Highness lives a very retired life in Paris,” Jared was saying as he chased the last eels, slick with butter, around the edge of the plate. “It wouldn’t be appropriate for him to appear in society, until and unless the King receives him officially. So His Highness seldom leaves his house, and sees few people, save those supporters of his father who come to pay their respects.”

  “That isn’t what I’ve heard,” I interjected.

  “What?” Two pairs of startled eyes turned in my direction, and Jared laid down his fork, abandoning the final eel to its fate.

  Jamie arched an eyebrow at me. “What have ye heard, Sassenach, and from whom?”

  “From the servants,” I said, concentrating on my own eels. Seeing Jared’s frown, it occurred to me for the first time that it might not be considered quite the thing for the lady of the house to be gossiping with parlormaids. Well, the hell with it, I thought rebelliously. There wasn’t much else for me to do.

  “The parlormaid says that His Highness Prince Charles has been paying calls on the Princesse Louise de La Tour de Rohan,” I said, plucking a single eel off the fork and chewing slowly. They were delicious, but felt rather disconcerting if swallowed whole, as though the creature were still alive. I swallowed carefully. So far, so good.

  “In the absence of the lady’s husband,” I added delicately.

  Jamie looked amused, Jared horrified.

  “The Princesse de Rohan?” Jared said. “Marie-Louise-Henriette-Jeanne de La Tour d’Auvergne? Her husband’s family are very close to the King.” He rubbed his fingers across his lips, leaving a buttery shine around his mouth. “That could be very dangerous,” he muttered, as though to himself. “I wonder if the wee fool…but no. Surely he’s more sense than that. It must be only inexperience; he’s not been so much in society, and things are different in Rome. Still…” He left off muttering and turned to Jamie with decision.

  “That will be your first task, lad, in the service of His Majesty. You’re much of an age with His Highness, but you have the experience and the judgment of your time in Paris—and my training, I flatter myself.” He smiled briefly at Jamie. “You can befriend his Highness; smooth his path as much as may be with those men that will be of use to him; you’ve met most of them by now. And explain to His Highness—as tactfully as ye can—that gallantry in the wrong direction may do considerable damage to the aims of his father.”

  Jamie nodded absently, plainly thinking of something else.

  “How does our parlormaid come to know about His Highness’s vists, Sassenach?” he asked. “She doesna leave the house more than once a week, to go to Mass, does she?”

  I shook my head, and swallowed the next mouthful in order to reply.

  “So far as I’ve worked it out, our kitchenmaid heard it from the knife-boy, who heard it from the stable-lad, who got it from the groom next door. I don’t know how many people there are in between, but the Rohan house is three doors down the street. I’d imagine the Princesse knows all about us, too,” I added cheerfully. “At least she does, if she talks to her kitchenmaid.”

  “Ladies do not gossip with their kitchenmaids,” Jared said coldly. He narrowed his eyes at Jamie in a silent adjuration to keep his wife in better order.

  I could see the corner of Jamie’s mouth twitching, but he merely sipped his Montrachet and changed the subject to a discussion of Jared’s latest venture; a shipment of rum, on its way from Jamaica.

  When Jared rang the bell for the dishes to be cleared and the brandy brought out, I excused myself. One of Jared’s idiosyncrasies was the enjoyment of long black cheroots with his brandy, and I had the distinct feeling that, carefully chewed or not, the eels I had eaten wouldn’t benefit from being smoked.

  I lay on my bed and tried, with limited success, not to think about eels. I closed my eyes and tried to think of Jamaica—pleasant white beaches under tropical sun. But thoughts of Jamaica led to thoughts of the Wilhelmina and thought of ships made me think of the sea, which led directly back to images of giant eels, coiling and writhing through the heaving green waves. I greeted the distraction of Jamie’s appearance with relief, sitting up as he came in.

  “Phew!” He leaned against the closed door, fanning himself with the loose end of his jabot. “I feel like a smoked sausage. I’m fond of Jared, but I shall be verra pleased when he’s taken his damned cheroots to Germany.”

  “Well, don’t come near me, if you smell like a cheroot,” I said. “The eels don’t like smoke.”

  “I dinna blame them a bit.” He took off his coat and unbuttoned his shirt. “I think it’s a plan, ye ken,” he confided, tossing his head toward the door as he took his shirt off. “Like the bees.”

  “Bees?”

  “How ye move a hive of bees,” he explained, opening the window and hanging his shirt outside from the crank of the casement. “You get a pipe full of the strongest tobacco ye can find, stick it into the hive and blow smoke up into the combs. The bees all fall down stunned, and you can take them where ye like. I think that’s what Jared does to his customers; he smokes them into insensibility, and they’ve signed orders for three times more wine than they meant to before they recover their senses.”

  I giggled and he grinned, putting a finger to his lips as the sound of Jared’s light footsteps came down the corridor, passing our door on his way to his own room.

  Danger of discovery past, he came and stretched out beside me, wearing only his kilt and stockings.

  “Not too bad?” he asked. “I can sleep in the dressing room, if it is. Or put my head out of the window for airing.”

  I sniffed his hair, where the scent of tobacco lingered among the ruddy waves. The candlelight shot the red with strands of gold, and I ruffled my fingers through it, enjoying the thick softness of it, and the hard, solid feel of the bone beneath.

  “No, it’s not too bad. You’re not worried about Jared leaving so soon, then?”

  He kissed my forehead and lay down, head on the bolster. He smiled up at me, shaking his head.

  “No. I’ve met all the chief customers and the captains, I know all the warehousemen and the officials, I’ve the price lists and the
inventories committed to memory. What’s left to learn about the business I must just learn by trying; Jared canna teach me more.”

  “And Prince Charles?”

  He half-closed his eyes and gave a small grunt of resignation. “Aye, well. For that, I must trust to the mercy of God, not Jared. And I daresay it will be easier if Jared isn’t here to see what I’m doing.”

  I lay down beside him, and he turned toward me, sliding an arm around my waist so that we lay close together.

  “What shall we do?” I asked. “Have you any idea, Jamie?”

  His breath was warm on my face, scented with brandy, and I tilted my head up to kiss him. His soft, wide mouth opened on mine, and he lingered in the kiss for a moment before answering.

  “Oh, I’ve ideas,” he said, drawing back with a sigh. “God knows what they’ll amount to, but I’ve ideas.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Mmphm.” He settled himself more comfortably, turning on his back and cradling me in one arm, head on his shoulder.