Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (125 page)

“Pozegnanie,”
William said quietly. “Farewell.”

She nodded, and took a big breath.

“That. It was the only thing—just a glimpse—of who he
was.
” She blinked, then knuckled away the tears that had oozed out. She cleared her throat and looked at the painting.

“When I had that,” she said, able to breathe again, “it—he—wasn’t just a dead body. Or a hero—I could have done
that
—painted him on his horse, charging or whatever—and maybe the army would rather have had one like that, probably they
would,
but…”

“The army has much more feeling than you’d think,” he said, with a half smile. “It’s not usually a delicate sort of feeling, but it
is
feeling. And we understand death. This is perfect.”

She squeezed his hand and let it go, feeling the tightness in her chest let go as well. She nodded at the final painting, still veiled.

“You’ve already seen that one, though it wasn’t finished then. Do you want to see it?”

“Jane,” he said, and she turned to look at him, hearing things in his voice. But his jaw tightened and he shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Not just now.” He took a deep breath and blew it out with a
whoosh.

“I daresay you’ve spent some time at Papa’s house whilst you’ve been in the city?”

“Yes,” she said, diverted. “Why?”

“Then you’ve met Amaranthus.”

“I have.”

“I want to talk to you about her.”

IN THE END, HE
told her almost everything. No mention of cold gardens, warm thighs, and black-eyed toads. But everything else: Dottie and the baby, Denzell, General Raphael Fucking Bastard Bleeker, and Amaranthus’s account of her husband.

His sister said very little but sat hunched forward on her tall painter’s stool, feet tucked back behind the rungs, watching him. She had a face that matched her height: boldly handsome, and with eyes that would brook no insult but that still seemed warm.

“I told Papa—Lord John—everything I’d found out.” His father had listened, pale and intent, sifting the account as William told it. Very clearly envisioning the necessity for relaying it to his brother, his knuckles growing whiter as the brutal tale went on.

“That can’t have been easy,” his sister said softly. He shook his head.

“No. But easier than it should have been—for me. I was a coward. I couldn’t…I
couldn’t
make myself tell Uncle Hal. So I told Papa instead and…left the dirty work to him.”

She considered that for a moment, head on one side. She wore no cap and her hair was unpinned; it fell over her shoulder in a shimmering wave, disregarded. Then she shook her head and thrust the wave back behind her ear, leaving a streak of overlooked white paint from her fingers.

“You’re not a coward,” she said. “Lord John knows his brother better than anybody else in the world—probably including His Grace’s wife,” she added, frowning a little. “There isn’t a
good
way to tell a man something like this, I don’t suppose…”

“There isn’t.”

“But I’ve heard your, um, father talk about his brother. He’ll know what your uncle feels, and he’s tough—Lord John, I mean, though probably Hal is, too. He can stand up to it, if Hal goes nuts—er, gets really upset,” she amended, seeing the look on William’s face. “You could tell him, all right—and you’ll probably have to, eventually,” she added with sympathy. “He’ll want to hear the gory details from you. But you wouldn’t be able to give him what he maybe needs after hearing it—whether that’s a stiff drink—”

“I’m sure that will be the
second
thing he needs,” William muttered. “The first being someone to hit.”

Brianna’s mouth twitched at that, and for a shocked moment, he thought she was about to laugh, but she shook her head instead and the paint-streaked lock of hair fell down along her cheek.

“So,” she said, straightening up with a sigh, “Amaranthus is still in love with her husband, and he’s still in love with her. And you…?”

“Did I say I had any feelings for her?” he demanded irritably.

“No, you didn’t.”
You didn’t need to, you poor fool,
her face said.

“I don’t suppose it matters,” she said mildly. “Now that you know she’s not a widow. I mean…you wouldn’t consider…” She left that thought where it was, thank God, and he ignored it. She cleared her throat.

“What
about
Amaranthus, though?” she asked. “What will she do now, do you think?”

William could think of a lot of things she
might
do, but he’d already learned that his own imagination was not equal to that particular lady’s.

You might…just possibly enjoy it.

“I don’t know,” he said gruffly. “Probably nothing. Uncle Hal won’t throw her into the street, I don’t suppose.
She
didn’t betray him, the King, the country, the army, and everything else—and she
is
Trevor’s mother, and Trevor is Uncle Hal’s heir.” He shrugged. “What else could she do, after all?”

He heard the echo of his uncle’s voice above the sounds of marram grass and water:
“If you consider treason and the betrayal of your King, your country, and your family a suitable means of solving your personal difficulties, William, then perhaps John hasn’t taught you as well as I supposed.”

“Divorce?” his sister suggested. “That seems…cleaner. And she could marry again.”

“Mmphm.” William was envisioning just what might have happened if he
had
acceded to Amaranthus’s suggestion—and then discovered Benjamin’s continued existence, possibly after having fathered…

“No,” he said abruptly, and was startled when she laughed.

“You think this situation is
funny
?” he said, suddenly furious.

She shook her head and waved a hand in apology.

“No. No, I’m sorry. It wasn’t the situation—it was the noise you made.”

He stared at her, affronted.

“What do you mean, noise?”

“Mmphm.”

“What?”

“That noise you made in your throat—mmphm. You probably don’t want to hear this,” she added, with grossly belated tact, “but Da makes that sort of noise all the time, and you sounded…just like him.”

He breathed through his teeth, biting back a number of remarks, none of them gentlemanly. Evidently his face spoke for him, though, for her face changed, losing its look of amusement, and she slid off her stool, came to him, and embraced him.

He wanted to push her away, but didn’t. She was tall enough that her chin rested on his shoulder, and he felt the cool touch of her paint-streaked hair against his heated cheek. She was muscular, solid as a tree trunk, and his arms went round her of their own volition. There were people in the house; he could hear voices at a distance, footsteps, thumps, and clanking—tea being served? he thought vaguely. It didn’t matter.

“I
am
sorry,” she said softly. “For everything.”

“I know,” he said, just as softly. “Thank you.”

He let go of her and they parted gently.

“Divorce isn’t a simple matter,” he said, clearing his throat. “Especially when one of the parties is a viscount and the heir to a dukedom. The House of Lords would have to vote and give consent on the matter—after hearing a full account of everything—and I do mean
everything.
All of which would be meat for the newspapers and broadsheets, to say nothing of gossip in coffeehouses, taverns, and all the
salons
in London.

“Though I suppose,” he went on, reaching for his hat, “that a divorce might well be granted. Having your husband convicted of treason seems like sufficient grounds. The results might not be worth it, though.” He punched the crown of his hat back into shape and put it on.

“Thank you,” he said again, and bowed.

“You’re welcome,” she said. “Anytime.” She smiled at him, but it was a tremulous smile, and he felt regret at having worried her with his troubles. As he turned to go he caught sight once again of the row of portraits, one still shrouded.

She saw him glance at it and made a small, interrupted gesture.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s nothing. I don’t want to keep you—”

“I have very few demands upon my time at the moment,” he said, smiling. “What is it?”

She looked dubious, but then smiled, too.

“The painting of Fanny’s sister. I wondered whether you knew if the original drawing was made during the day or at night. I painted it as though it was daylight, but it occurred to me that…”

“That given her occupation and the fact that a client of the establishment drew her, it might well have been the evening,” he finished. “You’re right, it almost certainly was.” He nodded at Jane, invisible behind her veil of muslin.

“It would have been at night. There was a fire in the parlor—well, the one time I was in it, at least. And the walls were red, so there was a bit of that in the air. But I only saw her by candlelight. A candle with a brass reflector, a little behind and above her, so the light glowed on the top of her head and ran down the side of her face.”

Her brows—thick for a woman—rose.

“You recall her very well,” she said, with no tone of judgment. “Have you ever drawn, or painted, yourself?”

“No,” he said, startled. “I mean—I had a drawing master when I was a child. Why?”

She smiled a little, as though harboring a secret.

“Our grandmother was a painter. I was thinking you might have…inherited something from her. Like I did.”

The thought made his hands curl, with a slight shock that went through the muscles of his forearms.
Our grandmother…

“Jesus,” he said.

“She looked a lot like me,” Brianna said casually, and reached to open the door for him. “And you. That’s where we got the nose.”

Fraser’s Ridge

I WAS IN THE
surgery, sorting seeds and enjoying the satisfaction of successful hoarding, when I heard a tentative knock at the front door. The door itself was open, to let fresh air flow through the house, and normally whoever was at the door would have called out. I heard faint whisperings and the shuffle of feet outside, but no one called, and I poked my head out to see who the visitors might be.

To my surprise, there was quite a crowd on the porch; a number of women and children, who all stirred with alarm at seeing me. One woman seemed to be the leader; she plucked up her courage and stepped forward and I saw that it was Mrs. MacIlhenny. Mother Harriet, she was called by everyone: white-haired, widowed three times, and mother to thirteen children and untold quantities of grandchildren.

“By your leave,
a bhana-mhaighister,
” she said, her voice hesitant, “might we speak with Himself?”

“Er…” I said, disconcerted. “I— Yes of course. I’ll just…tell him you’re here. Ah…won’t you…come in?”

I sounded nearly as hesitant as she did, and for the same reason. There were five women besides Mother Harriet: Doris Hallam, Molly Adair, Fiona Leslie, Annie MacFarland, and Gracie MacNeil. All of them were wives or mothers of tenants Jamie had excommunicated, and it was reasonably clear why they’d come. They’d brought nearly twenty children with them, from ten-year-old girls with their hair neatly braided to skirt-clinging toddlers and babes in arms, all scrubbed within an inch of their lives; the smell of lye soap rose off them in an almost-visible cloud.

Jamie was sitting at his desk with a quill in his hand when I came in, closing the door of the study behind me. He glanced toward the door; the whispering and shushing was clearly audible.

“Is that who I think it is?”

“Yes,” I said. “Five of them. With their children. They want to speak with you.”

He said something under his breath in Gaelic, rubbed his hands hard over his face, and sat up straight in his chair, squaring his shoulders.

“Aye. Let them come in, then.”

Harriet MacIlhenny came in with her head up, jaw clenched, and chin trembling. She stopped abruptly before Jamie’s table and collapsed onto her knees with a thud, followed by the other wives and half the children, spilling out into the hallway, all looking bewildered but obedient.

“We have come to beg thy mercy, Laird,” she said, bowing so low that she spoke to the floor. “Not for ourselves, but for our bairns.”

“Did your husbands put ye up to this?” Jamie demanded. “Get yourselves up, for God’s sake.”

“No, Laird,” Harriet said. She rose, slowly, but her hands were pressed so hard together that the knuckles and nails showed white. “Our husbands forbade us to come to ye; said they would beat us should we stir a foot out of doors. The gomerels would sacrifice us and the bairns for the sake of their pride—but…we came anyway.”

Jamie made a Scottish noise of disgust.

“Your husbands are fools and cowards, and they’ll pay the price of their foolishness. They kent what they were risking when they chose to cast their lots wi’ Cunningham.”

“Does a gambler ever think he’ll lose, Laird?”

Jamie had opened his mouth to say something further, but shut it at this shrewd stab. Harriet MacIlhenny had lived on the Ridge almost from its founding and knew very well who was the biggest gambler in this neck of the woods.

“Mmphm,” he said, eyeing her. “Aye. Well. Be that as it may, I’ve said what I’ve said and I willna go back. I put these men out for good cause, and that cause hasna vanished, nor is it likely to.”

“No,” Harriet agreed, real regret in her voice. She bowed her capped head. “But my six grown sons are loyal to ye, Laird, and to the cause of liberty—and my four brothers as well. Many of these good women can say the same”—she gestured to the serried ranks still kneeling on the floor behind her—“and do.” A murmur of agreement came from the crowd behind her, and one wee girl poked her head out from behind Harriet’s apron and said brightly, “My brother helped bring ye back from the landslide, sir!”

Harriet moved her skirts to obscure the child and coughed, the interruption giving Jamie enough time to look over the women and calculate exactly how many sons, brothers, uncles, grandsons, and brothers-in-law they possessed among them—and how many of
those
were men he either included in his gang or would like to. I saw the color rising up his neck, but I also saw the slight slump of his shoulders.

So did Harriet, but was wise enough to pretend not to notice. She folded her hands in front of her and humbly laid the rest of her cards on the table.

“We ken weel why ye banished the men, sir. And we ken even better the kindness that ye’ve always shown to us and our families. So we’ll swear ye an oath, Laird—a most terrible oath, in the names of Saint Bride and Saint Michael—that our husbands shall never again raise hand or voice against ye, in any matter.”

“Mmphm.” Jamie knew he was beaten, but he wasn’t surrendering just yet. “And how d’ye mean to guarantee their good behavior,
a bhana-mhaighister
?”

An inaudible but clear vibration that might have been amusement ran through the older ladies, though it vanished in an instant when Harriet turned her head to look over her shoulder at them. When she turned back, her eyes were fixed on me, not Jamie, which gave me a start.

“I’d suppose your wife could answer that for ye, Laird,” she said circumspectly, and let the corner of her mouth tuck in for a moment. Her gaze dropped to Jamie again. “None of the men can cook. But if ye dinna trust what a wife might do to a husband who’s taken the house from over her head and the food out of her bairns’ mouths…perhaps ye can imagine what the brothers and sons of those wives might do to him. If ye’d like me to have my lads come and swear that same oath to ye…”

“No,” he said, very dryly. “I’m no a man to discount an honest woman’s word.” He looked over the crowd, slowly, and sighed, putting his hands flat on the desk.

“Aye. Well, then. This is what I’ll do. I will revoke the letter of banishment—for
your
husbands—but the contracts I made with them as tenants remain void. And you’ll send your husbands to me, to swear their fealty. I willna have men on my land that may plot against me.

“But I shall write new contracts, between myself and each of you ladies, for the tenancy of the land and buildings ye live in, in witness of the faithfulness of…ehm…of your faithful husbandry of the same.” A definite titter ran through the room, and I smiled, despite the seriousness of the situation.

Jamie didn’t laugh, but leaned forward, fixing each woman in turn with his eyes.

“Mind, this means that each of ye—each one, I say—is responsible for the rents and other terms of her contract. If ye want to accept your husbands’ advice and help, that’s well and good—but the land is yours, not his, and if he should prove false, either to you or to me, he’ll answer for it to me, even unto death.”

Harriet nodded gravely.

“We agree, my laird. We’re most grateful for your kind forbearance—and even more grateful to God that He’s let us save ye from the guilt of putting women and children out to starve.” She dropped him a deep curtsy, then turned and went out, leaving her followers to curtsy to him, each in turn, and murmur their thanks to their speechless, red-eared landlord.

THEY LEFT, MURMURING
to one another in excitement and leaving the door open, as they’d found it. A cool breeze came down the hallway, carrying the ghost of lye soap.

I put my hands on Jamie’s shoulders. Hard as rocks, and so were the columns of his neck, under my thumbs.

“You did the right thing,” I said quietly, and began to massage the tight muscles, searching out knots. He sighed deeply, and his shoulders dropped a little.

“I hope so,” he said. “I’m likely nourishing a wee brood o’ vipers in my bosom—but it does lighten the weight on my heart.” After a moment he added, still looking down at his desk, “I did think o’ the other men, Sassenach. The brothers and sons, I mean. But what I thought was that they’d take care for the women and children—feed them, take them in if their husbands couldna find a place. I never thought…Christ, it was like havin’ my own guns taken and pointed at me!”

“You did the right thing,” I said again, and kissed the top of his head. “And you know that now all those women and children will be watching out like hawks, in case of any rannygazoo on the western side of the Ridge.” He turned his head and gave me an eye.

“I dinna ken what rannygazoo is, Sassenach, but God forbid I should have it without my knowing. Is it catching?”

“Very. Blessed are the merciful, for mercy shall be shown them.”

“I’m glad to find you so filled with mercy, Colonel,” said a dry voice from the doorway. “I only hope you may not have exhausted your store for the day.” Elspeth Cunningham stood on the other side of the threshold, tall and straight and dressed in black, a stark white fichu throwing her gaunt features into stern relief.

The muscles under my hands went momentarily as hard as concrete. I let go, and then Jamie was on his feet, bowing.

“Your servant, madam,” he said. “Come in.”

She stepped over the threshold, but stood for a moment, hesitant, a pinch of skirt caught between her fingers.

“Dinna think for a moment of kneeling to me,” Jamie said, matching the tone in which she’d spoken a moment before. “Sit down on your hurdies and tell me what it is ye want.”

I went round the desk and pulled up the visitor’s chair for her, and she sank into it, her deep-set eyes still fixed on Jamie.

“I want Agnes,” she said, without preamble.

Jamie blinked, sat down, blinked again, and leaned back, relaxing a little.

“What d’ye want her for?” he asked warily.

“Perhaps I should have said I’ve come to speir for her,” she said, with a trace of a smile. “If that’s the correct term?”

“Only if ye want to marry her,” Jamie said. “Which I suppose is what ye mean. Which one o’ the lieutenants did ye have in mind, and what does Agnes have to say about it?”

Elspeth sighed and unfolded her hands to accept the cup of whisky I offered her.

“At the moment, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other,” she admitted. “The silly creature can’t make up her mind between them, and as I’ve told her that there’s no way of knowing which of them fathered her child, neither has more of a factual claim upon her affections than the other.”

“I suppose you could wait ’til the child’s born and see who it looks like,” I suggested. I could—within fairly broad limits—discern blood types. That
might
help, but I thought I wouldn’t suggest it right this moment.

Just as well, since both of them ignored me.

“That’s why I said
I
want Agnes,” she said. “I’ve decided that I must accept your offer to provide transport for my son and his household. When he heard of your banishing the men who…followed him…he declared that he could no longer remain here, without supporters and at your…mercy.”

“My mercy,” Jamie muttered, drumming his fingers briefly on the table. “Hmmphm. Evidently I’ve an endless store o’ that. So?”

“Gilbert and Oliver will of course accompany us,” she went on, ignoring this. “They naturally do not wish to abandon Agnes…”

“Agnes has a home,” Jamie broke in impatiently. “Here. Abandon her, forbye!”

“Surely you will admit that they have a responsibility to the girl,” Elspeth said, lowering her strong gray brows at him in a way that made her look like a very stern owl.

“I will,” he said. “But I’ll not see her taken from her home unless she wants to go
and
I’m assured of her future welfare. I can find her a good husband here, ken?”

“I am offering you exactly such an assurance,” she snapped. “Do you dare to imply that I would see her abused in any way?”

“Ye’re an auld woman,” Jamie pointed out, rather brusquely. “What if ye die on the way to wherever ye’re takin’ your son?”

“Er…where
are
you taking him?” I interjected, more in hopes of stopping the conversation going straight off the rails than because I wanted to know.