Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (59 page)

“Oh.” Hal stopped dead, looking at his brother, then glanced down the street. Prévost’s headquarters stood at the far corner, a large gray house with the normal trickle of officers and civilians going in and out under the eyes of the two soldiers guarding the door.

Hal took John’s arm and pulled him into the side street, less crowded.

John’s heart was thumping. He hadn’t articulated his fears, even to himself, but the letter to Jamie had brought them clearly to the surface of his mind.

Hal looked at him, one dark brow arched.

John closed his eyes and took a breath deep enough to keep his voice level.

“I have dreams,” he said. “Not every night. Often, though.”

“Of William.” It wasn’t a question, but John nodded and opened his eyes. Hal’s face was attentive, his eyes direct and bloodshot. “Dead?” Hal asked. “Lost?”

John nodded again, wordless. He cleared his throat, though, and found a few.

“Isobel told me that he was lost once, at Helwater, when he was three or so—wandering alone in a fog on the fells. Sometimes I see that. Sometimes…other things.”

William had always told him stories, written him letters. Of being trapped in Quebec during a long, cold winter. Hunting, lost overnight, feet freezing, the eerie light of the Arctic sky thrumming overhead, falling through ice into dark water…To William, this was mere adventure, and John enjoyed hearing about it—but in the dark of his dreams, such things came back twisted, cold as ghosts and filled with foreboding.

“And battle,” Hal said, almost under his breath. He was leaning back against the brick wall of a tavern, his eyes on the polished toes of his boots. “Yes. You see those things when you’re a father. Even when you’re not asleep.”

John nodded but didn’t say anything. He felt a bit better, to have spoken. Of course Hal thought such things. Henry badly wounded in battle, and Benjamin…He thought of William, digging up a grave in the dark, expecting to find his cousin’s body…. He’d dreamed of digging up a grave himself, and finding William in it.

Hal heaved a sigh and straightened up.

“Tell Fraser that William is here,” he said quietly. “Just mention it, casually. Nothing more. He’ll send the girl.”

“You think so?”

Hal glanced at him and took his elbow, steering him out of the alley.

“You think he cares less about William than you do?”

J
AMIE READ THE LETTER
through twice, his lips tightening at the same place, halfway down the first page—and then again, at the end. It wasn’t actually unusual for him to react to one of John’s letters that way, but when he did, it was normally because it held unwelcome news of the war, of William, or of some incipient action on the part of the British government that might be about to result in Jamie’s imminent arrest or some other domestic inconvenience.

This, however, was the first letter John had sent in nearly two years—since before Jamie’s return from the dead to find me married to John Grey, and before he had punched John in the eye as a result of this news and inadvertently caused his lordship to be arrested and nearly hanged by the American militia. Well, turnabout was fair play, I supposed….

No point in putting it off.

“What does John have to say?” I asked, keeping my voice pleasantly neutral. Jamie glanced up at me, snorted, and took off his spectacles.

“He wants Brianna,” he said shortly, and pushed the letter across the table to me.

I glanced involuntarily over my shoulder, but Bree had gone to the springhouse with a box of freshly made goat’s cheeses. I pulled my spectacles out of my pocket.

“I take it you noticed that last bit?” I said, glancing up when I’d finished reading.

“ ‘My son William has resigned his Commission and is presently staying with me in Savannah, making use of his new-found Leisure to contemplate his Future, as he has now attained his Majority’? Aye, I did.” He glared at the letter, then at me. “Contemplate his future? What is there to contemplate, for God’s sake? He’s an earl.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be an earl,” I said mildly.

“It’s not something ye’ve got a choice about, Sassenach,” he said. “It’s like a birthmark; ye’re born with it.”

He was frowning down at the letter, lips tight.

I gave him an exasperated look, which he sensed, for he glanced up and raised his brows at me.

“What are ye giving me that sort of look for?” he demanded. “It’s not my f—” He stopped, almost in time.

“Well, let’s not say ‘fault’—nobody’s blaming you, but—”

“Nobody but William.
He’s
blaming me.” He exhaled through his nose, then took a breath and shook his head. “And no without reason. See,
this
is why I didna want Brianna telling him! If he’d never seen me nor found out the truth, he’d be in England right now, takin’ care of his lands and tenants, happy as a—” He stopped, groping.

“Clam?” I suggested. “What makes you think he isn’t happy at the moment? Perhaps he just hasn’t been able to arrange passage back to England yet.”

“Clam?” He looked at me for an instant, brows raised, then dismissed all clams with an abrupt gesture. “
I
wouldna be happy in his position, and I dinna see how an honorable man could be.”

“Well, he
is
very like you.” I was hoping to keep the conversation focused on William, and avoid notice of John, but I should have known that was futile. He snatched up the letter, crumpled it, and threw it into the fire with a very rude Gaelic expression.

“
Mac na galladh!
First he takes my son, then he swives my wife, and now he’s tryin’ to suborn my daughter!”

“Oh, he is not!” I’d been keeping a lid on my own temper, but the flames of rage curling round the edges of the room were getting too warm; I was growing brown and crispy. “He just wants Bree to go and
talk
to her brother! Can’t you see that, you bloody…Scot?”

That stopped him for an instant, and I saw a startled spark of amusement in his eyes, though it didn’t reach his mouth. He did breathe, though, that was an improvement.

“Talk to her brother,” he repeated. “Why? Does he think Brianna will sing my praises to such an extent that William will forget that I’m the reason he’s a bastard? And even if he decided to forgive me for that, it wouldna help him settle his mind to be an earl.” He snorted. “Left to the influence of that den o’ snakes, I’d no be surprised if Brianna ended up sailing off to England wi’ them to paint portraits of the Queen.”

“I have no idea what John thinks,” I said evenly. “But since he says ‘contemplate his future,’ I assume that he means William has doubts. Brianna is an outsider in this; she’d have a different perspective on things. She could listen without getting personally involved.”

“Ha,” he said. “That lassie is personally involved in every damned thing she touches. She gets it from
you,
” he added, with an accusing look at me.

“And she doesn’t give up on anything she’s made up her mind to do,” I said, settling back in my chair and folding my hands in my lap. “She gets that from
you.
”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t necessarily a compliment.”

That did get the breath of a laugh, though he stayed on his feet. He’d gone the color of the tomatoes in my garden at the height of his speech, but this was fading back to his normal ruddy bronze. I relaxed a little, too, and took a breath.

“You know one thing about John, though.”

“I ken a number of things about him—most of which I wish I didn’t. Which one thing d’ye mean?”

“He knows your daughter loves you. And that no matter what she and William have to say to each other,
that
will be part of the conversation.”

He blinked, disconcerted.

“I—well, aye, maybe…but—”

“Do you think he cares for William any less than you do?”

The atmosphere had cooled, and I could feel my heart rate slowing down. Jamie had turned his back and was leaning on the mantelpiece, looking into the fire. The letter had burned but was still visible, a curled black leaf on the hearth. The fingers of his right hand tapped slowly against the stone.

At last he sighed and turned round.

“I’ll talk to Brianna,” he said.

“DID YOU TALK
to Brianna yet?” I asked, the next day.

“I will,” he said, with some reluctance, “but I’m no going to tell her about William.”

I was sniffing cautiously at the stew I’d made for dinner, but desisted in order to look sideways at him. “Why on earth not?”

“Because if I did, she’d go because she thought I wanted her to, even if she otherwise wouldna go at all.”

That was probably true, though I personally didn’t see anything wrong with asking her to do something Jamie wanted done.
He
plainly did, though, so I nodded agreeably and held out the spoon to him.

“Taste that, will you, and tell me if you think it’s fit for human consumption.”

He paused, spoon halfway to his mouth.

“What’s in it?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. I think it might possibly be venison, but Mrs. MacDonald didn’t know for sure; her husband came home with it from a trip to the Cherokee villages and it didn’t have any skin on it, and he said he’d been too drunk when he won it in a dice game to have asked.”

Eyebrows raised as high as they’d go, he sniffed gingerly, blew on the spoonful of hot stew, then licked up a small taste, closing his eyes like a French
dégustateur
judging the virtues of a new Rhône.

“Hmm,” he said. He lapped a little more, though, which was encouraging, and finally took a whole bite, which he chewed slowly, eyes still closed in concentration.

Finally he swallowed, and opening his eyes said, “It needs pepper. And maybe vinegar?”

“For taste, or disinfection?” I asked. I glanced at the pie safe, wondering whether I could scrabble together sufficient remnants from its contents for a substitute dinner.

“Taste,” he said, leaning past me to dip the spoon again. “It’s wholesome enough, though. I think it’s wapiti—and meat from a verra old, tough buck. Is it not Mrs. MacDonald who thinks you’re a witch?”

“Well, if she does, she kept it to herself when she brought me her youngest son yesterday, with a broken leg. The older son brought the meat this morning. It
was
quite a large chunk of meat, regardless of origin. I put the rest in the smokehouse, but it smelled a little odd.”

“What smells odd?” The back door opened and Brianna came in, carrying a small pumpkin, Roger behind her with a basket of collard greens from the garden.

I raised a brow at the pumpkin—too small for pie making, and very much too green, and she shrugged.

“A rat or something was gnawing at it when we went into the garden.” She turned it to display fresh tooth marks. “I knew it would go bad right away if we left it—if the rat didn’t come right back and finish it off—so we brought it in.”

“Well, I’ve
heard
of fried green pumpkin,” I said, dubiously accepting the gift. “This is already rather an experimental meal, after all.”

Brianna looked at the hearth and took a deep, cautious sniff.

“It smells…edible,” she said.

“Aye, that’s what I said,” Jamie said, waving aside the possibility of wholesale ptomaine poisoning with one hand. “Sit down, lass. Lord John’s sent me a wee letter and he’s mentioning you.”

“Lord John?” One red brow arched, and her face lighted up. “What does he want?”

Jamie stared at her.

“Why would ye think he wants something from ye?” he asked, wary but curious.

Brianna swept her skirt to one side and sat down, pumpkin still in one hand, and extended a hand to Jamie, palm up.

“Lend me your dirk for a minute, Da. As for Lord John, he doesn’t do social chat. I don’t know whether he wants something
from
me, but I’ve read enough of his letters to know that he doesn’t bother writing unless he’s got a purpose.”

I snorted slightly and exchanged a look with Jamie. That was completely true. Granted, his purpose was occasionally just to warn Jamie that he was risking his head, his neck, or his balls in whatever rash venture John thought he might be involved in, but it definitely
was
a purpose.

Bree took the proffered dirk and began to slice the small pumpkin, spilling glistening clumps of tangled green seeds onto the table.

“So?” she said, eyes on her work.

“So,” Jamie said, and took a deep breath.

THE FRIED GREEN
pumpkin was indeed edible, though I wouldn’t say much more for it than that.

“Needs ketchup” was Jemmy’s comment.

“Aye,” his grandfather agreed, chewing gingerly. “Walnut ketchup, maybe? Or mushroom.”

“Walnut
ketchup
?” Jemmy and Amanda burst into giggles, but Jamie merely eyed them tolerantly.

“Aye, ye wee ignoramuses,” he said. “Ketchup’s any relish ye put on your meat or vegetables—no just that tomato mash your mam makes for ye.”

“What does walnut ketchup taste like?” Jem demanded.

“Walnuts,” Jamie said, unhelpfully. “Wi’ vinegar and anchovies and a few other things. Hush now; I want to be speaking wi’ your mother.”

While the children and I cleared the table, Jamie laid out Lord John’s proposal, in detail, for Brianna. Careful, I noted, to keep his own feelings out of the matter.

“Ye can take a bit of time to think,
a nighean,
” he said, finishing up. “But it’s growing late in the year for a long journey. If ye go…ye may well not be able to come back until the spring.”