The Fiery Cross (96 page)

“Stop that!” I hissed. “Stop it at once!”

“You madden me,” he breathed, pressing me to his bosom and attempting to stick his tongue in my ear.

I certainly thought he was mad, but I declined absolutely to accept any responsibility for the condition. I jerked back as far as I could—not far, with the railing at my back—and fought to get one hand between us. Shock quite gone by now, I was thinking with surprising clarity. I couldn’t knee him in the balls; he had one leg thrust between my own, trapping a wodge of skirt in my way. If I could get my hand round his throat and get a sound hold of his carotids, though, he’d drop like a rock.

I did get hold of his throat, but his blasted stock was in the way; my fingers scrabbled at it, and he jerked to the side, grabbing at my hand.

“Please,” he said. “I want—”

“I don’t give a damn
what
you want!” I said. “Let go of me this instant, you—you—” I groped wildly for some suitable insult. “You—
puppy
!”

Rather to my surprise, he stopped. His face couldn’t go pale, being already covered in rice flour—I could taste it on my lips—but his mouth was set, and his expression was . . . rather wounded.

“Is that really what you think of me?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yes, it bloody is!” I said. “What else am I to think? Have you lost your mind, behaving in this—this despicable fashion? What is the matter with you?”

“Despicable?” He seemed quite taken aback to hear his advances described in this fashion. “But I—that is, you—I thought you were . . . I mean, might be not averse—”

“You can’t,” I said, positively. “You can’t possibly have thought anything of the sort. I’ve never given you the
slightest
reason to think such a thing!” Nor had I—intentionally. The uneasy thought came to me, though, that perhaps my perceptions of my own behavior were not quite the same as Phillip Wylie’s.

“Oh, haven’t you?” His face was changing, clouding with anger. “I beg to differ with you, madam!”

I had told him I was old enough to be his mother; it had never for a moment occurred to me that he didn’t believe it.

“Flirt,” he said again, though in quite a different tone than the first time. “No reason? You have given me every reason, since the first occasion of our meeting.”

“What?” My voice went up a tone, in incredulity. “I’ve never done anything but engage you in civil conversation. If that constitutes flirtation in
your
book, my lad, then—”

“Don’t call me that!”

Oh, so he
had
noticed that there was a difference of age. He simply hadn’t appreciated the magnitude, I thought. It came to me, with a certain feeling of apprehension, that at Phillip’s level of society, most flirtation was indeed conducted under the guise of banter. What in the name of God had I said to him?

I had some dim recollection of having discussed the Stamp Act with him and his friend Stanhope. Yes, taxes, and, I thought, horses—but surely that couldn’t have been sufficient to inflame his misapprehensions?

“Thine eyes are like the fishpools in Heshbon,”
he said, low-voiced and bitter. “Do you not recall the evening when I said that to you? The Song of Solomon is merely ‘civil conversation’ to you, is it?”

“Good grief.” I was, despite myself, beginning to feel slightly guilty; we
had
had a brief exchange along those lines, at Jocasta’s party, two or three years ago. And he remembered it? The Song of Solomon was reasonably heady stuff; perhaps the simple reference . . . Then I shook myself mentally, and drew myself up straight.

“Nonsense,” I declared. “You were teasing me, and I simply answered you in kind. Now, I really must—”

“You came in here with me today. Alone.” He took another step toward me, eyes determined. He was talking himself back into it, the fatheaded popinjay!

“Mr. Wylie,” I said firmly, sliding sideways. “I am terribly sorry if you have somehow misunderstood the situation, but I am very happily married, and I have no romantic interest in you whatsoever. And now, if you will excuse me . . .” I ducked past him, and hurried out of the stable, as fast as my shoes would allow. He made no effort to follow me, though, and I reached the outdoors unmolested, my heart beating fast.

There were people near the paddock; I turned in the other direction, going round the end of the stable block before anyone should see me. Once out of sight, I made a swift inventory, checking to be sure that I didn’t look too disheveled. I didn’t know whether anyone had seen me going into the stable with Wylie; I could only hope no one had seen my hasty exit.

Only one lock of hair had come down in the recent contretemps; I pinned it carefully back, and dusted a few bits of straw from my skirts. Fortunately, he hadn’t torn my clothes; a retucked kerchief and I was quite decent again.

“Are ye all right, Sassenach?”

I leaped like a gaffed salmon, and so did my heart. I whirled, adrenaline jolting through my chest like an electic current, to find Jamie standing beside me, frowning slightly as he surveyed me.

“What have ye been doing, Sassenach?”

My heart was still stuck in my throat, choking me, but I forced out what I hoped were a few nonchalant words.

“Nothing. I mean, looking at the horses—horse. The mare. She has a new foal.”

“Aye, I know,” he said, looking at me oddly.

“Did you find Ninian? What did he have to say?” I groped behind my head, tidying my hair and taking the opportunity to turn away a little, to avoid his eye.

“He says it’s true—though I hadna doubted it. There are more than a thousand men, camped near Salisbury. And more joining them each day, he says. The auld mumper is pleased about it!” He frowned, drumming the two stiff fingers of his right hand lightly against his leg, and I realized that he was rather worried.

Not without cause. Putting aside the threat of conflict itself, it was spring. Only the fact that River Run was in the piedmont had allowed us to come to Jocasta’s wedding; down here, the woods were cloudy with blossom and crocuses popped through the earth like orange and purple dragon’s-teeth, but the mountains were still cloaked in snow, the tree branches sporting swollen buds. In two weeks or so, those buds would burst, and it would be time for the spring planting on Fraser’s Ridge.

True, Jamie had provided for such an emergency by finding old Arch Bug, but Arch could manage only so much by himself. And as for the tenants and homesteaders . . . if the militia were raised again, the women would be left to do the planting alone.

“The men in this camp—they’re men who’ve left their land, then?” Salisbury was in the piedmont, as well. It wasn’t thinkable for working farmers to abandon their land at this time of year for the sake of protest against the government, no matter how annoyed they were.

“Left it, or lost it,” he said briefly. The frown deepened as he looked at me. “Have ye spoken wi’ my aunt?”

“Ah . . . no,” I said, feeling guilty. “Not yet. I was just going . . . oh—you said there was another problem. What else has happened?”

He made a sound like a hissing teakettle, which for him betokened rare impatience.

“Christ, I’d nearly forgot her. One of the slave women’s been poisoned, I think.”

“What? Who? How?” My hands dropped from my hair as I stared at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I
am
telling ye, am I not? Dinna fash yourself, she’s in no danger. Only stinking drunk.” He twitched his shoulders irritably. “The only difficulty is that perhaps it wasna her that was meant to be poisoned. I’ve sent Roger Mac and Brianna to look, and they’ve not come back to say anyone’s dead, so maybe not.”

“
Maybe
not?” I rubbed the bridge of my nose, distracted from the extant worries by this new development. “I grant you, alcohol is poisonous, not that anyone seems ever to realize it, but there’s a difference between being drunk and being deliberately poisoned. What do you mean—”

“Sassenach,” he interrupted.

“What?”

“What in the name o’ God have ye been doing?” he burst out.

I stared at him in bewilderment. His face had been growing redder as we talked, though I had supposed it to be only frustration and worry over Ninian, and the Regulators. It dawned on me, catching a dangerous blue glint in his eye, that there was something rather more personal about his attitude. I tilted my head to one side, giving him a wary look.

“What do you mean, what have I been doing?”

His lips pressed tight together, and he didn’t answer. Instead, he extended a forefinger and touched it, very delicately, beside my mouth. He turned his hand over then, and presented me with a small dark object clinging to the tip of his finger—Phillip Wylie’s star-shaped black beauty mark.

“Oh.” I felt a distinct buzzing in my ears. “That. Er . . .” My head felt light, and small spots—all shaped like black stars—danced before my eyes.

“Yes, that,” he snapped. “Christ, woman! I’m deviled to death wi’ Duncan’s havers and Ninian’s pranks—and why did ye not tell me he’d been fighting wi’ Barlow?”

“I’d scarcely describe it as a fight,” I said, struggling to regain a sense of coolness. “Besides, Major MacDonald put a stop to it since
you
were nowhere to be found. And if you want to be told things, the Major wants—”

“I ken what he wants.” He dismissed the Major with a curt flick of his hand. “Aye, I’m up to my ears in Majors and Regulators and drunken maid servants, and
you’re
out in the stable, canoodling wi’ that fop!”

I felt the blood rising behind my eyes, and curled my fists, in order to control the impulse to slap him.

“I was
not
‘canoodling’ in the slightest degree, and you know it! The beastly little twerp made a pass at me, that’s all.”

“A pass? Made love to ye, ye mean? Aye, I can see that!”

“He did not!”

“Oh, aye? Ye asked him to let ye try his bawbee on for luck, then?” He waggled the finger with the black patch under my nose, and I slapped it away, recalling a moment too late that “make love to” merely meant to engage in amorous flirtation, rather than fornication.

“I
mean
,” I said, through clenched teeth, “that he kissed me. Probably for a joke. I’m old enough to be his mother, for God’s sake!”

“More like his grandmother,” Jamie said brutally. “Kissed ye, forbye—why in hell did ye encourage him, Sassenach?”

My mouth dropped open in outrage—insulted as much at being called Phillip Wylie’s grandmother as at the accusation of having encouraged him.

“Encourage him? Why, you bloody idiot! You know perfectly well I didn’t encourage him!”

“Your own daughter saw ye go in there with him! Have ye no shame? With all else there is to deal with here, am I to be forced to call the man out, as well?”

I felt a slight qualm at the thought of Brianna, and a larger one at the thought of Jamie challenging Wylie to a duel. He wasn’t wearing his sword, but he’d brought it with him. I stoutly dismissed both thoughts.

“
My
daughter is neither a fool nor an evil-minded gossip,” I said, with immense dignity. “She wouldn’t think a thing of my going to look at a horse, and why ought she? Why ought anyone, for that matter?”

He blew out a long breath through pursed lips, and glared at me.

“Why, indeed? Perhaps because everyone saw ye flirt with him on the lawn? Because they saw him follow ye about like a dog after a bitch in heat?” He must have seen my expression alter dangerously at that, for he coughed briefly and hurried on.

“More than one person’s seen fit to mention it to me. D’ye think I like bein’ made a public laughingstock, Sassenach?”

“You—you—” Fury choked me. I wanted to hit him, but I could see interested heads turning toward us. “‘Bitch in heat’? How dare you say such a thing to me, you bloody bastard?”

He had the decency to look slightly abashed at that, though he was still glowering.

“Aye, well. I shouldna have said it quite that way. I didna mean—but ye
did
go off with him, Sassenach. As though I hadna enough to contend with, my own wife . . . and if ye’d gone to see my aunt, as I asked ye, then it wouldna have happened in the first place. Now see what ye’ve done!”

I had changed my mind about the desirability of a duel. I wanted Jamie and Phillip Wylie to kill each other, promptly, publicly, and with the maximum amount of blood. I also didn’t care who was looking. I made a very serious effort to castrate him with my bare hands, and he grabbed my wrists, pulling them up sharply.

“Christ! Folk are watching, Sassenach!”

“I . . . don’t . . . bloody . . . care!” I hissed, struggling to get free. “Let go of me, and I’ll fucking give them something to watch!”

I didn’t take my eyes off his face, but I was aware of a good many other faces turning toward us in the crowd on the lawn. So was he. His brows drew together for a moment, then his face set in sudden decision.

“All right, then,” he said. “Let them watch.”

He wrapped his arms around me, pressed me tight against himself, and kissed me. Unable to get loose, I quit fighting, and went stiff and furious instead. In the distance, I could hear laughter and raucous whoops of encouragement. Ninian Hamilton shouted something in Gaelic that I was pleased not to understand.

He finally moved his lips off mine, still holding me tightly against him, and very slowly bent his head, his cheek lying cool and firm next to mine. His body was firm, too, and not at all cool. The heat of him was leaching through at least six layers of cloth to reach my own skin: shirt, waistcoat, coat, gown, shift, and stays. Whether it was anger, arousal, or both, he was fully stoked and blazing like a furnace.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, his breath hot and tickling in my ear. “I didna mean to insult ye. Truly. Shall I kill him, and then myself?”

I relaxed, very slightly. My hips were pressed solidly against him, and with only five layers of fabric between us there, the effect was reassuring.

“Perhaps not quite yet,” I said. I felt light-headed from the rush of adrenaline, and took a deep breath to steady myself. Then I drew back a little, recoiling from the pungent reek that wafted off his clothes. Had I not been so upset, I would have noticed immediately that he was the source of the vile aroma I had been smelling.