The Scottish Prisoner (Lord John Grey #3)(20)
Author: Diana Gabaldon

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 inquire. 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.

He had an overwhelming urge to smash his fist through something and refrained from punching the walnut paneling in the foyer only because he realized just how much it would hurt—and realized also the futility of such action. He also didn’t mean to meet Colonel Quarry again dripping blood or otherwise at a social disadvantage.

Where would they be? The library, almost certainly. He stalked round the corner of the hallway and nearly trod on the duchess, who gave a startled squeak.

“Your pardon, Your Grace,” he said, with a creditable bow for a man still dressed like a groom.

“Captain Fraser,” she said, a hand pressed winsomely to her bosom.

“Christ, you, too?” he said. It was rude, but he’d no patience left.

“Me, too, what?” she asked, puzzled.

“Why have ye all begun calling me ‘Captain’ Fraser?” he asked. “Ye weren’t yesterday. Did His Grace tell ye to?”

She dropped the winsome hand and gave him a smile—which he distrusted just as much.

“Why, no. I suggested it.” A slight dimple appeared in one cheek. “Or would you prefer to be called Broch Tuarach? It is your proper title, is it not?”

“It was—a thousand years ago. Mr. Fraser will do. Your Grace,” he added as an afterthought, and made to pass. She reached out, though, and laid a hand on his sleeve.

“I wish to talk to you,” she said, low-voiced. “You do remember me?”

“That was a thousand years ago, as well,” he said, with a deliberate look that ran over her from upswept hair to dainty shoe, recalling exactly how he remembered her. “And I have business with Colonel Quarry just the now, if ye please.”

She flushed a little but didn’t otherwise betray any sign of discomposure. She held both his eyes and her smile and squeezed his arm lightly before removing her hand.

“I’ll find you.”

THE BRIEF INTERRUPTION had served to take the edge off his inclination to hit things, and he strode into the library with a decent sense of himself. Rage would not serve him.

Quarry was standing by the fire, talking to Pardloe; both of them turned round, hearing him come in. Quarry’s face was set; wary, but not afraid. Jamie hadn’t expected him to be; he knew Quarry.

Jamie walked up to Pardloe—just close enough to make the little shit look up at him—and said, “I must beg pardon, Your Grace, for taking my leave so abruptly. I felt the need of air.”

Pardloe’s lips twitched. “I trust you feel yourself recovered, Captain Fraser?”

“Quite, I thank ye. Colonel Quarry—your servant, sir.” He’d turned to Quarry without a pause and gave him a bow correct to the inch. Quarry returned it, murmuring, “Your very obedient, sir.” But Jamie had seen the tension go out of Quarry’s shoulders and felt a little slackening of the tightness in his own chest.

He felt Pardloe look beyond him and knew John Grey had come in. The tightness came back.

“Do sit down, gentlemen,” the duke said, with great courtesy, gesturing at the chairs near the hearth. “John, would you tell Pilcock to bring us some brandy?”

“WE WANT TO BRING HIM to court-martial, I think,” Hal said, putting down his glass. “Rather than pursue a civil case in the courts, I mean. On the one hand, a civil case—if we won—would allow us to recover whatever money the bastard hasn’t yet spent, and it would give us scope to blacken his name in the press, hound him relentlessly, and generally ruin his life. However—”

“However, the reverse is true, as well,” Grey said dryly. He’d fortunately never been sued but had been threatened by lawsuits now and then, escaping by the hair of his teeth, and had a very good idea of the chancy and dangerous nature of the law. “He presumably has the money to employ good lawyers. Could—and quite likely would, if half what Carruthers said is true—countersue us for defamation, drag us through the courts, and make our lives a misery for years.”

“Well, yes,” Hal agreed. “There’s that.”

“Whereas in a court-martial, the custom of the army is the basis of procedure, not statute,” Harry put in. “Offers summat more flexibility. In terms of what’s evidence, I mean.”

This was true; essentially, anyone who liked could give testimony at a court-martial, and everything anyone said was considered evidence, though the court-martial board might dismiss or consider any of it, giving what weight they liked to the matter.

“And if he’s found guilty at a court-martial, ye could, I suppose, have him shot?”

All three Englishmen looked at Fraser, startled. The Scot had sat quietly through most of their deliberations, and they’d almost forgotten he was there.

“I think it might be hanging,” Hal said, after a brief pause. “Generally, we shoot men only for desertion or mutiny.”

“An attractive thought, though.” Quarry lifted his glass to Fraser in acknowledgment, before turning to the others. “Do we want him dead, do you think?”

Grey considered that. The notion of bringing Siverly to justice and making him account for what were very serious crimes was one thing. The notion of hunting him deliberately to his death, though …

“I don’t know,” Grey said slowly. “But perhaps I ought not to take part in such considerations. Siverly did save my life at Quebec, and while that wouldn’t stop me pursuing a case against him … I think—no. I don’t want him dead.”

Grey didn’t look at Fraser, unsure whether the Scot might consider this reluctance to exterminate Siverly as pusillanimous.

“Much better to have him cashiered and imprisoned, held up as an example,” Hal said. “Besides, being executed is over too quickly. I want the bugger to suffer.”

There was a faint sound from the corner where Fraser sat, a little apart. Grey glanced over and saw to his surprise that the man was laughing, in that odd Highland manner that convulsed the face while making very little sound.

“And here I thought it was mercy ye offered when ye declined to shoot me,” Fraser said to Hal. “A debt of honor, did ye say?” He lifted his glass, ironical.

A deep flush rose in Hal’s face. Grey didn’t think he’d ever seen his brother at a total loss for words before. Hal looked at Fraser for several moments, then finally nodded.

“Touché, Captain Fraser,” he said, and without a pause turned back to Grey.

“Court-martial it is, then. Harry and I will start the business here, while you and the captain go to retrieve Major Siverly. Now, Harry—who do you know in Ireland who might be of help?”

11

Vulgar Curiosity

EDWARD TWELVETREES WAS IN GREY’S MIND WHEN HE awoke in the morning from a disturbing dream in which he faced a man in duello, at pistols drawn. His opponent had no face, but somehow he knew it was Edward Twelvetrees.

The roots of the dream were clear to him; he would never hear the name Twelvetrees without some thought of the duel in which Hal had killed Nathaniel Twelvetrees, after Nathaniel’s seduction of Hal’s first wife. Grey had known nothing about the duel at the time—let alone its cause—he being both too young and not present, having been sent away to Aberdeen after the death of his father.

The sense of the dream stayed with him through breakfast, and he went out into the garden, in hopes that fresh air would clear his head. He had not walked up and down for more than a few minutes, though, when his sister-in-law came out of the house, a basket with a pair of secateurs in it over her arm. She greeted him with pleasure, and they strolled up and down, talking idly of the boys, the play he’d seen earlier in the week, the state of Hal’s head—his brother suffered periodically from the megrims and had had a sick headache the night before. But the thought of that duel would not leave him.