The Scottish Prisoner (Lord John Grey #3)(62)
Author: Diana Gabaldon

“I—” Grey stopped, unable to formulate his thoughts coherently; there were too many of them.

“Aye, we’re guilty of that man’s death—the two of us, and dinna think I say so out of kindness. I ken well what ye mean—and what ye feel.” Fraser stopped for a moment, turning to face Grey, his eyes intent. They stood outside the house of the Earl of Prestwick; the lanterns had been lit and the light fell through the wrought-iron bars of the fence, striping them both.

“I accused him of treason in public, to stop him executing actions that would have injured folk who are mine. He challenged me, to prevent any suspicion attaching to him, so that he could carry out his schemes, though they were not the schemes I—we—assumed him to have. You then challenged him, to—” He halted suddenly and stared hard at Grey. “Ostensibly,” he said, more slowly, “ye challenged him to preserve your honor, to refute the slur of sodomy.” His lips compressed into a tight line.

“Ostensibly,” Grey echoed. “Why the bloody hell else would I have done it?”

Fraser’s eyes searched his face. Grey felt the touch of the other man’s gaze, an odd sensation, but kept his own face composed. Or hoped he did.

“Her Grace says that ye did it for the sake of your friendship with me,” Fraser said at last, quietly. “And I am inclined to think her right.”

“Her Grace should mind her own bloody business.” Grey turned away abruptly and began walking. Fraser caught him up within a pace or two, bootheels muffled on the sandy path. Small forms darted in and out of the scattered light from the lanterns of the big houses: children, mostly, scavenging the piles of horse droppings left on the riding path.

Grey had noticed the nice distinction: “for the sake of your friendship with me,” as opposed to the simpler—but far more threatening—“for me.” He didn’t know if the distinction was Minnie’s or Fraser’s, but supposed it didn’t matter. Both statements were true, and if Fraser preferred the greater distance of the former, he was welcome to it.

“We are both guilty in his death,” Fraser repeated doggedly. “But so is he.”

“How? He couldn’t have suffered your accusation without response. And he couldn’t have told you, even privately, what the truth of his position was.”

“He could,” Fraser corrected, “save that he saw it as his duty not to.”

Grey looked at him blankly. “Of course.”

Fraser turned his head away, but Grey thought he detected the glimmer of a smile among the shadows. “You are an Englishman,” Fraser said dryly. “So was he. And had he not tried to kill ye at the last—”

“He had to,” Grey interrupted. “His only other choice would have been to ask me to yield—and he knew bloody well I wouldn’t.”

Fraser gave a cursory nod of acknowledgment. “Did I not say it was logical?”

“You did. But …” He let his voice trail away. In the enormity of his own regret, he hadn’t paused to think that what Fraser said was true: he also had a share in Twelvetrees’s death—and therefore in the regret.

“Aye, but,” Fraser said with a sigh, “I would have done the same. But ye’ve killed men before, and likely better men than Twelvetrees.”

“Quite possibly. But I killed them as—as enemies. From duty.” Would it have come to this pass if not for Esmé and Nathaniel? Yes, likely it would.

“Ye killed him as an enemy, did ye not? The fact that he wasna one in fact is not your fault.”

“That is a very specious argument.”

“Doesna mean it’s not true.”

“Do you think you can argue me out of guilt? Out of horror and melancholy?” Grey demanded, annoyed.

“I do, aye. It isna possible to feel urgent emotion and engage in rational discourse at the same time.”

“Oh, yes, it is,” Grey began, with some warmth, but as it was that unfortunate conversation in the stable at Helwater that would have formed his prime example, he abandoned this tack. “Do you truly consider all impassioned speech to be illogical? What about the bloody Declaration of Arbroath?”

“A speech may be conceived in passion,” Fraser conceded, “but it’s executed in cold blood, for the most part. The declaration was written—or at least subscribed—by a number of men. They canna all have been in the grip of passion when they did it.”

Grey actually laughed, though shortly, then shook his head.

“You are trying to distract me from the point at issue.”

“No,” said Fraser thoughtfully. “I think I am trying to lead ye to the point at issue—which is that no matter how much a man may try to do what is right, the outcome may not be one that he either foresees or desires. And that’s grounds for regret—sometimes verra great regret,” he added more softly, “but not for everlasting guilt. For it is there we must throw ourselves on God’s mercy and hope to receive it.”

“And you speak from experience.” Grey had not meant this statement to sound challenging, but it did, and Fraser exhaled strongly through his long Scottish nose.

“I do,” he said, after a moment’s silence. He sighed. “When I was laird of Lallybroch, one of my tenants came to ask my help. She was an auld woman, concerned for one of her grandsons. His father beat him, she said, and she was feart that he would kill the lad. Would I not take him to be a stable-lad at my house?

“I said that I would. But when I spoke to the father, he’d have none of it and reproached me for tryin’ to take his son away from him.” He sighed again.

“I was young, and a fool. I struck him. In fact … I beat him, and he yielded to me. I took the lad. Rabbie, his name was; Rabbie MacNab.”

Grey gave a small start, but said nothing.

“Well. Ronnie—that was the father’s name; he was Ronald MacNab, and his son, Rabbie—betrayed me to the Watch, out of his fury and bereavement, and I was arrested and taken to an English prison. I … escaped …” He hesitated, as though wondering whether to say more, but decided against it and went on. “But later, when I came back to Lallybroch in the early days of the Rising, I found MacNab’s croft burnt out, and him gone up in smoke and ashes on his own hearthstone.”

“I take it this was no accident?”

Fraser shook his head, the movement barely perceptible, as they were passing under the great row of elms along the east side of the park.

“No,” he said softly. “My other tenants did it, for they kent well who had betrayed me. They did what seemed right—their duty to me—as I had done what seemed right and my duty as laird. And yet the end of it was death, and nothing I intended.”

Their steps were soft, nearly shuffling as they walked more slowly.

“I take your point,” Grey said at last, quietly. “What became of the boy? Rabbie?”

One large shoulder moved slightly.

“He lived in my house—he and his mother—during the Rising. Afterward … my sister said he had made up his mind to go south, to see if he might find work, for there was nothing left in the Highlands for a young man, save the army, and that he wouldna do.”

Greatly daring, Grey touched Jamie’s arm, very gently.

“You said that a man cannot foresee the outcome of his actions, and that’s true. But in this case, I can tell you one of yours.”

“What?” Fraser spoke sharply, whether from the touch or from Grey’s words, but did not jerk away.

“Rabbie MacNab. I know what became of him. He is—or was, when last I saw him—a London chairman and contemplating marriage.” He forbore to tell Fraser that Rab’s intended was his acquaintance, Nessie, not knowing whether a Scotch Catholic’s view of prostitution might be similar to that of a Scotch Presbyterian, who tended in Grey’s experience to be rather rigid and censorious about the pleasures of the flesh.

Fraser’s hand closed on his forearm, startling Grey considerably.

“Ye ken where he is?” Fraser’s voice showed his excitement. “Can ye tell me where I might find him?”

Grey rummaged hastily through his scattered thoughts, trying to recall where Agnes had said: My new house … The end o’ Brydges Street.… Mrs. Donoghue …

“Yes,” he said, feeling his spirit rise a little. “I can find him for you, I’m sure.”

“I—thank ye, my lord,” Jamie said abruptly.

“Don’t call me that.” John felt a little better but suddenly unutterably tired. “If we share blood guilt and remorse for what we did to that bastard Twelvetrees, you can for God’s sake call me by my Christian name, can you not?”

Fraser paced in silence for a bit, thinking.

“I could,” he said slowly. “For now. But I shall go back to—to my place, and it willna do then. I … should find it disagreeable to become accustomed to such a degree of familiarity and then …” He made a small, dismissive gesture.

“You needn’t go back,” Grey said, reckless. He had no power to commute Fraser’s sentence nor pardon him and no business to suggest such a thing—not without Hal’s assent. But he thought it could be done.

He’d shocked the Scot, he saw; Fraser drew a little away, even as they walked together.

“I … am much obliged to your lordship for the thought,” he said at last. His voice sounded queer, Grey thought, and wondered why. “I … even if it should be possible … I—I do not wish to leave Helwater.”

Grey misunderstood for a moment and sought to reassure him. “I do not mean you should be committed to prison again, nor even released to a new parole in London. I mean, in light of your great service to—to the government … it might be possible to arrange a pardon. You could be … free.”

The word hung in the air between them, small and solid. Fraser drew a long, tremulous breath, but when he spoke, his words were firm.

“I take your meaning, my lord. And I am truly very much obliged for the kindness ye intend. But there is—I have … someone … at Helwater. Someone for whose sake I must return.”

“Who?” Grey asked, very startled by this.

“Her name is Betty Mitchell. One of the lady’s maids.”

“Really,” Grey said blankly, then, coming to the realization that this sounded very discourteous, hastened to make amends. “I—I congratulate you.”

“Aye, well, ye needna do that just yet,” Fraser said. “I havena spoken to her—formally, I mean. But there is … what ye might call an understanding.”

Grey felt rather as though he’d stepped on a garden rake which had leapt up and banged him on the nose. It was the last thing he would have expected—not only in light of the social differences that must exist between a lady’s maid and a laird (though a brief thought of Hal and Minnie drifted through the back of his mind, together with a vision of the scorched hearth rug), no matter how far the laird’s fortunes had fallen, but in light of what Grey had always assumed to be Fraser’s very exigent feelings toward his dead wife.