Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone
- Автор: Гэблдон Диана
- Серия: Outlander #9
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Delacorte Press
- ISBN: 978-1-473-51900-8
- Жанр: Исторические приключения
Электронная книга - «Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone». Краткое содержание книги:
The past may seem the safest place to be . . . but it is the most dangerous time to be alive. . . .
Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1746, and it took them twenty years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same. It is 1779 and Claire and Jamie are at last reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser’s Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible. Yet even in the North Carolina backcountry, the effects of war are being felt. Tensions in the Colonies are great and local feelings run hot enough to boil Hell’s teakettle. Jamie knows loyalties among his tenants are split and it won’t be long until the war is on his doorstep. Brianna and Roger have their own worry: that the dangers that provoked their escape from the twentieth century might catch up to them. Sometimes they question whether risking the perils of the 1700s—among them disease, starvation, and an impending war—was indeed the safer choice for their family. Not so far away, young William Ransom is still coming to terms with the discovery of his true father’s identity—and thus his own—and Lord John Grey has reconciliations to make, and dangers to meet . . . on his son’s behalf, and his own. Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War creeps ever closer to Fraser’s Ridge. And with the family finally together, Jamie and Claire have more at stake than ever before.
“Where did ye get this?” Roger asked, after the first sip. He lifted his glass to admire the color, sparkling like a ruby in the firelight. “I haven’t drunk anything like this since—since—well, I’m no sure I’ve ever drunk anything this good.”
Marsali and Fergus exchanged a marital glance.
“It’s likely better ye dinna ken,” she told Roger, laughing. “But there’s a wee bit more where that came from—dinna hold back!”
“Certainement,” Fergus agreed, and lifted his own glass to Roger. “You have brought home our prodigal. If you want to bathe in it, say the word.”
“Don’t tempt me.” Roger took a long, slow sip and closed his eyes, his worn face relaxing wonderfully.
Bree hadn’t drunk much wine since Amy Higgins’s death; the smell of grapes reminded her too much of that day among the scuppernongs, and the color of red wine was too much the color of blood, fresh in the sunlight. Even so, this wine seemed not so much to be swallowed as to dissolve right through her membranes and into her own sweet blood, and she felt her body gradually soften, easing back into its natural shape as the tension of the trip left her.
They’d made it.
So far, said the cynical back of her mind, but she ignored that. For the moment, everyone was safe—and together.
Germain hadn’t gone to bed with Jem and Mandy and his sisters; he was curled up beside his mother on the settle, sound asleep with his head in her lap, and she smoothed a hand gently over his tousled blond head, with a look of such tenderness on her face that it smote Bree in the heart.
She touched her breastbone lightly at the thought, but everything was peaceful within, a soft, regular THUMP-thump, THUMP-thump that would lull her to sleep in moments, if she let it. A brief squawk from the cradle by Fergus’s chair drove the notion of sleep out of her head, and she sat up quickly, a maternal surge rising straight up from belly to breasts with surprising force.
“If one goes, the other will, too,” Marsali said, sighing and reaching for her laces. “Hold my wine, will ye, Bree?”
She took the glass, warm from the fire and Marsali’s hand, and watched, half enviously, as Fergus handed one swaddled bundle to his wife, then bent to pick the other baby up from the cradle.
“This one’s wet,” he said, holding the little boy away from his body.
“I’ll change him.” Bree put the wine on the table and took the bundle from Fergus, who released his son with alacrity and sat down again with his own glass, looking happy.
There were clean clouts and rags on a shelf, and a small tin of some sort of ointment that smelled of lavender, chamomile, and oatmeal. She smiled, recognizing a version of Mama’s diaper-rash cream.
“Who do I have?” she asked, turning back the blanket to reveal a small, round, sleepy face and a slick of light-brown hair down the middle of the head.
“Charles-Claire,” said Fergus, and nodded at Marsali’s bundle. “That’s Alexandre.”
“Hello there,” she said softly, and the baby smacked his lips in a thoughtful sort of way and began to wiggle inside his wrappings. “Comment ça va?”
“Wah!”
“Oh, not that good, eh? Well, let’s see about it, then …”
TIRED AS THEY were, nobody wanted to go to bed. Brianna could feel sleep gently creeping up from her tired feet and aching shins, over her knees like a warm quilt. But there was much to be said, and after a lot of catching up with the current state of things on the Ridge, plus the welfare of all the people and animals there, they reached an explanation of their presence in Charles Town.
“It was mostly Germain,” Roger said, smiling at the sleeping boy and then at Marsali. “Once he’d had your letter, of course we had to come. And, um”—he darted a quick glance at Bree—“I think Jamie said he’d sent you a note?”
That made Marsali look sharply at Fergus, who made an offhand “It’s nothing” sort of gesture. Roger cleared his throat and continued. “But Charles Town is on the way, after all.”
“On the way where?” Fergus had relaxed into something like bonelessness, eyelids half shut against the smoke from the driftwood fire. Brianna thought she’d never seen him this way before—completely at peace.
“To Savannah,” Roger replied, with a touch of pride that warmed Brianna more than the fire. “Bree’s got a commission—to paint the wife of a rich merchant named Brumby.”
One of Fergus’s brows twitched up.
“Congratulations, ma soeur. Savannah … is this Monsieur Alfred Brumby?”
“Yes,” she said, surprised. “Do you know him? Or anything about him?”
“I see his name painted on any number of boxes and barrels on the wharves, as they pass from Savannah to Philadelphia and Boston. He’s an importer of molasses from the West Indies. And very rich in consequence, I assure you. Charge him anything you like for his portrait; he won’t blink.”
Brianna rolled a sip of wine around her mouth, enjoying the slight roughness on her tongue.
“Do I take it that ‘importer’ is a polite name for ‘smuggler’?”
“Well, no more than half the time,” Fergus said, with a slight Gallic shrug. “It is still legal to import molasses into the colonies—but naturally, there is a tax for doing so. And where you have taxes …”
“You have smugglers,” Roger finished, and belched slightly. “Pardon me. So are you saying that Mr. Brumby is importing molasses and smuggling it?”
“Mais oui,” Marsali said, laughing. “He pays his taxes on the barrels marked as molasses, and the barrels marked as salt fish or rice pass unremarked—and untaxed. So long as the inspector doesn’t smell them …”
“And as Monsieur Brumby is shrewd enough to pay him off, he doesn’t,” Fergus finished. He bent and fished about under the low table, coming out with another bottle, this one unlabeled. “Speaking of smells,” he said, squinting at Roger, “I do not wish to give offense by making personal remarks, but …”
“It’s sauerkraut,” Brianna said apologetically. “Speaking of smuggling …” She cleared her throat discreetly. She’d been on edge throughout their journey, in constant fear of the barrels breaking, leaking, falling to the ground, or calling undue attention to themselves, but her father had—no surprise—been right: nobody wanted to get near them. And now, safely arrived, well fed, and half drunk, she was inclined to feel some pride in their success.
When Roger mentioned the amount of gold that Jamie had sent, Fergus pursed his lips in a soundless whistle, and he and Marsali exchanged a look, tinged with warning.
“Da knows it’s dangerous,” Bree hastened to say. “He wouldn’t want you to put yourselves in any danger. But if you—”
“Pfft,” Fergus said, and pulled the cork. “In these times, there’s little one can do that isn’t dangerous. If I’m going to be killed for something, I should like it to be something that matters. If it’s entertaining, so much the better.”
Bree, watching Marsali’s face as he made this airy statement, thought that Marsali might have a few more private doubts, but she nodded, face sober.
“I’ll help him,” Roger assured Marsali, seeing her reservations. “Nobody will suspect me of being an arms dealer. Or at least I hope they won’t …”
“Roger’s about to be fully ordained,” Bree said, seeing their puzzled looks, and felt her usual affection and pride, tinged with fear, when the matter of Roger’s calling arose. “That’s the other reason for us coming to Charles Town. He has to meet with a—er—presbytery of ministers here, so they can examine him and make sure he’s still fit to be one.”