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.
“No, just gunpowder,” Trix said, recovering.
“Mother Abbott called him ‘Captain,’ though,” Trix added. “And ’twas clear enough he weren’t a soldier.”
A few more questions emptied both bottles, and it was clear that the girls had told him all they knew, little as it was. At least he had a name. There were sounds in the house, opening doors, heavy footsteps, men’s voices and women’s greetings; it was just past teatime and the cullies were beginning to come in.
He rose, arranged himself without shame, and bowed to them, thanking them for their kind assistance.
At the bottom of the stairs, he heard Trix call down to him and looked up to see her leaning over the rail of the landing above.
“Aye?” he said. She glanced round to make sure there was no one near, then scuttled down the stairs and took him by the sleeve.
“I know one thing more,” she said. “When Mother Abbott went to sell Arabella’s maidenhead, she hadn’t one, so they had to use a bladder of chicken blood.”
SILVIA SENT HER girls off with a tray loaded with food, to eat in the bedroom. Then she sat down at the table, where Jenny and Rachel had laid out thick slices of bread on which to serve the bacon and beans, they having no more than the two warped wooden plates that had been provided with their rooms.
Ian thought the smell of food might be enough to knock him over; he couldn’t recall the last time he’d eaten—he thought it might have been yesterday sometime, but he’d been too busy to notice. He broke off a corner of bread with a good bit of beans cooked with bacon and onions on it, shoveled it into his mouth, and made an involuntary sound that caused all the women to look at him.
“Ye sound like a starving wolf, lad,” his mother said, raising her brows.
Rachel laughed, and Silvia smiled, very gingerly. She ate the same way, owing to her split lip, and he thought, from the tentative way she chewed, that a couple of her teeth might have been loosened as well. If he’d had any compunction about killing Judge Fredericks—and he hadn’t—it would have vanished on the spot.
He felt much the same toward the so-called Friends of the Yearly Meeting. Rachel had told him a good bit about the nature of Quaker meetings, and he understood that while anyone was welcome to sit and to worship with them, it was a different thing to be part of the meeting: people were accepted only after consideration and conference.
There was something akin to the way a clan worked in this; there was an expectation of obligation that went both ways. So he could understand, he supposed, why the Friends of Philadelphia hadn’t simply scooped Silvia into their bosoms. Still, he resented them for it.
“Friends are ideally meant to be compassionate, peaceable, and honest,” Rachel said, frowning. “This does not mean that they reserve judgment, nor that they don’t possess strong opinions, which they are, of course, welcome to express.”
“And they gossip?” Ian asked. Rachel sighed.
“We do. I mean,” she added, “we discourage anything in the way of ill-natured gossip, spreading scandal or personal disparagement—but by the nature of a meeting, everyone knows everyone else’s business.”
“Aye.” Ian scraped a last bit of bread around the rim of the pot, salvaging the rest of the succulent juice. “Well, Friend Silvia’s business is none of theirs. Do ye have a notion what ye’d like to do, or where ye want to go, lass?” he asked, addressing Silvia. “We’ll help ye do it, regardless.”
“I wish to go with you,” Silvia blurted. A red tide surged up her thin neck and blotched her cheeks. “I know I haven’t any right to ask you—but I do.”
Rachel at once looked at Ian, and so did his mother. Well, he was the man, and it was his fault they were here, so he supposed he had a right to decide how many women he could reasonably juggle. Still …
“I do not wish to remain in Philadelphia,” Silvia said. She’d got hold of herself and her voice was steady. “Since Yearly Meeting knows who I am—both by name and reputation,” she added, with a slight note of bitterness, “I will find no acceptance here. Any meeting that took me in would soon realize their mistake. And while I could earn a living as an actual whore, I will not on any account expose my daughters to such a life.”
“Aye,” Ian said reluctantly. “I suppose ye’re right, but—we’re bound for New York, lass, and the country of the Hodeenosaunee.”
“That’s the Iroquois League,” Rachel put in. “More specifically, we’re bound for a small town called Canajoharie, inhabited by the Mohawk.”
“I suppose I might find a place somewhere before we reach Canajoharie. But if not—have the Mohawk any objection to whores?” Silvia asked, a small frown creasing the flesh between her brows.
“They dinna really have a word for that,” Ian said. “And if they dinna have a word for something, it’s no important.”
Oggy, who had been having an earnest conversation with his toes, looked up at this point, said “Da” very clearly, and then returned to his toes.
Ian smiled, then sighed deeply and addressed his son.
“Three women and three wee lassies. I’m sure ye’ll be as much aid to me as ye can, a bhalaich, but there’s no help for it. I’ll need another man.”
81
Still Imminent
IT HAD BEEN ONE of those beautiful autumn days when the sun is bright and warm at its zenith, but a chill creeps in at dawn and dusk and the nights are cold enough to make a good fire, a good thick quilt, and a good man with a lot of body heat in bed beside you more than welcome.
The good man in question stretched himself, groaning, and relapsed into the luxury of rest with a sigh, his hand on my thigh. I patted it and rolled toward him, dislodging Adso, who had alighted at the foot of the bed, but leapt off with a brief mirp! of annoyance at this indication that we didn’t mean to lapse into immobility just yet.
“So, Sassenach, what have ye been doing all day?” Jamie asked, stroking my hip. His eyes were half closed in the drowsy pleasure of warmth, but focused on my face.
“Oh, Lord …” Dawn seemed an eon ago, but I stretched myself and eased comfortably into his touch. “Just chores, for the most part … but a man named Herman Mortenson came up from Woolam’s Mill in late morning to have a pilonidal cyst at the base of his spine lanced and evacuated; I haven’t smelled anything that bad since Bluebell rolled in a decayed pig’s carcass. But then,” I added, sensing that this might not be the right note on which to begin a pleasant autumn evening’s rencontre, “I spent most of the afternoon in the garden, pulling up peanut bushes and picking the last of the beans. And talking to the bees, of course.”
“Did they have anything interesting to say to ye, Sassenach?” The stroking had edged over into a pleasant massage of my behind, which had the salutary side effect of causing me to arch my back and press my breasts lightly against his chest. I used my free hand to loosen my shift, gather one breast up, and rub my nipple against his, which made him clutch my arse and say something under his breath in Gaelic.
“And, um, how was your day?” I asked, desisting.
“If ye do that again, Sassenach, I’m no going to answer for the results,” he said, scratching his nipple as though it had been bitten by a large mosquito. “As for what I did, I built a new gate for the farrowing sty. Speakin’ o’ pigs.”
“Speaking of pigs …” I repeated, slowly. “Um … did you go into the sty?”
“No. Why?” His hand moved a little farther down, cupping my left buttock.
“I’d forgotten to tell you, because you’d gone to Tennessee to talk to Mr. Sevier and Colonel Shelby and didn’t come back for a week. But I went up there”—the sty was a small cave in the limestone cliff above the house—“a week ago, to fetch a jar of turpentine I’d left there from the worming, and—you know how the cave curves off to the left?”