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.
“The camp?” Angelina said blankly, interrupted in her mental preparations. “To the … American camp? Sure you don’t mean behind the siege lines?”
Well, this could get sticky …
“It’s a matter of friendship, Angelina,” Bree said firmly. “My husband is a minister; he knows a lot of people on both sides of this war, and it’s a friend of his, a surgeon named Dr. Wallace, who asked for me to come.”
“Dr. Wallace … oh! You don’t mean the Dr. Wallace, who operated on the governor?” Angelina was round-eyed by this time, alarmed but excited by the sense of emergency.
“I … possibly,” Brianna said, taken aback. “I haven’t met him yet. I’m sure that—”
“I wish to speak with Mrs. MacKenzie,” a deep male voice said from somewhere down the corridor. “My friend wishes to engage her for a portrait. Lord John Grey recommended that we call upon her—a mutual acquaintance. Please inform her that I have brought a letter of introduction, and—”
“Mein Gott,” Brianna said under her breath. John Grey? What on earth—
The gentleman—his voice was English, educated—was encountering resistance from Henrike. Brianna was already picking up pencils, charcoal sticks, shuffling together a box of things she might need to make the image of a dead man. There wasn’t time …
“Angelina,” she said, over her shoulder. “Could you maybe tell this man that I’ve been called away on an urgent errand? He can come back tomorrow—or … or maybe the next day,” she added doubtfully. No telling how long it might take.
“Of course!” Angelina headed purposefully for the hall, and Brianna closed her eyes and tried to think. The kids, first. At least she could tell them that Daddy was coming to see them soon. Then … what on earth to wear for a commission of this sort? It would have to be her rough painting gown, for riding a mule and whatever the conditions might be in a siege camp … Would they have trenches? she wondered.
The voices in the hallway had risen and there were more of them. Angelina and Henrike were arguing with what sounded like two men now, both of whom seemed set upon seeing Mrs. MacKenzie, come hell or high water.
There wasn’t time for this. Impatient, she stepped out into the hall, intending to send the visitors on their way. The morning sun flooded in through the open front door, silhouetting what seemed like a mob of shadow-people, black bodies, faceless heads, limbs outlined in sparking light as they moved. It was one of those sudden, beautiful sights that happen without warning, and she paused for a single heartbeat to fix it in her mind. Then one of the taller figures moved, turning, and she saw in outline the same long, straight nose, the same high brow that her fingers had drawn so recently.
“Wait!” she said. She had no memory of striding down the hall but was suddenly face-to-face with him and there was no more obscuring shadow, but morning sun lighting a shockingly familiar pair of blue and slanted eyes fixed on hers.
“Bloody hell,” he said, completely startled. “It’s you!”
“YOUR BROTHER?” ANGELINA was excited beyond all bearing. “And you didn’t know he was here, nor he you? How amazing!”
“Yes,” Bree said. “Yes … amazing.” In a daze, she extended a tentative hand toward him. William blinked once, grasped the hand, and bowed over it, kissing it lightly. The feel of his breath on her turpentine-chilled hand raised the hairs on her forearm, and she tightened her fingers on his. He straightened up but didn’t pull away; his fingers turned and covered hers.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he said, and she could see—and feel—his eyes searching her face, just the way she was searching his.
“Oh, not at all,” she said, meaning quite the opposite. He caught that, smiled a little, and let go of her hand. “I—did you say that Lord John sent you?”
“Yes, he did, the conniving old sod. Er … begging your pardon, ma’am.” He took his gaze off her for a moment, turning toward the other gentleman. This was a tall, very broad young man of mixed blood, with a remarkable cap of close-cropped tight curls of a soft reddish brown.
“Allow me to present my friend, Mr. John Cinnamon,” William said. Angelina and Henrike curtsied immediately in a bloom of skirts. Mr. Cinnamon looked quite horrified, but after a quick glance at William, he bowed deeply and murmured, “Your most obedient servant … ma’am. And … er … ma’am.”
“Er … ma’am? Mrs. MacKenzie?” Lieutenant Hanson, quite eclipsed by William and Mr. Cinnamon, who were each a good foot taller than he was, struggled manfully to regain Brianna’s attention. “We must be going, ma’am, or we shan’t arrive in time for you to … er … do it.” He cleared his throat.
“And who are you, may I ask?” William was frowning at the lieutenant’s blue-and-buff uniform. “What on earth are you doing here?”
Bree cleared her own throat, loudly.
“Lieutenant Hanson came to fetch me for an urgent commission,” she said. “I—he’s right. We need to leave, as soon as I’ve packed my things and changed clothes. Told the children. Will you … come with me, back to my studio? We can talk while I put things together.”
BY UNSPOKEN CONSENSUS, William came alone, leaving his friend and Lieutenant Hanson to the tender mercies of Angelina and Henrike, who were already twittering about cakes, coffee, and perhaps slices of cold ham …
Brianna’s stomach gurgled at the thought of ham sandwiches, but she suppressed it for the moment and turned to William. My brother.
“I wanted to tell you,” she said at once, closing the door and standing with her back against it. “When we first met. Do you remember? On the quay in Wilmington. Roger—my husband—was with me, and Jem and Mandy. That was—I wanted you to meet them, see them, even if you didn’t know we were … yours.”
He looked away and put a hand on the table, touching the wood only with his fingertips. She felt the solid door against her shoulder blades and understood the need of physical support.
“Mine?” he said softly, looking down at the scatter of papers and brushes on the table.
“I should probably say something polite about ‘only if you want us,’” she said. “But it’s—”
“A bit late for that,” he finished, and looked up at her, his eyes wary but direct. “To lie about the truth, I mean.” His mouth turned up a little at one side, but she wasn’t sure it was a smile. “Particularly when it’s as plain as the nose on your face. And mine.”
She touched her own nose by reflex, and laughed, a little nervously. His nose was hers, and the eyes, too. He was tanned, though, with dark-chestnut hair clubbed in a queue, and while his face was very like her—their—father’s, his mouth had come from somewhere else.
“Well. I do apologize, though. For not telling you.”
He looked at her, expressionless, for the space of four heartbeats; she felt each small thud distinctly.
“I accept your apology,” he said dryly. “Though in all honesty, I’m glad you didn’t tell me.” He paused, then, apparently thinking this might sound ungracious, added, “I wouldn’t have known how to respond to such a revelation. At the time.”
“And you do now?”
“No, I bloody don’t,” he said frankly. “But as my uncle recently pointed out, at least I haven’t blown my brains out. When I was seventeen, I might have.”
A hot flush rose in her cheeks. He wasn’t joking.