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.
There was a moment’s silence in the room. William could hear footsteps somewhere upstairs, and muffled yelling that was undoubtedly Trevor. Amaranthus’s eyes flicked upward, but she didn’t move. A moment later, the footsteps evidently reached the little boy, because the yelling stopped abruptly. Amaranthus’s shoulders relaxed a little and he noticed for the first time that she wore dark blue and wore no fichu, so the curve of her full breasts showed white above the cloth.
She saw him notice and gave him a direct look.
“I wanted a coward, you know,” she said. “A man who’d stay away from danger and blood and all those things.”
“And you thought I might be one?” He was curious, rather than offended.
She made a small puffing noise and shook her head.
“At first. Uncle John said you’d resigned your commission, and I could see that he and Father Pardloe were bothered that you did.”
“I expect they were,” he said, careful to let nothing show in his voice.
“But it didn’t take long to see what you were. What you still are.” Her fists had gradually relaxed, and one hand absently gathered her skirt into folds.
He wanted to ask just what she thought he was, but that could wait.
“Ben,” he said firmly. “I have to tell Uncle Hal. But I—I mean, he has to know that Ben’s alive and where—and what—he is. But perhaps he needn’t know that … you knew about it.”
He hadn’t thought for a moment of concealing her knowledge from Uncle Hal until he heard the words coming out of his mouth.
Her face changed like a drop of quicksilver, and she turned round again and stood stiff as a tailor’s dummy. He thought he could see her heart beating, the tight blue bodice quivering ever so slightly across her back.
He realized suddenly that now he was standing there with his hands fisted, and made himself relax. A drop of sweat ran down the back of his neck—there was a fire and the room was warm. The ghost of bay rum lingered among the scents of burning wood and candle wax.
She made a tiny sound, perhaps a muffled sob, and crossed her arms, hugging herself convulsively.
He took a step toward her, uncertain, and stopped. What might Uncle Hal do, if he learned of her duplicity? He supposed that his uncle might be able to take Trevor away from her and send her away …
“They’ll hang him,” she whispered, so softly that for a moment he heard only the anguish in it, and that anguish made him go to her and put his hands on her shoulders. A deep shiver went over her as though she were dissolving inside, and his arms went round her.
“They won’t,” he whispered into her hair, but she shook her head and the shiver didn’t stop.
“Yes, they will. I’ve heard them talk—the officers, the politicals, the—the nitwits at parties—gloating at the th-thought of Washington and his generals hanging on a g-gibbet.” She took a deep, tearing breath. “Like rotten fruit. That’s what they always say—like rotten fruit.”
His stomach tightened and so did his arms.
“So you still love him,” he said quietly, after what seemed a long while.
Her head fitted neatly under his chin, and he could feel the heat of it and smell her hair; she was wearing his father’s Italian cologne. He closed his eyes and took one breath at a time, imagining cedar groves and olive orchards and sun on ancient stone.
And dripping water in a garden and a toad’s gleaming black eyes …
And a moment later, the door opened.
“Oh, William,” Lord John said mildly. “You’re back, then.”
WILLIAM STOOD STILL a moment longer, his arms round Amaranthus. He wasn’t guilty in this—well, not quite—and he declined to act as though he was. He stepped back and gave her arms a comforting squeeze before turning round to face his father.
Lord John was standing there in full day uniform, his hat in one hand. He looked calm and pleasant, but his eyes were clearly drawing conclusions, and probably the wrong ones.
“I found Ben,” William said, and his father’s eyes sharpened at once. “He’s alive, and he’s joined the Americans. Under an assumed name,” he added.
“Thank God for small mercies,” Lord John said, half under his breath, then tossed his hat onto one of the gilt chairs and went to Amaranthus, who was still facing the wall, her head bowed. Her shoulders were shaking.
“You should sit down, my dear.” Lord John took her firmly by one forearm and turned her round. “Go and tell cook we want some tea, please, William—and something to eat. You’ll feel better with something in your stomach,” he told Amaranthus, guiding her toward the settee. She’d gone the color of egg custard and had her lashes lowered—to hide her telltale eyes, William thought cynically. She wasn’t crying; there were no tears on her cheeks. He’d never seen her cry, and wondered briefly if she could.
“Where’s Uncle Hal?” he asked, pausing on the threshold. “Shall I go and fetch him?”
Amaranthus gasped as though he’d punched her in the stomach, and looked up, wide-eyed. His father reacted in much the same way, though in a more stoic and soldierly fashion.
“God,” William said softly. He stood quite still for a moment, thinking, then shook himself back into order.
“He’s on his way to Charles Town,” Lord John said, and blew out a long breath. “Going to have a look at the fortifications. He’ll be back in a week or two.”
William and Lord John exchanged a brief look, glanced together at Amaranthus, then back at each other.
“I—don’t suppose it’s news that will spoil with keeping,” William said awkwardly. “I’ll … just go and tell Cook about the tea.”
“Wait.” Amaranthus’s voice stopped him at the door, and he turned. She was still pale and curdled, and her hands were knotted just under her breasts, as though to keep her heart from escaping. She had regained her self-possession, though, and her voice trembled only a little as she focused her gaze on Lord John.
“I have to tell you something, Uncle John.”
“No,” William said quickly. “You don’t need to say anything right now, cousin. Just—just rest a bit. You’ve had a shock. So have we all.”
“No,” she said, and shook her head slightly, dislodging a few blond strands. “I do.” She made an effort to smile at William, though the effect was rather ghastly. His own heart felt like a stone in his chest, but he did his best to smile back.
Lord John rubbed a hand down over his face, then went to the sideboard, where he took down a bottle and shook it experimentally. It sloshed reassuringly.
“Sit down, Willie,” he said. “Tea can wait. Brandy can’t.”
WILLIAM WONDERED VAGUELY just how much brandy his father and uncle got through in a year. Beyond its social functions, brandy was the usual first resort of either man, faced with any crisis of either a physical, political, or emotional nature. And given their mutual profession, such crises were bound to occur regularly. William’s own first memory of having been given brandy dated from the age of five or so, when he had climbed up the stable ladder in order to get on the back of Lord John’s horse in its stall—something he was firmly forbidden to do—and had been promptly tossed off by the startled horse, smacking into the wall at the back of the stall and sinking, dazed, into the hay between the horse’s back hooves.