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.
“Persistent fellow, then,” he said. “So now he’s here, and as there don’t seem to be any Hessians around to be traduced, I assume he’s gone back to his financial tricks?”
“So far as I know,” Denys said, now all nonchalance. “Good friend of General Washington’s, I hear.”
“Good for him,” William said shortly. “And what about you? As you’re sitting here telling me all this, am I to assume that you also are now a personal chum of Mr. Washington’s?” William was, in fact, not really surprised to be hearing these things.
Denys drew out a handkerchief and patted his lips delicately.
“Not me, so much as my stepfather,” he said. “Mr. Isaacs is a good friend of Mr. Salomon’s and shares both his political sentiments and his financial acumen.”
“Is?” William said, raising his eyebrows. “Didn’t you tell me that your stepfather had died and that’s why you’d dropped the ‘Isaacs’ from your last name.”
“Did I?” Denys looked thoughtful. “Well … a good many people believe he’s dead, let’s put it that way. It’s often easier to get certain things done if people don’t know exactly who they’re dealing with.”
The fact that he, William, plainly didn’t know whom he’d been dealing with was becoming painfully obvious.
“So … you’re a turncoat, but you haven’t bothered actually taking it off and turning it inside out, is that it?”
“I think the actual term might be intrigante, William, but what’s in a word? I began working with my stepfather when I was fifteen or so, learning my way around the worlds of finance and politics. Both those threads weave through war, you know. And war is expensive.”
“And sometimes profitable?”
Something that might be offense rippled under Denys’s placid expression, but vanished in a small gesture of dignified dismissal.
“My real father was a soldier, you know, and he left me a comfortable sum of money, with the stipulation that I should use it to buy a commission—if I should turn out to be a boy, that is. He died before I was born.”
“And if you’d been a girl?” William began suddenly to wonder whether Denys might have a loaded pistol in his lap, under the table.
“The money would have been my marriage portion, and doubtless I’d now be the wife of some rich, boring merchant who beat me once a week, fucked me once a month, and otherwise left me to my own devices.”
Despite his wariness, William laughed.
“My mother wanted me to be a clergyman, poor woman.” Denys shrugged. “As it is, though …”
“Yes?” William’s calves tightened. His left hand was under the table, still holding the spoon from his chowder, the handle jutting out between the clenched fingers of his fist. It wasn’t the weapon he’d have chosen, but if necessary, he was prepared to jam it up Denys’s nose. A conversation like this could have only one end: to invite William to join Denys in his intrigue.
He was halfway amused at the situation. Also somewhat annoyed, but cautious with it. If Denys did issue such an invitation and if William refused point-blank—Denys might consider it dangerous to leave William at large to repeat all this.
“Well …” Denys eyed his uniform. “You did tell me you’d resigned your commission.”
“I did. This”—he waved his free hand down the front of his red coat—“is just to give me countenance—and safe passage—while I look for my cousin’s wife.”
Denys’s eyes widened.
“This is the girl you’re after? Is she lost?”
I notice that you don’t ask which cousin. “No, she’s not lost; she had a falling-out with her husband”—to say the least—“and decided to go to her father’s house. But my uncle became concerned about her safety on the road and sent me to see that she reached her destination safely. I thought that if she passed through Charles Town—which she likely would—she might call upon Ban Tarleton for any assistance; she and her husband are acquainted with him.”
“Unfortunately, Major Tarleton isn’t in Charles Town.” The voice spoke behind him, an English voice that his body recognized before his mind did, and he turned round fast, spoon clenched hard.
“Good day, Captain Lord Ellesmere,” said Ezekiel Richardson. He glanced indifferently at the spoon and bowed slightly. “I trust you’ll pardon the interruption, gentlemen. I happened to overhear Major Tarleton’s name. He and Major Ferguson are, in fact, in hot pursuit of several groups of retreating American militia, running south.”
William hesitated for a moment, torn between curiosity—leavened by indignation—and expedience. But it was an instant too long; Richardson pulled up a stool and sat down at the small, round table, between William and Denys. Well within grabbing—or shooting or stabbing, for that matter—distance.
“Has Herr Weber left us in good order?” Richardson asked, presumably of Denys, but his eyes were fixed on William.
“Rather jumpy,” Denys said, “but quite intact. Our friend William was most helpful in keeping him from jumping off the dock and swimming home whilst I went and made the final arrangements.”
“We’re most obliged to you, Lord Ellesmere.”
“My name is Ransom, sir.”
The sparse eyebrows rose.
“Indeed.” Richardson, who was not in uniform, but wearing a decent gray suit, darted a quick glance at Denys, who shrugged slightly.
“I think so,” he said obliquely.
“If what you think is that I will choose to join you in your treasonous games, gentlemen,” William said, pushing back from the table, “I must disabuse you of the notion. Good day.”
“Not so fast,” Richardson said, clamping a hand on William’s forearm. “If you please—my lord.” There was a slight mocking inflection to that “my lord”—or at least that’s how it sounded to William, who was in no mood for trifling.
“No commission, no rank, and not ‘my lord.’ Be so kind as to remove your hand, sir, or I shall remove it for you.” William made a slight gesture with his spoon, which was flimsy but made of tin and whose handle came to a triangular point. Richardson paused, and William’s muscles tightened. The hand lifted, though, just in time.
“I suggest you consider Denys’s suggestion,” Richardson said, his tone light. “Resigning your commission has doubtless caused some gossip in army circles—and if you are declining to be addressed by your title, it will cause more. I do think, though, that you might hesitate to cause the sort of gossip that will be unleashed if the reason behind your actions were to be made public.”
“You know nothing of my reasons, sir.” William stood up, and so did Richardson.
“We know that you are the bastard son of one James Fraser, a Jacobite traitor and present rebel,” he said pleasantly. “And one look at the two of you—drawn side by side in the newspapers?—would be enough to convince anyone of the truth.”
William uttered a short laugh, though it came out as a hoarse bark.
“You say what you like, sir, to whomever it pleases you to say it. Go to the devil.”
And with that, he stabbed the spoon, handle first, into the table, and turned to walk away. Behind him, Richardson spoke, his voice still pleasant.
“I know your sister,” he said.
William’s shoulders tensed, but he kept on walking until the docks of Charles Town lay far behind.
131
Thunderstorms on the Ridge
July 4, A.D. 1780