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.
“I’m sorry you didn’t,” he said, and took a careful breath. “I don’t excuse Ben, by any means, but … he’s a soldier, and he thought you’d left him forever. I mean, a—a casual liaison—”
“Casual, my arse!” she snarled, snatching her hand away. “He’s married her!”
The words struck him in the pit of the stomach. William opened his mouth, but found nothing whatever to say.
“That’s why I brought the ring away with me,” she said, looking at it. “I wouldn’t let her have it!”
Of course she’d also needed it for her widow’s imposture, but he rather thought that continuing to wear it—if even on the right hand—might be something in the nature of a hair shirt for her, but didn’t say that.
“Marry me,” he said, instead.
She was frowning at a bird that had landed on the edge of the fountain to drink—a dressy little creature with black-and-white wings and dark red sides.
“Towhee,” she said.
“What?”
“Him.” She lifted her chin toward the bird, who promptly flew off. She turned on the bench to look William full in the face, her own features more or less composed.
“Marry you,” she said slowly. A twitch she couldn’t control showed briefly at the corner of her pale mouth, but he didn’t think it was an impulse to laugh. Maybe shock, maybe not.
“Marry me,” he said again, softly. Her eyes were bloodshot, and now a cloudy gray. She looked away.
“You mean a marriage blanc, I suppose?” she said, her voice a little hoarse. “Separate lives, separate beds?”
“Oh, no,” he said, and took hold of both her hands. “I definitely want to bed you. Repeatedly. What sort of marriage do you call that?”
“Well, bigamy, for a start.” She was looking at him in a different way, though, and the blood was thrumming in his chest.
“We can discuss the details on the way back to Savannah.” Still holding her hands tightly in his, he leaned down and kissed her. Her mouth moved under his, more in shock than response—but response it was.
“I did not say I’d do it!” she said, jerking back. He let her go, noting with a distant satisfaction that she hadn’t wiped her mouth in disgust.
“You can give me your answer when we get to Savannah,” he said, and, getting to his feet, he offered her his hand.
135
Just to Make Things Interesting
IN A SMALL TOWN to the south of Philadelphia, he’d hired them rooms in a decent inn and was pleased to find a small looking glass on the wall above his washbasin. He’d shaved carefully—Amaranthus had been first shocked and then amused by the discovery that his sprouting beard was a vivid dark red—and then dressed in his captain’s uniform, somewhat creased from being rolled up in his portmanteau, but clean.
She blinked when he got into the coach beside her and placed his hat on his knee.
“I thought you’d resigned your commission.”
“I did. I have. This is what you might call a ruse de guerre,” he said, gesturing at his scarlet coat. “Uncle Hal’s idea. He gave me a temporary captain’s commission, with orders for travel that would let me pass through any territory controlled by the King’s troops—which Richmond and Charles Town most assuredly are. I wasn’t joking,” he added gently. “He was worried about you and he does want you back.”
She glanced away, out the window, and bit her lip.
“I should have thought an earl would be shown a certain amount of courtesy, even without a uniform.”
“I’m not an earl, either,” he said firmly, and her head swiveled sharply round. She stared at him.
“I should have said, before,” he said. “If you were considering being a countess as part of the perquisites of marrying me, I’m afraid that’s off.”
“I wasn’t,” she said, and her mouth twitched slightly. She turned back to the window, through which the muddy streets of Richmond were giving way to equally rain-soaked cornfields.
“How did you manage it?” she said, not turning round. “I thought Father Pardloe told you a peer couldn’t stop being a peer without the permission of the King. Did you persuade the King?”
“I haven’t spoken to His Majesty yet,” William said politely. “But I shall. Still, it doesn’t matter what he says; I’ve made up my mind, and I’m not the Earl of Ellesmere anymore—if I ever was.”
That did make her turn around.
He felt a sudden rush of … something. Maybe fear but mostly excitement, as though he were just about to jump from a high cliff into the sea, not knowing if the water was deep enough and not caring.
“I’m a bastard,” he said. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it, and he felt sure it wouldn’t be the last, but he took a deep breath before going on. “I mean—I’m not legally a bastard, because the eighth earl and my mother were married when I was born. But the old earl wasn’t my father.”
She looked him slowly up and down, pausing at his face, her gaze traveling down and up again.
“Well, whoever he was, he must have been a, um … very striking gentleman. Is that where—” She pawed vaguely at her chin, still staring at him.
“Yes,” he said, not quite between his teeth. “And not ‘was’—he’s still alive.”
“You’ve met him?” She’d turned entirely to face him, her eyes alive with interest. He had the sudden illusion that he could feel the touch of her eyes on his face, tickling his skin.
“I have. He—knows me. And that I know about him.”
She didn’t say anything for a bit, but he could see her turning this revelation over in her mind. She still wore black but had taken to wearing a fichu of dark blue with it, rather than white; it made her eyes brilliant and warmed her skin. Plainly she knew it, and he hid a smile. She saw it, nonetheless, and leaned back, pursing her lips.
“Do you mean to tell me who this gentleman is?”
“I hadn’t,” he admitted. “But—if you’re to marry me …”
“I am not accepting your proposal. Not now. Probably not ever,” she added, giving him a look. “But even if I don’t, you should know that I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Good of you,” he said. “His name is James Fraser. A Highland Scot, and a Jacobite—or was, I should say. He has some land in North Carolina; I visited there when I was quite young—didn’t have the slightest clue that he was … what he is.”
“He’s acknowledged you?” Amaranthus had never been one to hide what she thought, and the direction of her thoughts just now was easy to make out.
“No, and I don’t want him to,” William said firmly. “He owes me nothing. Though if you’re wondering how I shall support you without the Ellesmere estates,” he added, “don’t worry; I have a decent small farm in Virginia that my mother—well, my stepmother, really; Lord John’s first wife—left me.” There was Helwater, as well, but he thought that might disappear along with Ellesmere, so didn’t mention it.
“Lord John’s first wife?” Amaranthus stared at him. “I hadn’t thought he’d been married at all. How many wives has he had?”
“Well, two that I know of.” He hesitated, but in fact, he rather enjoyed shocking her. “His second wife was—well, she still is—the wife of James Fraser, just to make things interesting.”
She narrowed her eyes, looking to see if he was making game of her, but then shook her head, dislodging a hairpin that poked suddenly out of her hair. He couldn’t resist plucking it out and tucking the liberated curl behind her ear. A faint stipple of gooseflesh ran down the side of her neck and she shuddered, ever so faintly, despite the humid heat inside the carriage.