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.
She glanced sidelong at Fanny, who was twisting an onion off its braid, but the girl showed no emotion about the garden; probably no one had told her—yet, Bree thought—about what had happened there, and why the garden had been abandoned to the weeds.
“Should we take more potatoes?” Fanny asked, dropping two fat yellow onions into the basket. “And maybe apples, for fritters? If it doesn’t stop raining, those men will stay the night. And we haven’t any eggs for breakfast.”
“Good idea,” Bree said, quite impressed at Fanny’s housewifely forethought. The remark turned her mind, though, to the mysterious visitors.
“What you said to Da—about one of the men being an officer. How did you know that?” And how did Da know you would know something like that? she added silently.
Fanny looked at her for a long moment, her face quite expressionless. Then she seemed suddenly to have made up her mind about something, for she nodded, as though to herself.
“I’ve seen them,” she said simply. “Lots of times. At the brothel.”
“At the—” Brianna nearly dropped the pawpaw she’d picked off the upper shelf. Her mother had told her about Fanny’s past, but she hadn’t expected Fanny to bring it up.
“Brothel,” Fanny repeated, the word clipped short. Bree had turned to look at her; she was pale, but her eyes were steady under her cap. “In Philadelphia.”
“I see.” Brianna hoped her own voice and eyes were as steady as Fanny’s, and tried to speak calmly, in spite of the inner, appalled voice saying, Jesus Lord, she’s only eleven or twelve now! “Did … um … Da—is that where he found you?”
Fanny’s eyes welled quite suddenly with tears, and she turned hurriedly away, fumbling with a shelf of apples.
“No,” she said in a muffled voice. “My—my sister … she … we … we wan away togevver.”
“Your sister,” Bree said carefully. “Where—”
“She’th dead.”
“Oh, Fanny!” She’d dropped the pawpaw, but it didn’t matter. She grabbed Fanny and held her tight, as though she could somehow smother the dreadful sorrow that oozed between them, squeeze it out of existence. Fanny was shaking, silently. “Oh, Fanny,” she said again, softly, and rubbed the girl’s back as she would have done for Jem or Mandy, feeling the delicate bones beneath her fingers.
It didn’t last long. After a moment, Fanny got hold of herself—Bree could feel it happen, a stopping, a drawing-in of the flesh—and stepped back, out of Bree’s embrace.
“It’s all right,” she said, blinking fast to keep more tears from coming. “It’s all right. She’s—she’s safe now.” She drew a deep breath and straightened her back. “After—after it happened, William gave me to Mr. Fraser. Oh!” A thought struck her and she looked uncertainly at Bree. “Do you—know about William?”
For a moment, Bree’s mind was completely blank. William? But suddenly the penny dropped, and she looked at Fanny, startled.
“William. You mean … Mr. Fraser’s … Da’s … son?” Saying the word brought him to life; the tall young man, cat-eyed and long-nosed like her, but dark where she was fair, speaking to her on the quay in Wilmington.
“Yes,” Fanny said, still a little wary. “I think—does that mean he’s your brother?”
“Half brother, yes.” Brianna felt dazed, and bent to pick up the fallen fruit. “You said he gave you to Da?”
“Yes.” Fanny took another breath and bent to pick up the last apple. Standing, she looked Bree straight in the eye. “Do you mind?”
“No,” Bree said, softly, and touched Fanny’s tender cheek. “Oh, Fanny, no. Not at all.”
JAMIE COULD SEE at once that the younger man was indeed a soldier. He thought the older one was not. And while the younger man took care to defer to Granger, Jamie thought that Partland had some ascendancy over the older—and richer—man. Or at least he thinks he does, he thought, smiling pleasantly as he poured wine for the visitors in his study. He didn’t much like Partland and was inclined to think the feeling was mutual, though he didn’t know why. Yet.
“Ye’ll stay ’til the morning, Mr. Granger?” he asked, with a wary glance at the ceiling. “Night’s falling, and the storm has the feel of a settled rain about it. Ye’ll not want to be feeling your way about the woods in the dreich dark.” The rain had begun to patter above, and he felt the mingled pride of a man with a sound ceiling built by himself, and the lingering fear that it might be not quite as sound as he hoped.
“We will, General,” Partland answered, “and my uncle and I thank you for your kind hospitality.” He lifted his cup in salute.
Granger looked somewhat taken back by this usurpation of his seniority, but the men exchanged a look, and whatever intelligence passed between them, it was effective. Granger relaxed, murmuring his own thanks.
“Ye’re very welcome, gentlemen,” Jamie said, sitting down behind his desk with his own cup. He’d had to fetch a stool from the kitchen for Partland, having only a single cane-bottomed chair for a guest in his study. At least he’d got the room walled in, so there was a sense of snug privacy, separated from the kitchen, where Claire—decently clad again—was apparently beating a recalcitrant piece of tough venison into edibility with a mallet.
“I must invite ye to call me Mr. Fraser, though,” he added, smiling to avoid any sense of rebuke. “I resigned my commission following Monmouth, and have no present association wi’ the Continental army.”
“Do you not, indeed?” Granger sat up a little, straightening his coat to hide the tear. “That’s modest of you, sir. I have usually found that any man who’s held a military post of any pretension clings to his title for life.”
Partland kept his face carefully blank; Jamie thought it was hiding a smirk, and felt a flicker of annoyance, but dismissed it.
“I canna say but what many officers deserve to keep their titles, sir, as the result of retirement following long and honorable service. I’m sure that’s the case with your friend Captain Cunningham, is it not?”
“Well … yes.” Granger looked somewhat abashed. “I apologize, Mr. Fraser, I meant no offense regarding your own choice in the matter of title.”
“None taken, sir. Have ye kent the captain for some time, then?”
“Why, yes, I have,” Granger said, relaxing a bit. “The captain greatly obliged me some years ago, by rescuing one of my ships from a French corsair, off Martinique. I called upon him with my thanks, and in the course of conversation discovered that we held many opinions in common. We became friends, and have kept up a correspondence for … gracious me, it must be twenty years now, at least.”
“Ah. Ye’re a merchant, then?” That explained the yellow silk lining the man’s coat, which had probably cost as much as the wardrobe for Jamie’s entire household.
“Yes. In the rum trade, mostly. But the present war has caused considerable difficulties, I’m afraid.”
Jamie made a noncommittal noise meant to indicate polite regret and a disinclination to engage in political discourse. Mr. Granger appeared quite willing to leave it at that, but Partland sat forward, putting his cup down on the desk.
“I trust you’ll pardon my impertinence … Mr. Fraser.” He smiled, without showing his teeth. “It’s just my curiosity, to be sure. What was the cause of your leaving Washington’s army, if I may ask?”