“The very man,” Mrs. Bell said, surprised. “You do not mean to say you know him, Mr. Fraser?”
Jamie actually laughed, startling the Bells.
“Many’s the evening I’ve passed in a tavern wi’ Andy Bell,” he assured them. “In fact, he’s the man I mean to see in Scotland, for he’s got my printing press, safe in his shop. Or at least I hope he does,” he added, though his cheerfulness was unimpaired.
This news—along with a fresh round of wine—heartened the Bell women to an amazing extent, and when they left us at last, they were flushed with animation and chattering amongst themselves like a flock of amiable magpies. I glanced out the window and saw them making their way down the street, clustered together in hopeful excitement, staggering into the street occasionally from the effects of wine and emotion.
“We don’t only sing but we dance just as good as we walk,” I murmured, watching them go.
Jamie gave me a startled look.
“Archie Bell and the Drells,” I explained. “Never mind. Do you think it’s safe? This ship?”
“God, no.” He shuddered, and kissed the top of my head. “Put aside the question of storms, woodworm, bad caulking, warped timbers, and the like, there’s the English warships in the harbor, privateers outside the harbor—”
“I didn’t mean that,” I interrupted. “That’s more or less par for the course, isn’t it? I meant the owner—and this DeLancey Hall. Mrs. Bell thinks she knows what their politics are, but …” But the thought of delivering ourselves—and our gold—so completely into the hands of unknown persons was unsettling.
“But,” he agreed. “Aye, I mean to go and speak to Mr. Hall first thing tomorrow morning. And maybe Monsieur Beauchamp, as well. For now, though—” He ran a hand lightly down my back and cupped my bottom. “Ian and the dog willna be back for an hour, at least. Will ye have another glass of wine?”
He looked like a Frenchman, Jamie thought. Which was to say, thoroughly out of place in New Bern. Beauchamp had just come out of Thorogood Northrup’s warehouse and stood in casual conversation with Northrup himself, the breeze off the water fluttering the silk ribbon that tied back his dark hair. Elegant, Claire had described him as, and he was that: not—not quite—foppish, but dressed with taste and expense. A good deal of expense, he thought.
“He looks like a Frenchman,” Fergus observed, echoing his thoughts. They were seated next to the window in the Whinbush, a middling tavern that catered to the needs of fishermen and warehouse laborers, and whose atmosphere was composed of equal parts beer, sweat, tobacco, tar, and aged fish guts.
“Is that his ship?” Fergus asked, a frown creasing his brow as he nodded toward the very trim black-and-yellow sloop that rocked gently at anchor, some distance out.
“It’s the ship he travels in. Couldna say whether he owns it. Ye dinna ken his face, though?”
Fergus leaned into the window, nearly flattening his own face against the wavery panes in an attempt to get a better look at Monsieur Beauchamp.
Jamie, beer in hand, studied Fergus’s face in turn. Despite having lived in Scotland since the age of ten, and in America for the last ten years or more, Fergus himself still looked French, he thought. It was something more than a matter of feature; something in the bone itself, perhaps.
The bones of Fergus’s face were pronounced, with a jaw sharp enough to cut paper, an imperiously beaked nose, and eye sockets set deep under the ridges of a high brow. The thick dark hair brushed back from that brow was threaded with gray, and it gave Jamie a queer moment to see that; he carried within himself a permanent image of Fergus as the ten-year-old orphaned pickpocket he had rescued from a Paris brothel, and that image sat oddly on the gaunt, handsome face before him.
“No,” Fergus said at last, sitting back on the bench and shaking his head. “I have never seen him.”
Fergus’s deep-set dark eyes were alive with interest and speculation. “No one else in the town knows him, either. Though I have heard that he had made inquiries for this Claudel Fraser”—his nostrils flared with amusement; Claudel was his own birth name, and the only one he had, though Jamie thought likely no one had ever used it outside Paris or anytime in the last thirty years—“in Halifax and Edenton, as well.”
Jamie opened his mouth to observe that he hoped Fergus had been careful in his inquiries, but thought better of it, and drank his beer instead. Fergus hadn’t been surviving as a printer in these troublous times by having a lack of discretion.
“Does he remind ye of anyone?” he asked instead. Fergus gave him a brief look of surprise, but returned to his neck-craning before settling back, shaking his head.
“No. Should he?”
“I dinna think so.” He didn’t, but was glad of Fergus’s corroboration. Claire had told him her thought—that the man might be some relation of hers, perhaps a direct ancestor. She had tried to be casual about it, dismiss the idea even as she spoke it, but he’d seen the eager light in her eyes and been touched. The fact that she had no family or close kin in her own time had always struck him as a dreadful thing, even while he realized that it had much to do with her devotion to him.
He’d looked as carefully as he could, with that in mind, but saw nothing in Beauchamp’s face or carriage that reminded him much of Claire—let alone Fergus.
He didn’t think that thought—that Beauchamp might be some actual relation to himself—had crossed Fergus’s mind. Jamie was reasonably sure that Fergus thought of the Frasers of Lallybroch as his only family, other than Marsali and the children, whom he loved with all the fervor of his passionate nature.
Beauchamp was taking his leave of Northrup now, with a very Parisian bow, accompanied by a graceful flutter of his silk handkerchief. Fortuitous that the man had happened to step out of the warehouse just in front of them, Jamie thought. They’d planned to go and have a keek at him later in the day, but his timely appearance saved them having to go and look for him.
“It’s a good ship,” Fergus observed, his attention deflected to the sloop called Huntress. He glanced back at Jamie, considering. “You’re sure you do not wish to investigate the possibility of passage with Monsieur Beauchamp?”
“Aye, I’m sure,” Jamie said dryly. “Put myself and my wife in the power of a man I dinna ken and whose motives are suspect, in a wee boat on a wide sea? Even a man who didna suffer from seasickness might boggle at that prospect, no?”
Fergus’s face split in a grin.
“Milady proposes to stick you full of needles again?”
“She does,” Jamie replied, rather crossly. He hated being stabbed repeatedly, and disliked being obliged to appear in public—even within the limited confines of a ship—bristling with spines like some outlandish porcupine. The only thing that would make him do it was the sure knowledge that if he didn’t, he’d be puking his guts out for days on end.
Fergus didn’t notice his discontent, though; he was leaning into the window again.
“Nom d’nom …” he said softly, with such an expression of apprehension that Jamie turned on the bench at once to look.
Beauchamp had proceeded some way down the street, but was still in sight. He had come to a stop, though, and appeared to be executing a sort of ungainly jig. This was sufficiently odd, but what was more disturbing was that Fergus’s son Germain was crouched in the street directly in front of the man, and seemed to be hopping to and fro in the manner of an agitated toad.
These peculiar gyrations continued for a few seconds longer and then came to an end, Beauchamp now standing still, but waving his arms in expostulation, while Germain seemed to be groveling in front of the man. The boy stood up, though, tucking something into his shirt, and after a few moments’ conversation, Beauchamp laughed and put out his hand. They exchanged a brief bow and handshake, and Germain came down the street toward the Whinbush while Beauchamp continued on his course.
Germain came in and, spotting them, slid onto the bench beside his father, looking pleased with himself.
>
“I’ve met that man,” he said without preamble. “The man who wants Papa.”
“Aye, we saw,” Jamie said, brows raised. “What the devil were ye doing with him?”
“Well, I saw him coming, but I did not think he would stop and talk to me if I only shouted at him. So I tossed Simon and Peter into his path.”
“Who—” Jamie began, but Germain was already groping within the depths of his shirt. Before Jamie could finish the sentence, the boy had produced two sizable frogs, one green and one a sort of vile yellow color, who huddled together on the bare boards of the table, goggling in a nervous manner.
Fergus cuffed Germain round the ear.
“Take those accursed creatures off the table, before we are thrown out of here. No wonder you are covered in warts, consorting with les grenouilles!”
“Grandmère told me to,” Germain protested, nonetheless scooping up his pets and returning them to captivity.
“She did?” Jamie was not usually startled anymore by his wife’s cures, but this seemed odd, even by her standards.
“Well, she said there was nothing to do for the wart on my elbow except rub it with a dead frog and bury it—the frog, I mean—at a crossroads at midnight.”
“Oh. I think she might possibly have been being facetious. What did the Frenchman say to ye, then?”
Germain looked up, wide-eyed and interested.
“Oh, he’s not a Frenchman, Grandpère.”
A brief pulse of astonishment went through him.
“He’s not? Ye’re sure?”
“Oh, aye. He cursed most blasphemous when Simon landed on his shoe—but not the way Papa does.” Germain aimed a bland look at his father, who looked disposed to cuff him again, but desisted at Jamie’s gesture. “He is an Englishman. I’m sure.”
“He cursed in English?” Jamie asked. It was true; Frenchmen often invoked vegetables when cursing, not infrequently mingled with sacred references. English cursing generally had nothing to do with saints, sacraments, or cucumbers, but dealt with God, whores, or excrement.
“He did. But I cannot say what he said, or Papa will be offended. He has very pure ears, Papa,” Germain added, with a smirk at his father.
“Leave off deviling your father and tell me what else the man said.”
“Aye, well,” Germain said obligingly. “When he saw it was no but a pair o’ wee froggies, he laughed and asked me was I taking them home for my dinner. I said no, they were my pets, and asked him was it his ship out there, because everyone said so and it was a bonny thing, no? I was making out to be simple, aye?” he explained, in case his grandfather might not have grasped the stratagem.
Jamie suppressed a smile.
“Verra clever,” he said dryly. “What else?”
“He said no, the ship is not his but belongs to a great nobleman in France. And I of course said, oh, who was that? And he said it is the Baron Amandine.”
Jamie exchanged looks with Fergus, who looked surprised and raised one shoulder in a shrug.
“I asked then how long he might remain, for I should like to bring my brother down to see the ship. And he says he will sail tomorrow on the evening tide, and asked me—but he was joking, I could tell—if I wished to come and be a cabin boy on the voyage. I told him no, my frogs suffer from seasickness—like my grandfather.” He turned the smirk on Jamie, who eyed him severely.
“Has your father taught ye ‘Ne petez pas plus haute que votre cul’?”
“Mama will wash your mouth out with soap if you say things like that,” Germain informed him virtuously. “Do you want me to pick his pocket? I saw him go into the inn on Cherry Street. I could—”
“You could not,” Fergus said hastily. “And do not say such things where people can hear. Your mother will assassinate both of us.”
Jamie felt a cold prickle at the back of his neck, and glanced hastily round to make sure that no one had heard.
“Ye’ve been teaching him to—”
Fergus looked mildly shifty.
“I thought it a pity that the skills should be lost. It is a family legacy, you might say. I do not let him steal things, of course. We put them back.”
“We’ll have a word in private later, I think,” Jamie said, giving the pair of them a look full of menace. Christ, if Germain had been caught at it … He’d best put the fear of God into the two of them before they both ended up pilloried, if not hanged from a tree outright for theft.
“What about the man you were actually sent to find?” Fergus asked his son, seizing the chance of deflecting Jamie’s ire.
“I found him,” Germain said, and nodded toward the door. “There he is.”
Delancey Hall was a small, neat man, with the quiet, nose-twitching manner of a church mouse. Anything less like a smuggler to look at could scarcely have been imagined—which, Jamie thought, was likely a valuable attribute in that line of business.
“A shipper of dry goods” was the way Hall discreetly described his business. “I facilitate the finding of ships for specific cargoes. Which is no easy matter these days, gentlemen, as you may well suppose.”
“I do indeed.” Jamie smiled at the man. “I have nay cargo to ship, but I am in hopes that ye might know of a situation that would suit. Myself, my wife, and my nephew seek passage to Edinburgh.” His hand was under the table, in his sporran. He had taken some of the gold spheres and flattened them with a hammer, into irregular disks. He took three of these and, moving only slightly, placed them on Hall’s lap.
The man didn’t change expression in the slightest, but Jamie felt the hand dart out and seize the disks, weigh them for an instant, and then vanish into his pocket.
“I think that might be possible,” he said blandly. “I know a captain departing from Wilmington in about two weeks’ time, who might be induced to carry passengers—for a consideration.”
Sometime later, they walked back toward the printshop, Jamie and Fergus together, discussing the probabilities of Hall’s being able to produce a ship. Germain wandered dreamily in front of them, zigzagging to and fro in response to whatever was going on inside his remarkably fertile brain.
Jamie’s own brain was more than occupied. Baron Amandine. He knew the name, but had no face to go with it, nor did he recall the context in which he knew it. Only that he had encountered it at some point, in Paris. But when? When he had attended the université there … or later, when he and Claire—yes. That was it; he’d heard the name at court. But no matter how he cudgeled his brain, it would give up no further information.
“D’ye want me to speak to this Beauchamp?” Jamie asked abruptly. “I could perhaps find out what he means toward you.”
Fergus’s mouth drew in a bit, then relaxed as he shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I said I had heard this man had made inquiries concerning me in Edenton?”
“Ye’re sure it is you?” Not that the ground in North Carolina crawled with Claudels, but still …
“I think so, yes.” Fergus spoke very softly, with an eye on Germain, who had started emitting soft croaks, evidently conversing with the frogs in his shirt. “The person who told me of this said that man had not only a name, but a small information, of sorts. That the Claudel Fraser he sought had been taken from Paris by a tall red-haired Scotsman. Named James Fraser. So I think you cannot speak to him, no.”
“Not without exciting his attention, no,” Jamie agreed. “But … we dinna ken what his purpose is, but it may be something of great advantage to ye, aye? How likely is it that someone in France would go to the trouble and expense of sending someone like him to do ye harm, when they could be content just to leave ye be in America?” He hesitated. “Perhaps … the Baron Amandine is some relation to ye?”
The notion seemed the stuff of romances, and likely the sheerest moonshine. But at the same time, Jamie was at a loss to think of some sensible reason for a French nobleman to be hunting a brothel-born bastard across two continents.
Fergus nodded, but
didn’t reply at once. He was wearing his hook today, rather than the bran-stuffed glove he wore for formal occasions, and delicately scratched his nose with the tip before answering.
“For a long time,” he said at last, “when I was small, I pretended to myself that I was the bastard of some great man. All orphans do this, I think,” he added dispassionately. “It makes life easier to bear, to pretend that it will not always be as it is, that someone will come and restore you to your rightful place in the world.”
He shrugged.
“Then I grew older, and knew this was not true. No one would come to rescue me. But then—” He turned his head and gave Jamie a smile of surpassing sweetness.
“Then I grew older still, and discovered that, after all, it was true. I am the son of a great man.”
The hook touched Jamie’s hand, hard and capable.
“I wish for nothing more.”
AE FOND KISS
Wilmington, colony of North Carolina
April 18, 1777
The headquarters of the Wilmington Gazette were easy to find. The embers had cooled, but the all-too-familiar reek of burning was still thick in the air. A roughly dressed gentleman in a slouch hat was poking through the charred timbers in a dubious way, but left off at Jamie’s hailing him and made his way out of the wreckage, lifting his feet high in ginger avoidance.
“Are ye the proprietor of the newspaper, sir?” Jamie asked, extending a hand to help him over a pile of half-burnt books that sprawled over the threshold. “My sympathies, if so.”
“Oh, no,” the man replied, wiping smudges of soot from his fingers onto a large, filthy handkerchief, which he then passed to Jamie. “Amos Crupp, he’d be the printer. He’s gone, though—lit out when they burnt the shop. I’m Herbert Longfield; I own the land. Did own the shop,” he added, with a rueful glance behind him. “You wouldn’t be a salvor, would you? Got a nice lump of iron, there.”
Fergus and Marsali’s printing press was now evidently the sole press in operation between Charleston and Newport. The Gazette’s press stood twisted and blackened amid the wreckage: still recognizable, but beyond salvage as anything save scrap.
The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle Page 779