William ran a hand down his face, wiping away a layer of fresh sweat.
“Don’t want much, do you?” he said. On the one hand, if he didn’t give her some assurance of help, he wouldn’t put it past her to fling his gorget into the water in a fit of pique. And on the other . . . Frances was a lovely child, delicate and pale as a morning-glory blossom. And on the third hand, he hadn’t any more time to spare in argument.
“Get on the horse and come across,” he said abruptly. “I’ll find you a new place with the baggage train. I have to ride a dispatch to von Knyphausen just now, but I’ll meet you in General Clinton’s camp this evening—no, not this evening, I won’t be back until tomorrow. . . .” He fumbled for a moment, wondering where to tell her to find him; he could not have two young whores asking for him at General Clinton’s headquarters. “Go to the surgeons’ tent at sundown tomorrow. I’ll—think of something.”
IN WHICH I MEET A TURNIP
DURING THE NEXT DAY’S ride, we encountered a messenger, sent back from Washington’s command with a note for Jamie. He read this leaning against a tree, while I made an unobtrusive visit to a nearby clump of brush.
“What does he say?” I asked, straightening my clothes as I emerged. I was still rather awed that Jamie had actually spoken with George Washington, and the fact that he was frowning at a letter presumably written by the future Father of the Country . . .
“Two or three things,” he replied with a shrug, and, refolding the note, stuffed it into his pocket. “The only important bit o’ news is that my brigade is to be under the command of Charles Lee.”
“Do you know Charles Lee?” I got my foot into the stirrup and heaved myself into the saddle.
“I know of him.” What he knew appeared to be rather problematic, judging from the line between his brows. I raised my own; he glanced at me and smiled.
“I met him, ken, when I first met General Washington. I made it my business to learn a bit more about him since.”
“Oh, so you didn’t like him,” I observed, and he gave me a small snort.
“No, I didn’t,” he said, nudging his horse into a walk. “He’s loud and unmannerly and a sloven—I could see that much for myself—but from what I’ve heard since, he’s also jealous to the bone and doesna trouble to hide it verra well.”
“Jealous? Of whom?” Not Jamie, I hoped.
“Of Washington,” he answered matter-of-factly, surprising me. “He thought he should have command o’ the Continental army and doesna like playin’ second fiddle.”
“Really?” I’d never once heard of General Charles Lee, which seemed odd, if he had such prominence as to have made that a reasonable expectation. “Why does he think that, do you know?”
“I do. He feels he has a good deal more in the way of military experience than Washington—and that’s maybe true: he was in the British army for some time and fought a number of successful campaigns. Still—” He lifted one shoulder and dropped it, dismissing General Lee for the moment. “I wouldna have agreed to do this, had it been Lee who asked me.”
“I thought you didn’t want to do it, regardless.”
“Mmphm.” He considered for a moment. “It’s true I didna want to do this—I don’t now.” He looked at me, apologetic. “And I truly dinna want you to be here.”
“I’m going to be where you are for the rest of our lives,” I said firmly. “If that’s a week or another forty years.”
“Longer,” he said, and smiled.
We rode for a time in silence, but deeply aware of each other. We had been, since that conversation in the gardens at Kingsessing.
“I will love ye forever. It doesna matter if ye sleep with the whole English army—well, no, it would matter, but it wouldna stop me loving you.”
“I’ve taken ye to bed a thousand times at least, Sassenach. Did ye think I wasna paying attention?”
“There couldna be anyone like you.”
I hadn’t forgotten a word we’d said—and neither had he, though neither one of us had spoken of it again. We weren’t walking on tiptoe with each other, but we were feeling our way . . . finding our way into each other, as we’d done twice before. Once, when I’d returned to find him in Edinburgh—and at the beginning, when we’d found ourselves wed by force and joined by circumstance. Only later, by choice.
“What would you have wanted to be?” I asked, on impulse. “If you hadn’t been born the laird of Lallybroch?”
“I wasn’t. If my elder brother hadna died, ye mean,” he said. A small shadow of regret crossed his face, but didn’t linger. He still mourned the boy who had died at eleven, leaving a small brother to pick up the burden of leadership and struggle to grow into it—but he had been accustomed to that burden for a very long time.
“Maybe that,” I said. “But what if you’d been born elsewhere, maybe to a different family?”
“Well, I wouldna be who I am, then, would I?” he said logically, and smiled at me. “I may quibble wi’ what the Lord’s called me to do now and then, Sassenach—but I’ve nay argument wi’ how he made me.”
I looked at what he was—the strong, straight body and capable hands, the face so full of everything he was—and had no argument, either.
“Besides,” he said, and tilted his head consideringly, “if it had been different, I wouldna have you, would I? Or have had Brianna and her weans?”