“Well, first Jamie, and then his wife.” He touched the eye lightly. “He punched me, and then she did something excruciating to fix it and put honey in it.”
“Having been subject to the lady’s notions of medical treatment, I am not even faintly surprised to hear that.” Hal lifted his cup in brief salute; Grey did the same and they drank. It was cider, and a dim recollection of applejack and Colonel Watson Smith floated through Grey’s mind. Both seemed remote, as though they’d happened years ago rather than days.
“Mrs. Fraser doctored you?” Grey grinned at his brother. “What did she do to you?”
“Well . . . saved my life, to be perfectly frank.” It was hard to tell in the lantern light, but Grey thought his brother was blushing slightly.
“Oh. In that case, I’m doubly obliged to her.” He raised the cup again ceremoniously, then drained it. The cider went down gratefully after a hot day with no food. “How the hell did you fall into her clutches?” he asked curiously, extending the cup for more.
“I was looking for you,” Hal said pointedly. “If you’d been where you were supposed to be . . .”
“You think I’m supposed to be sitting somewhere waiting for you to turn up without warning and involve me in—do you know you nearly got me hanged? Besides, I was busy being kidnapped by James Fraser at the time.”
Hal raised one eyebrow and poured more cider. “Yes, you did say he’d punched you. What for?”
Grey rubbed two fingers between his brows. He hadn’t really noticed the headache before, only because he’d had it all day. Hal was definitely making it worse, though.
“I couldn’t begin to explain it, Hal,” he said tiredly. “Can you find me a bed? I think I’m going to die, and if by some unfortunate chance I don’t, I’ll have to speak to Willie tomorrow about . . . well, never mind.” He drank the last of the cider and set down the cup, preparing reluctantly to lift his feet from the soothing oil.
“I know about William,” Hal said.
Grey stopped abruptly, looking dubiously at his brother, who shrugged.
“I saw Fraser,” he said simply. “In Philadelphia. And when I said something to William this afternoon, he confirmed it.”
“Did he?” Grey murmured. He was surprised but somewhat heartened by that. If Willie had calmed down sufficiently as to talk to Hal about the matter, Grey’s own conversation with his son might be a trifle less fraught than he’d feared.
“How long have you known?” Hal asked curiously.
“For certain? Since Willie was two or three.” He suddenly gave an enormous yawn, then sat blinking stupidly. “Oh—meant to ask. How did the battle go?”
Hal looked at him with something between affront and amusement. “You were bloody in it, weren’t you?”
“My part of it didn’t go that well. But my perspective was somewhat limited by circumstance. That, and having only one working eye,” he added, gently prodding the bad one. A good night’s sleep . . . Longing for bed made him sway, narrowly catching himself before simply falling into Hal’s cot.
“Hard to tell.” Hal fished a crumpled towel out of a basket of laundry lurking disreputably in a corner and, kneeling down, lifted Grey’s feet out of the oil and blotted them gently. “Hell of a mess. Terrible ground, chopped up by creeks, either farmland or half covered in trees . . . Sir Henry got away with the baggage train and refugees all safe. But as for Washington . . .” He shrugged. “So far as I can tell from what I saw and heard, his troops acquitted themselves well. Remarkably well,” he added thoughtfully. He rose to his feet. “Lie down, John. I’ll find a bed somewhere else.”
Grey was much too tired to argue. He simply fell over and rolled onto his back, not bothering to undress. The bad eye felt gritty, and he wondered dimly whether to ask Hal to find some honey but decided that could wait ’til morning.
Hal took the lantern from its hook and turned toward the tent flap, but paused for an instant, turning back.
“Do you think Mrs. Fraser—by the way, tomorrow I want to know how on earth she came to marry you—do you think she knows about William and James Fraser?”
“Anyone with eyes who’d seen the two of them would know,” Grey murmured, eyes half closed. “She never mentioned it, though.”
Hal grunted. “Apparently everyone knew—save William. Little wonder he’s . . .”
“That’s one word for it.”
“I hadn’t found one yet.”
“Does it matter?” Grey’s eyes closed all the way. Through the drifting mists of sleep, he heard Hal’s quiet voice, by the tent flap.
“I’ve had word of Ben. They say he’s dead.”
LONG ROAD HOME
JAMIE SAT BY THE tiny window in his shirt and breeches, watching his wife’s hair dry.
It was hot as a forge in the tiny spare room Mrs. Macken had given them, and his sweat lay on him in a heavy dew that broke under its own weight and ran down his sides with any movement, but he was careful not to block any faint breath of air that might seep into the room; the air reeked of Roquefort cheese and blood.
He’d soaked her hair with water from the ewer Mrs. Macken had brought and wetted her shift; it clung to her body, the round of her buttock showing pink through the fabric as it dried. It showed the thick wad of the dressing, too, and the bloody stain that spread slow upon the cloth.
Slow. His lips formed the word and he thought it passionately but didn’t speak aloud. Slow! Stopping altogether would be much better, but he’d settle for slow just now.