Drums of Autumn (14 page)

“Oh, quite,” said a deeper voice that I recognized as Lloyd Stanhope’s. “Though in my own opinion, it was the setting rather than the jewel that was striking.”

“Setting?” Miss Wylie sounded blank. “There was no setting; the jewel merely rested upon her bosom.”

“Really?” Stanhope said blandly. “I hadn’t noticed.” Wylie burst out laughing, breaking off abruptly as the door opened to release more guests.

“Well, if you didn’t, old man, there were others who did,” he said with sly intonation. “Come, here’s the carriage.”

I touched the ruby again, watching the Wylies’ handsome grays drive off. Yes, others had noticed. I could still feel the Baron’s eyes on my bosom, knowingly avaricious. I rather thought he was a connoisseur of more than gems.

The stone was warm in my hand; it felt warmer even than my skin, though that must be illusion. I did not normally wear jewelry beyond my wedding rings; had never cared much for it. It would be a relief to be rid of at least part of our dangerous treasure. And still I sat there holding the stone, cradling it in my hand, till I almost thought I could feel it beating like a small separate heart, in time with my blood.

There was only one carriage left, its driver standing by the horses’ heads. Some twenty minutes later, the occupant came out, adding to his goodbyes a good-humored
“Gute Nacht”
as he stepped into his coach. The Baron. He had waited till last, and was leaving in a good mood; that seemed a good sign.

One of the footmen, stripped of his livery coat, was extinguishing the torches at the foot of the drive. I could see the pale blur of his shirt as he walked back to the house through the dark, and the sudden flare of light onto the terrace as a door opened to admit him below. Then that too was gone, and a night silence settled on the grounds.

I had expected Jamie to come up at once, but the minutes dragged on with no sound of his step. I glanced at the bed, but felt no desire to lie down.

At last I stood up and slipped the dress back on, not bothering with shoes or stockings. I left the room, walking quietly down the hallway in my bare feet, down the stair, through the breezeway to the main house, and in through the side entrance from the garden. It was dark, save the pale squares of moonlight that came through the casements; most of the servants must have retired, along with household and guests. There was light glowing through the stairwell’s banister, though; the sconces were still alight in the dining room beyond.

I could hear the murmur of masculine voices as I tiptoed past the polished stair, Jamie’s deep soft Scots alternating with the Governor’s English tones, in the intimate cadences of a tête-à-tête.

The candles had burnt low in their sconces. The air was sweet with melted beeswax, and low clouds of fragrant cigar smoke hung heavy outside the dining room doors.

Moving quietly, I stopped just short of the door. From this vantage point I could see the Governor, back to me, neck stretched forward as he lit a fresh cigar from the candlestick on the table.

If Jamie saw me, he gave no hint of it. His face bore its usual expression of calm good humor, but the recent lines of strain around eyes and mouth had eased, and I could tell from the slope of his shoulders that he was relaxed and at peace. My heart lightened at once; he had been successful then.

“A place called River Run,” he was saying to the Governor. “Well up in the hills past Cross Creek.”

“I know the place,” Governor Tryon remarked, a little surprised. “My wife and I passed several days in Cross Creek last year; we made a tour of the colony, upon the occasion of my taking office. River Run is well up in the foothills, though, not in the town—why, it is halfway to the mountains, I believe.”

Jamie smiled and sipped his brandy.

“Aye, well,” he said, “my family are Highlanders, sir; the mountains will be home to us.”

“Indeed.” A small puff of smoke rose over the Governor’s shoulder. Then he took the cigar from his mouth and leaned confidentially toward Jamie.

“Since we are alone, Mr. Fraser, there is another matter I wished to put before you. A glass with you, sir?” He picked up the decanter without waiting for an answer, and poured more brandy.

“I thank ye, sir.”

The Governor puffed fiercely for a moment, sending up blue clouds, then having got his weed well alight, sat back, cigar fuming negligently in one hand.

“You are very newly come to the Colonies, young Edwin tells me. Are you familiar with conditions here?”

Jamie shrugged slightly.

“I have made it my business to learn what I could, sir,” he replied. “To which conditions might ye refer?”

“North Carolina is a land of considerable richness,” the Governor answered, “and yet it has not reached the same level of prosperity as have its neighbors—owing mostly to a lack of laborers to take advantage of its opportunities. We have no great harbor for a seaport, you see; thus slaves must be brought overland at great cost from South Carolina or Virginia—and we cannot hope to compete with Boston and Philadelphia for indentured labor.

“It has long been the policy both of the Crown and of myself, Mr. Fraser, to encourage the settlement of land in the Colony of North Carolina by intelligent, industrious and godly families, to the furtherance of the prosperity and security of all.” He lifted his cigar, took a deep lungful and exhaled slowly, pausing to cough.

“To this end, sir, there is established a system of land grants whereby a large acreage may be given to a gentleman of means, who will undertake to persuade a number of emigrants to come and settle upon a part of it under his sponsorship. This policy has been blessed with success over the last thirty years; a good many Highlanders and families from the Isles of Scotland have been induced to come and take up residence here. Why, when I arrived, I was astonished to find the banks of the Cape Fear River quite thick with MacNeills, Buchanans, Grahams, and Campbells!”

The Governor tasted his cigar again, but this time the barest nip; he was anxious to make his point.

“Yet there remains a great deal of desirable land to be settled, further inland toward the mountains. It is somewhat remote, and yet, as you say, for men accustomed to the far reaches of the Scottish Highlands—”

“I did hear mention of such grants, sir,” Jamie interrupted. “Yet is not the wording that persons holding such grants shall be white males, Protestant, and above thirty years of age? And this statement holds the force of law?”

“That is the official wording of the Act, yes.” Mr. Tryon turned so that I saw him now in profile, tapping the ash from his cigar into a small porcelain bowl. The corner of his mouth was turned up in anticipation; the face of a fisherman who feels the first twitch on his line.

“The offer is one of considerable interest,” Jamie said formally. “I must point out, however, that I am not a Protestant, nor are most of my kinsmen.”

The Governor pursed his lips in deprecation, lifting one brow.

“You are neither a Jew nor a Negro. I may speak as one gentleman to another, may I not? In all frankness, Mr. Fraser, there is the law, and then there is what is done.” He raised his glass with a small smile, setting the hook. “And I am convinced that you understand that as well as I do.”

“Possibly better,” Jamie murmured, with a polite smile.

The Governor shot him a sharp look, but then uttered a quick bark of laughter. He raised his brandy glass in acknowledgment, and took a sip.

“We understand each other, Mr. Fraser,” he said, nodding with satisfaction. Jamie inclined his head a fraction of an inch.

“There would be no difficulties raised, then, regarding the personal qualifications of those who might be persuaded to take up your offer?”

“None at all,” said the Governor, setting down his glass with a small thump. “Provided only that they are able-bodied men, capable of working the land, I ask nothing more. And what is not asked need not be told, eh?” One thin brow flicked up in query.

Jamie turned the glass in his hands, as though admiring the deep color of the liquid.

“Not all who passed through the Stuart Rising were so fortunate as myself, Your Excellency,” he said. “My foster son suffered the loss of his hand; another of my companions has but one arm. Yet they are men of good character and industry. I could not in conscience partake of a proposal which did not offer them some part.”

The Governor dismissed this with an expansive wave of the hand.

“Provided that they are able to earn their bread and will not prove a burden upon the community, they are welcome.” Then, as though fearing he had been incautious in his generosity, he sat up straight, leaving the cigar to burn, propped on the edge of the bowl.

“Since you mention Jacobites—these men will be required to swear an oath of loyalty to the Crown, if they have not already done so. If I might presume to ask, sir, as you imply you are Papist…you, yourself…”

Jamie’s eyes might have narrowed only against the sting of the smoke, but I didn’t think so. Neither did Governor Tryon, who was only in his thirties but no mean judge of men. He swiveled to face the table again, so that I saw only his back, but I could tell that he was gazing intently at Jamie, eyes tracing the swift movements of the trout beneath the water.

“I do not seek to remind you of past indignity,” he said quietly. “Nor yet to offend present honor. Still, you will understand that it is my duty to ask.”

Jamie smiled, quite without humor.

“And mine to answer, I expect,” he said. “Yes, I am a pardoned Jacobite. And aye, I have sworn the oath—like the others who paid that price for their lives.”

Quite abruptly, he set down his still-full glass and pushed back the heavy chair. He stood and bowed to the Governor.

“It grows late, Your Excellency. I must beg to take my leave.”

The Governor sat back in his chair, and lifted the cigar slowly to his lips. He drew heavily on it, making the tip glow bright, as he gazed up at Jamie. Then, he nodded, letting a thin plume of smoke drift from his pursed lips.

“Good night, Mr. Fraser. Do consider my offer, will you not?”

I didn’t wait to hear the answer—I didn’t need to. I skimmed down the hall in a rustle of skirts, startling a footman dozing in a dark corner.

I made it back to our borrowed room in the stable block without meeting anyone else, and collapsed. My heart was pounding; not only from the dash up the stairs but from what I had heard.

Jamie would consider the Governor’s offer, all right. And what an offer! To regain in one swoop all that he had lost in Scotland—and more.

Jamie had not been born a laird, but the death of his elder brother had left him heir to Lallybroch, and from the age of eight he had been raised to take responsibility for an estate, to see to the welfare of land and tenants, to place that welfare above his own. Then had come Charles Stuart, and his mad march to glory; a fiery cross leading his followers to shambles and destruction.

Jamie had never spoken bitterly of the Stuarts; had never spoken of Charles Stuart at all. Nor had he often spoken of what that venture had cost him personally.

But now…to have that back. New lands, cultivable and rich with game, and settled by families under his sponsorship and protection. It was rather like the Book of Job, I thought—all those sons and daughters and camels and houses, destroyed so casually, and then replaced with such extravagant lar-gesse.

I had always viewed that bit of the Bible with some doubt, myself. One camel was much like another, but children seemed a different proposition. And while Job might have regarded the replacement of his children as simple justice, I couldn’t help thinking that the dead children’s mother might possibly have been of another mind about it.

Unable to sit, I went again to the window, gazing out unseeingly at the dark garden.

It wasn’t simply excitement that was making my heart beat fast and my hands perspire; it was fear. With matters as they were in Scotland—as they had been since the Rising—it would be no difficult matter to find willing emigrants.

I had seen ships come into port in the Indies and in Georgia, disgorging their cargos of emigrants, so emaciated and worn by their passage that they reminded me of nothing so much as concentration camp victims—skeletal as living corpses, white as maggots from two months in the darkness below-decks.

Despite the expense and difficulty of the journey, despite the pain of parting from friends and family and homeland forever, the immigrants poured in, in hundreds and in thousands, carrying their children—those who survived the voyage—and their possessions in small, ragged bundles; fleeing poverty and hopelessness, seeking not fortune but only a small foothold on life. Only a chance.

I had spent only a short time at Lallybroch the winter before, but I knew there were tenants there who survived only by the goodwill of Ian and Young Jamie, their crofts not yielding enough to live on. While such goodwill was invariably given, it was not inexhaustible; I knew that the estate’s slender resources were often stretched to the maximum.

Beyond Lallybroch, there were the smugglers Jamie had known in Edinburgh, and the illegal distillers of Highland whisky—any number of men, in fact, who had been forced to turn to lawlessness to feed their families. No, finding willing emigrants would be no problem at all for Jamie.

The problem was that in order to recruit suitable men for the purpose, he would have to go to Scotland. And in my mind was the sight of a granite gravestone in a Scottish kirkyard, on a hill high above the moors and sea.

JAMES ALEXANDER MALCOLM MACKENZIE FRASER
, it read, and below that, my own name was carved—
Beloved husband of Claire
.

I would bury him in Scotland. But there had been no date on the stone when I saw it, two hundred years hence; no notion when the blow would fall.

“Not yet,” I whispered, clenching my fists in the silk of my petticoat. “I’ve only had him for a little while—oh, God, please, not yet!”

As though in answer, the door swung open, and James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser came in, carrying a candle.