PART ELEVEN

 In the Day of Vengeance

98



TO KEEP A GHOST AT BAY

JAMIE GROANED, STRETCHED, and sat down heavily on the bed.

“I feel as though someone’s stepped on my cock.”

“Oh?” I opened one eye to look at him. “Who?”

He gave me a bloodshot look.

“I dinna ken, but it feels as though it was someone heavy.”

“Lie down,” I said, yawning. “We haven’t got to leave right away; you can rest a bit more.”

He shook his head.

“Nay, I want to be home. We’ve been gone too long as it is.” Nonetheless, he didn’t get up and finish dressing, but continued to sit on the swaybacked inn bed in his shirt, big hands hanging idle between his thighs.

He looked tired to death, in spite of just having risen, and no wonder. I didn’t think he could have slept at all for several days, what with his search for me, the burning of Fort Johnston, and the events attending my release from the Cruizer. Remembering, I felt a pall settle over my own spirits, in spite of the joy in which I had wakened, realizing that I was free, on land, and with Jamie.

“Lie down,” I repeated. I rolled toward him, and put a hand on his back. “It’s barely dawn. At least wait for breakfast; you can’t travel without rest or food.”

He glanced at the window, still shuttered; the cracks had begun to pale with the growing light, but I was right; there was no sound below of fires being stoked or pots banged in preparation. Capitulating suddenly, he collapsed slowly sideways, unable to repress a sigh as his head settled back on the pillow.

He didn’t protest when I flung the ratty quilt over him, nor yet when I curved my body to fit round him, wrapping an arm about his waist and laying my cheek against his back. He still smelled of smoke, though both of us had washed hastily the night before, before falling into bed and a dearly bought oblivion.

I could feel how tired he was. My own joints still ached with fatigue—and from the lumps in the flattened, wool-stuffed mattress. Ian had been waiting with horses when we came ashore, and we had ridden as far as we could before darkness fell, finally fetching up at a ramshackle inn in the middle of nowhere, a crude roadside accommodation for wagoneers on their way to the coast.

“Malcolm,” he’d said, with the slightest of hesitations, when the innkeeper had asked his name. “Alexander Malcolm.”

“And Murray,” Ian had said, yawning and scratching his ribs. “John Murray.”

The innkeeper had nodded, not particularly caring. There was no reason why he should associate three nondescript, bedraggled travelers with a notorious case of murder—and yet I had felt panic well up under my diaphragm when he glanced at me.

I had sensed Jamie’s hesitation in giving the name, his distaste for reassuming one of the many aliases he had once lived under. More than most men, he valued his name—I only hoped that given time, it would once more have value.

Roger might help. He would be a full-fledged minister by now, I thought, smiling at the thought. He had a true gift for soothing the divisions among the inhabitants of the Ridge, easing acrimony—and having the additional authority of being an ordained minister, his influence would be increased.

It would be good to have him back. And to see Bree and Jemmy again—I had a moment’s longing for them, though we would see them soon; we meant to go through Cross Creek and collect them on the way. But of course, neither Bree nor Roger had any notion what had happened in the last three weeks—nor what life might now be like, in the wake of it.

The birds were in full voice in the trees outside; after the constant screeching of gulls and terns that formed the background of life on the Cruizer, the sound of them was tender, a homely conversation that made me long suddenly for the Ridge. I understood Jamie’s strong urge to be home—even knowing that what we would find there was not the same life we had left. The Christies would be gone, for one thing.

I hadn’t had the chance to ask Jamie about the circumstances of my rescue; I had finally been put ashore just before sunset, and we had ridden off at once, Jamie wanting to put as much distance as possible between me and Governor Martin—and, perhaps, Tom Christie.

“Jamie,” I said softly, my breath warm in the folds of his shirt. “Did you make him do it? Tom?”

“No.” His voice was soft, too. “He came to Fergus’s printshop, the day after ye left the palace. He’d heard that the gaol had burned—”

I sat up in bed, shocked.

“What? Sheriff Tolliver’s house? No one told me that!”

He rolled onto his back, looking up at me.

“I dinna suppose anyone ye’ve spoken to in the last week or two would know,” he said mildly. “No one was killed, Sassenach—I asked.”

“You’re sure of it?” I asked with uneasy thoughts of Sadie Ferguson. “How did it happen? A mob?”

“No,” he said, yawning. “From what I hear, Mrs. Tolliver got stinking drunk, stoked her laundry fire too high, then lay down in the shade and fell asleep. The wood collapsed, the embers set fire to the grass, it spread to the house, and …” He flipped a hand in dismissal. “The neighbor smelt smoke, though, and rushed over in time to drag Mrs. Tolliver and the bairn safe away. He said there was no one else in the place.”

“Oh. Well …” I let him persuade me to lie down again, my head resting in the hollow of his shoulder. I couldn’t feel strange with him, not after spending the night pressed close against him in the narrow bed, each of us aware of the other’s every small movement. Still, I was very conscious of him.

And he of me; his arm was round me, his fingers unconsciously exploring the length of my back, lightly reading the shapes of me like braille as he talked.

“So, then, Tom. He kent about L’Onion, of course, and so went there, when he found ye’d disappeared from the gaol. By then, of course, ye’d gone from the palace, as well—it had taken him some time to part company wi’ Richard Brown, without rousing their suspicions.

“But he found us there, and he told me what he meant to do.” His fingers stroked the back of my neck, and I felt the tightness there begin to relax. “I told him to bide; I should have a go at getting ye back on my own—but if I could not …”

“So you know he didn’t do it.” I spoke with certainty. “Did he tell you he had?”

“He only said that he had kept silent while there was any chance of ye being tried and acquitted—but that had ye ever seemed in urgent danger, then he’d meant to speak up at once; that’s why he insisted upon coming with us. I, ah, didna wish to ask him questions,” he said delicately.

“But he didn’t do it.” I prodded, insistent. “Jamie, you know he didn’t!”

I felt the rise of his chest under my cheek as he breathed.

“I know,” he said softly.

We were silent for a bit. There was a sudden, muffled rapping outside, and I jerked—but it was only a woodpecker, hunting insects in the wormy timbers of the inn.

“Will they hang him, do you think?” I asked at last, staring up at the splintered beams above.

“I expect they will, aye.” His fingers had resumed their half-unconscious motion, smoothing strands of my hair behind my ear. I lay still, listening to the slow thump of his heart, not wanting to ask what came next. But I had to.

“Jamie—tell me that he didn’t do it—that he didn’t make that confession—for me. Please.” I didn’t think I could bear that, not on top of everything else.

His fingers stilled, just touching my ear.

“He loves you. Ye ken that, aye?” He spoke very quietly; I heard the reverberation of the words in his chest, as much as the words themselves.

“He said he did.” I felt a tightness in the throat, recalling that very direct gray look. Tom Christie was a man who said what he meant, and meant what he said—a man like Jamie, in that regard at least.