“YOU CANNOT KEEP ME prisoner here! Let me pass, or I will shout for help!”

They had, in fact, held him for more than an hour, blocking all attempts on his part to rise and leave. He was right, though, Roger thought; traffic was beginning to pick up in the street outside, and he could hear—as could Forbes—the noises of a maid setting out the tables for dinner in the next room.

He glanced at Ian. They had discussed it; if word hadn’t come within an hour, they would have to try to remove Forbes from the inn, take him to a more private place. That could be a dicey business; the lawyer was intimidated, but stubborn as a ball bearing. And he would call for help.

Ian pursed his lips thoughtfully, and drew the knife he had been playing with down the side of his breeches, polishing the blade.

“Mr. MacKenzie?” A small boy had popped up beside him like a mushroom, dirt-smeared and round-faced.

“I am,” he said, a wave of thankfulness washing through him. “Have ye got something for me?”

“Aye, sir.” The urchin handed over a small twist of paper, accepted a coin in return, and was gone, in spite of Forbes’s call of “Wait, boy!”

The lawyer had half-risen from his seat in agitation. Roger made a sharp move toward him, though, and he sank back at once, not waiting to be pushed. Good, Roger thought grimly, he was learning.

Undoing the twist of paper, he found himself holding a large brooch in the shape of a bunch of flowers, done in garnets and silver. It was a good piece of workmanship, but rather ugly. Its impression on Forbes, though, was substantial.

“You wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.” The lawyer was staring at the brooch in Roger’s hand, his heavy face gone pale.

“Oh, I expect he would, if ye mean Uncle Jamie,” Ian Murray said. “He’s fond of his daughter, aye?”

“Nonsense.” The lawyer was making a game attempt to bluff it out, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the brooch. “Fraser is a gentleman.”

“He’s a Highlander,” Roger said brutally. “Like your father, aye?” He’d heard stories about the elder Forbes, who by all accounts had escaped Scotland just ahead of the hangsman.

Forbes chewed his lower lip.

“He would not harm an old woman,” he said, with as much bravado as he could summon.

“Would he not?” Ian’s sketchy brows lifted. “Aye, perhaps not. He might just send her awa’, though—to Canada, maybe? Ye seem to ken him fair weel, Mr. Forbes. What d’ye think?”

The lawyer drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, breathing through his teeth, evidently reviewing what he knew of Jamie Fraser’s character and reputation.

“All right,” he said suddenly. “All right!”

Roger felt the tension running through him snap like a cut wire. He’d been strung like a puppet since Jamie had come to fetch him last night.

“Where?” he said, feeling breathless. “Where is she?”

“She’s safe,” Forbes said hoarsely. “I wouldn’t have her harmed.” He looked up, wild-eyed. “For God’s sake, I wouldn’t harm her!”

“Where?” Roger clamped the brooch tight, not caring that its edges cut into his hand. “Where is she?”

The lawyer sagged like a half-filled bag of meal.

“Aboard a ship called Anemone, Captain Bonnet.” He swallowed hard, unable to keep his eyes away from the brooch. “She—I told—they are bound for England. But she is safe, I tell you!”

Shock tightened Roger’s grip, and he felt the sudden slick of blood on his fingers. He flung the brooch onto the floor, wiping his hand on his breeches, struggling for words. The shock had tightened his throat, as well; he felt as though he were strangling.

Seeing his trouble, Ian stood abruptly and pressed his knife against the lawyer’s throat.

“When did they sail?”

“I—I—” The lawyer’s mouth opened and closed at random, and he looked helplessly from Ian to Roger, eyes bulging.

“Where?” Roger forced the word past the blockage in his throat, and Forbes flinched at the sound.

“She—she was put aboard here. In Edenton. Two—two days ago.”

Roger nodded abruptly. Safe, he said. In Bonnet’s hands. Two days, in Bonnet’s hands. But he had sailed with Bonnet, he thought, trying to steady himself, keep a grip on his rationality. He knew how the man worked. Bonnet was a smuggler; he would not sail for England without a full cargo. He might—might—be going down the coast, picking up small shipments before turning to the open sea and the long voyage for England.

And if not—he might still be caught, with a fast ship.

No time to be lost; people on the docks might know where the Anemone was headed next. He turned and took a step toward the door. Then a red wave washed through him and he whirled back, smashing his fist into Forbes’s face with the full weight of his body behind it.

The lawyer gave a high-pitched scream, and clutched both hands to his nose. All noises in the inn and in the street seemed to stop; the world hung suspended. Roger took a short, deep breath, rubbing his knuckles, and nodded once more.

“Come on,” he said to Ian.

“Oh, aye.”

Roger was halfway to the door when he realized that Ian was not with him. He looked back, and was just in time to see his cousin-by-marriage take Forbes gently by one ear and cut it off.

104



SLEEPING WITH A SHARK

STEPHEN BONNET was as good as his word—if that’s how one would describe it. He made no sexual advances toward her, but did insist that she share his bed.

“I like a warm body in the night,” he said. “And I think ye might prefer my bed to the cargo hold, sweetheart.”

She would most emphatically have preferred the cargo hold, though her explorations—once free of land, she was allowed out of the cabin—had revealed the hold as a dark and comfortless hole, in which several hapless slaves were chained among a collection of boxes and barrels, in constant danger of being crushed should the cargo shift.

“Where are we going, miss? And what will happen when we get there?” Josh spoke in Gaelic, his handsome face small and frightened in the shadows of the hold.

“I think we’re going to Ocracoke,” she said in the same language. “Beyond that—I don’t know. Do you still have your rosary?”

“Oh, yes, miss.” He touched his chest, where the crucifix hung. “It’s the only thing that keeps me from despair.”

“Good. Keep praying.” She glanced at the other slaves: two women, two men, all with slender bodies and delicate, fine-boned faces. She had brought food for Josh from her own supper, but had nothing to offer them, and was troubled.

“Do they feed you down here?”

“Yes, miss. Fairly well,” he assured her.

“Do they”—she moved her chin a little, delicately indicating the other slaves—“know anything? About where we’re going?”

“I don’t know, miss. I can’t talk to them. They’re African—Fulani, I can see that from the way they look, but that’s all I know.”

“I see. Well …” She hesitated, eager to be out of the dark, clammy hold, but reluctant to leave the young groom there.

“You go along, miss,” he said quietly in English, seeing her doubt. “I be fine. We all be fine.” He touched his rosary, and did his best to give her a smile, though it wavered round the edges. “Holy Mother see us safe.”

Having no words of comfort to impart, she nodded, and climbed the ladder into the sunlight, feeling five sets of eyes upon her.

Bonnet, thank God, spent most of his time on deck during the day. She could see him now, coming down the rigging like a nimble ape.

She stood very still, no movement save the brush of windblown hair, of skirts against her frozen limbs. He was as sensitive to the movements of her body as was Roger—but in his own way. The way of a shark, signaled to and drawn by the flappings of its prey.

She had spent one night in his bed so far, sleepless. He had pulled her casually against himself, said, “Good night, darlin’,” and fallen instantly asleep. Whenever she had tried to move, to extricate herself from his grip, though, he had shifted, moving with her, to keep her firmly by him.