2
THE PLOT THICKENS
Roger left Culloden House next morning with twelve pages of notes and a growing feeling of bafflement. What had at first seemed a fairly straightforward job of historical research was turning up some odd twists, and no mistake.
He had found only three of the names from Claire Randall’s list among the rolls of the dead of Culloden. This in itself was nothing remarkable. Charles Stuart’s army had rarely had a coherent roll of enlistment, as some clan chieftains had joined the Bonnie Prince apparently on whim, and many had left for even less reason, before the names of their men could be inscribed on any official document. The Highland army’s record-keeping, haphazard at best, had disintegrated almost completely toward the end; there was little point in keeping a payroll, after all, if you had nothing with which to pay the men on it.
He carefully folded his lanky frame and inserted himself into his ancient Morris, automatically ducking to avoid bumping his head. Taking the folder from under his arm, he opened it and frowned at the pages he had copied. What was odd about it was that nearly all of the men on Claire’s list had been shown on another army list.
Within the ranks of a given clan regiment, men might have deserted as the dimensions of the coming disaster became clearer; that would have been nothing unusual. No, what made the whole thing so incomprehensible was that the names on Claire’s list had shown up—entire and complete—as part of the Master of Lovat’s regiment, sent late in the campaign to fulfill a promise of support made to the Stuarts by Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat.
Yet Claire had definitely said—and a glance at her original sheets confirmed it—that these men had all come from a small estate called Broch Tuarach, well to the south and west of the Fraser lands—on the border of the MacKenzie clan lands, in fact. More than that, she had said these men had been with the Highland army since the Battle of Prestonpans, which had occurred near the beginning of the campaign.
Roger shook his head. This made no kind of sense. Granted, Claire might have mistaken the timing—she had said herself that she was no historian. But not the location, surely? And how could men from the estate of Broch Tuarach, who had given no oath of allegiance to the chief of clan Fraser, have been at the disposal of Simon Fraser? True, Lord Lovat had been known as “the Old Fox,” and for good reason, but Roger doubted that even that redoubtable old Earl had had sufficient wiliness to pull off something like this.
Frowning to himself, Roger started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. The archives at Culloden House were depressingly incomplete; mostly a lot of picturesque letters from Lord George Murray, beefing about supply problems, and things that looked good in the museum displays for the tourists. He needed a lot more than that.
“Hold on, cock,” he reminded himself, squinting in the rearview mirror at the turn. “You’re meant to be finding out what happened to the ones that didn’t cark it at Culloden. What does it matter how they got there, so long as they left the battle in one piece?”
But he couldn’t leave it alone. It was such an odd circumstance. Names got muddled with enormous frequency, especially in the Highlands, where half the population at any given moment seemed to be named “Alexander.” Consequently, men had customarily been known by their place-names, as well as their clan or surnames. Sometimes instead of the surnames. “Lochiel,” one of the most prominent Jacobite chieftains, was in fact Donald Cameron, of Lochiel, which distinguished him nicely from the hundreds of other Camerons named Donald.
And all the Highland men who hadn’t been named Donald or Alec had been named John. Of the three names that he’d found on the death rolls that matched Claire’s list, one was Donald Murray, one was Alexander MacKenzie Fraser, and one was John Graham Fraser. All without place-names attached; just the plain name, and the regiment to which they’d belonged. The Master of Lovat’s regiment, the Fraser regiment.
But without the place-name, he couldn’t be sure that they were the same men as the names on Claire’s list. There were at least six John Frasers on the death roll, and even that was incomplete; the English had given little attention to completeness or accuracy—most of the records had been compiled after the fact, by clan chieftains counting noses and determining who hadn’t come home. Frequently the chieftains themselves hadn’t come home, which complicated matters.
He rubbed his hand hard through his hair with frustration, as though scalp massage might stimulate his brain. And if the three names weren’t the same men, the mystery only deepened. A good half of Charles Stuart’s army had been slaughtered at Culloden. And Lovat’s men had been in the thick of it, right in the center of the battle. It was inconceivable that a group of thirty men had survived in that position without one fatality. The Master of Lovat’s men had come late to the Rising; while desertion had been rife in other regiments, who had served long enough to have some idea what they were in for, the Frasers had been remarkably loyal—and suffered in consequence.
A loud horn-blast from behind startled him out of his concentration, and he pulled to the side to let a large, annoyed lorry rumble past. Thinking and driving were not compatible activities, he decided. End up smashed against a stone wall, if he kept this up.
He sat still for a moment, pondering. His natural impulse was to go to Mrs. Thomas’s bed-and-breakfast, and tell Claire what he had found to date. The fact that this might involve basking for a few moments in the presence of Brianna Randall enhanced the appeal of this idea.
On the other hand, all his historian’s instincts cried out for more data. And he wasn’t at all sure that Claire was the person to provide it. He couldn’t imagine why she should commission him to do this project, and at the same time, interfere with its completion by giving him inaccurate information. It wasn’t sensible, and Claire Randall struck him as an eminently sensible person.
Still, there was that business with the whisky. His cheeks grew hot in memory. He was positive she’d done it on purpose—and as she didn’t really seem the sort for practical jokes, he was compelled to assume she’d done it to stop him inviting Brianna to Broch Tuarach. Did she want to keep him away from the place, or only to stop him taking Brianna there? The more he thought about the incident, the more convinced he became that Claire Randall was keeping something from her daughter, but what it was, he couldn’t imagine. Still less could he think what connection it had with him, or the project he had undertaken.
He’d give it up, were it not for two things. Brianna, and simple curiosity. He wanted to know what was going on, and he bloody well intended to find out.
He rapped his fist softly against the wheel, thinking, ignoring the rush of passing traffic. At last, decision made, he started the engine again and pulled into the road. At the next roundabout, he went three-quarters round the circle and headed for the town center of Inverness, and the railroad station.
The Flying Scotsman could have him in Edinburgh in three hours. The curator in charge of the Stuart Papers had been a close friend of the Reverend. And he had one clue to start with, puzzling as it was. The roll that had listed the names in the Master of Lovat’s regiment had shown those thirty men as being under the command of a Captain James Fraser—of Broch Tuarach. This man was the only apparent link between Broch Tuarach and the Frasers of Lovat. He wondered why James Fraser had not appeared on Claire’s list.
The sun was out; a rare event for mid-April, and Roger made the most of it by cranking down the tiny window on the driver’s side, to let the bright wind blow past his ear.
He had had to stay overnight in Edinburgh, and coming back late the next day, had been so tired from the long train ride that he had done little more than eat the hot supper Fiona insisted on fixing him before he fell into bed. But today he had risen full of renewed energy and determination, and motored down to the small village of Broch Mordha, near the site of the estate called Broch Tuarach. If her mother didn’t want Brianna Randall going to Broch Tuarach, there was nothing stopping him from having a look at the place.
He had actually found Broch Tuarach itself, or at least he assumed so; there was an enormous pile of fallen stone, surrounding the collapsed remnant of one of the ancient circular brochs, or towers, used in the distant past both for living and for defense. He had sufficient Gaelic to know that the name meant “north-facing tower,” and had wondered briefly just how a circular tower could have come by such a name.
There was a manor house and its outbuildings nearby, also in ruins, though a good deal more of it was left. An estate agent’s sign, weathered almost to illegibility, stood tacked to a stake in the dooryard. Roger stood on the slope above the house, looking around. At a glance, he could see nothing that would explain Claire’s wanting to keep her daughter from coming here.
He parked the Morris in the dooryard, and climbed out. It was a beautiful site, but very remote; it had taken him nearly forty-five minutes of careful maneuvering to get his Morris down the rutted country lane from the main highway without fracturing his oil pan.
He didn’t go into the house; it was plainly abandoned, and possibly dangerous—there would be nothing there. The name FRASER was carved into the lintel, though, and the same name adorned most of the small tombstones in what must have been the family graveyard—those that were legible. Not a great help, that, he reflected. None of these stones bore the names of men on his list. He’d have to go on along the road; according to the AA map, the village of Broch Mhorda was three miles farther on.
As he’d feared, the small village church had fallen into disuse and been knocked down years ago. Persistent knockings on doors elicited blank stares, dour looks, and finally a doubtful speculation from an aged farmer that the old parish records might have gone to the museum in Fort William, or maybe up to Inverness; there was a minister up that way who collected such rubbish.
Tired and dusty, but not yet discouraged, Roger trudged back to his car, sheltering in the lane by the village pub. This was the sort of setback that so often attended historical field research, and he was used to it. A quick pint—well, two, maybe, it was an unusually warm day—and then on to Fort William.
Serve him right, he reflected wryly, if the records he was looking for turned out to be in the Reverend’s archives all along. That’s what he got for neglecting his work to go on wild-goose chases to impress a girl. His trip to Edinburgh had done little more than serve to eliminate the three names he’d found at Culloden House; all three men proved to have come from different regiments, not the Broch Tuarach group.
The Stuart Papers took up three entire rooms, as well as untold packing cases in the basement of the museum, so he could hardly claim to have made an exhaustive study. Still, he had found a duplicate of the payroll he’d seen at Culloden House, listing the joining of the men as part of a regiment under the overall command of the Master of Lovat—the Old Fox’s son, that would have been, Young Simon. Cagy old bastard split his vote, Roger thought; sent the heir to fight for the Stuarts, and stayed home himself, claiming to have been a loyal subject of King Geordie all along. Much good it did him.
That document had listed Simon Fraser the Younger as commander, and made no mention of James Fraser. A James Fraser was mentioned in a number of army dispatches, memoranda, and other documents, though. If it was the same man, he’d been fairly active in the campaign. Still, with only the name “James Fraser,” it was impossible to tell if it was the Broch Tuarach one; James was as common a Highland name as Duncan or Robert. In only one spot was a James Fraser listed with additional middle names that might help in identification, but that document made no mention of his men.
He shrugged, irritably waving off a sudden cloud of voracious midges. To go through those records in coherent fashion would take several years. Unable to shake the attentions of the midges, he ducked into the dark, brewery atmosphere of the pub, leaving them to mill outside in a frenzied cloud of inquiry.
Sipping the cool, bitter ale, he mentally reviewed the steps taken so far, and the options open to him. He had time to go to Fort William today, though it would mean getting back to Inverness late. And if the Fort William museum turned up nothing, then a good rummage through the Reverend’s archives was the logical, if ironic, next step.
And after that? He drained the last drops of bitter, and signaled the landlord for another glass. Well, if it came down to it, a tramp round every kirkyard and burying ground in the general vicinity of Broch Tuarach was likely the best he could do in the short term. He doubted that the Randalls would stay in Inverness for the next two or three years, patiently awaiting results.
He felt in his pocket for the notebook that is the historian’s constant companion. Before he left Broch Mhorda, he should at least have a look at what was left of the old kirkyard. You never knew what might turn up, and it would at least save him coming back.
The next afternoon, the Randalls came to take tea at Roger’s invitation, and to hear his progress report.
“I’ve found several of the names on your list,” he told Claire, leading the way into the study. “It’s very odd; I haven’t yet found any who died for sure at Culloden. I thought I had three, but they turned out to be different men with the same names.” He glanced at Dr. Randall; she was standing quite still, one hand clasping the back of a wing chair, as though she’d forgotten where she was.
“Er, won’t you sit down?” Roger invited, and with a small, startled jerk, she nodded and sat abruptly on the edge of the seat. Roger eyed her curiously, but went on, pulling out his folder of research notes and handing it to her.
“As I say, it’s odd. I haven’t tracked down all the names; I think I’ll need to go nose about among the parish registers and graveyards near Broch Tuarach. I found most of these records among my father’s papers. But you’d think I’d have turned up one or two battle-deaths at least, given that they were all at Culloden. Especially if, as you say, they were with one of the Fraser regiments; those were nearly all in the center of the battle, where the fighting was thickest.”
“I know.” There was something in her voice that made him look at her, puzzled, but her face was invisible as she bent over the desk. Most of the records were copies, made in Roger’s own hand, as the exotic technology of photocopying had not yet penetrated to the government archive that guarded the Stuart Papers, but there were a few original sheets, unearthed from the late Reverend Wakefield’s hoard of eighteenth-century documents. She turned over the records with a gentle finger, careful not to touch the fragile paper more than necessary.
“You’re right; that is odd.” Now he recognized the emotion in her voice—it was excitement, but mingled with satisfaction and relief. She had been in some way expecting this—or hoping for it.
“Tell me…” She hesitated. “The names you’ve found. What happened to them, if they didn’t die at Culloden?”
He was faintly surprised that it should seem to matter so much to her, but obligingly pulled out the folder that held his research notes and opened it. “Two of them were on a ship’s roll; they emigrated to America soon after Culloden. Four died of natural causes about a year later—not surprising, there was a terrible famine after Culloden, and a lot of people died in the Highlands. And this one I found in a parish register—but not the parish he came from. I’m fairly sure it’s one of your men, though.”
It was only as the tension went out of her shoulders that he noticed it had been there.
“Do you want me to look for the rest, still?” he asked, hoping that the answer would be “yes.” He was watching Brianna over her mother’s shoulder. She was standing by the cork wall, half-turned as though uninterested in her mother’s project, but he could see a small vertical crease between her brows.
Perhaps she sensed the same thing he did, the odd air of suppressed excitement that surrounded Claire like an electric field. He had been aware of it from the moment she walked into the room, and his revelations had only increased it. He imagined that if he touched her, a great spark of static electricity would leap between them.
A knock on the study door interrupted his thoughts. The door opened and Fiona Graham came in, pushing a tea cart, fully equipped with teapot, cups, doilies, three kinds of sandwiches, cream-cakes, sponge cake, jam tarts, and scones with clotted cream.
“Yum!” said Brianna at the sight. “Is that all for us, or are you expecting ten other people?”
Claire Randall looked over the tea preparations, smiling. The electric field was still there, but damped down by major effort. Roger could see one of her hands, clenched so hard in the folds of her skirt that the edge of her ring cut into the flesh.
“That tea is so high, we won’t need to eat for weeks,” she said. “It looks wonderful!”
Fiona beamed. She was short, plump and pretty as a small brown hen. Roger sighed internally. While he was pleased to be able to offer his guests hospitality, he was well aware that the lavish nature of the refreshments was intended for his appreciation, not theirs. Fiona, aged nineteen, had one burning ambition in life. To be a wife. Preferably of a professional man. She had taken one look at Roger when he arrived a week earlier to tidy up the Reverend’s affairs, and decided that an assistant professor of history was the best prospect Inverness offered.
Since then, he had been stuffed like a Christmas goose, had his shoes polished, his slippers and toothbrush laid out, his bed turned down, his coat brushed, the evening paper bought for him and laid alongside his plate, his neck rubbed when he had been working over his desk for long hours, and constant inquiries made concerning his bodily comfort, state of mind, and general health. He had never before been exposed to such a barrage of domesticity.
In short, Fiona was driving him mad. His current state of unshaven dishabille was more a reaction to her relentless pursuit than it was a descent into that natural squalor enjoyed by men temporarily freed from the demands of job and society.
The thought of being united in bonds of holy wedlock with Fiona Graham was one that froze him to the marrow. She would drive him insane within a year, with her constant pestering. Aside from that, though, there was Brianna Randall, now gazing contemplatively at the tea cart, as though wondering where to start.
He had been keeping his attention firmly fixed on Claire Randall and her project this afternoon, avoiding looking at her daughter. Claire Randall was lovely, with the sort of fine bones and translucent skin that would make her look much the same at sixty as she had at twenty. But looking at Brianna Randall made him feel slightly breathless.
She carried herself like a queen, not slumping as tall girls so often do. Noting her mother’s straight back and graceful posture, he could see where that particular attribute had come from. But not the remarkable height, the cascade of waist-length red hair, sparked with gold and copper, streaked with amber and cinnamon, curling casually around face and shoulders like a mantle. The eyes, so dark a blue as almost to be black in some lights. Nor that wide, generous mouth, with a full lower lip that invited nibbling kisses and biting passion. Those things must have come from her father.
Roger was on the whole rather glad that her father was not present, since he would certainly have taken paternal umbrage at the sorts of thoughts Roger was thinking; thoughts he was desperately afraid showed on his face.
“Tea, eh?” he said heartily. “Splendid. Wonderful. Looks delicious, Fiona. Er, thanks, Fiona. I, um, don’t think we need anything else.”
Ignoring the broad hint to depart, Fiona nodded graciously at the compliments from the guests, laid out the doilies and cups with deft economy of motion, poured the tea, passed round the first plate of cake, and seemed prepared to stay indefinitely, presiding as lady of the house.
“Have some cream on your scones, Rog—I mean, Mr. Wakefield,” she suggested, ladling it on without waiting for his reply. “You’re much too thin; you want feeding up.” She glanced conspiratorially at Brianna Randall, saying, “You know what men are; never eat properly without a woman to look after them.”
“How lucky that he’s got you to take care of him,” Brianna answered politely.
Roger took a deep breath, and flexed his fingers several times, until the urge to strangle Fiona had passed.
“Fiona,” he said. “Would you, um, could you possibly do me a small favor?”
She lit up like a small jack-o’-lantern, mouth stretched in an eager grin at the thought of doing something for him. “Of course, Rog—Mr. Wakefield! Anything at all!”
Roger felt vaguely ashamed of himself, but after all, he argued, it was for her good as much as his. If she didn’t leave, he was shortly going to cease being responsible and commit some act they would both regret.
“Oh, thanks, Fiona. It’s nothing much; only that I’d ordered some…some”—he thought frantically, trying to remember the name of one of the village merchants—“some tobacco, from Mr. Buchan in the High Street. I wonder if you’d be willing to go and fetch it for me; I could just do with a good pipe after such a wonderful tea.”
Fiona was already untying her apron—the frilly, lace-trimmed one, Roger noted grimly. He closed his eyes briefly in relief as the study door shut behind her, dismissing for the moment the fact that he didn’t smoke. With a sigh of relief, he turned to conversation with his guests.
“You were asking whether I wanted you to look for the rest of the names on my list,” Claire said, almost at once. Roger had the odd impression that she shared his relief at Fiona’s departure. “Yes, I do—if it wouldn’t be too much trouble?”
“No, no! Not at all,” Roger said, with only slight mendacity. “Glad to do it.”
Roger’s hand hovered uncertainly amid the largesse of the tea cart, then snaked down to grasp the crystal decanter of twelve-year-old Muir Breame whisky. After the skirmish with Fiona, he felt he owed it to himself.
“Will you have a bit of this?” he asked his guests politely. Catching the look of distaste on Brianna’s face, he quickly added, “Or maybe some tea?”
“Tea,” Brianna said with relief.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Claire told her daughter, inhaling the whisky fumes with rapture.
“Oh yes I do,” Brianna replied. “That’s why I’m missing it.” She shrugged and quirked an eyebrow at Roger.
“You have to be twenty-one before you can drink legally in Massachusetts,” Claire explained to Roger. “Bree has another eight months to go, so she really isn’t used to whisky.”
“You act as though not liking whisky was a crime,” Brianna protested, smiling at Roger above her teacup.
He raised his own brows in response. “My dear woman,” he said severely. “This is Scotland. Of course not liking whisky is a crime!”
“Oh, aye?” said Brianna sweetly, in a perfect imitation of his own slight Scots burr. “Well, we’ll hope it’s no a capital offense like murrderrr, shall we?”
Taken by surprise, he swallowed a laugh with his whisky and choked. Coughing and pounding himself on the chest, he glanced at Claire to share the joke. A forced smile hung on her lips, but her face had gone quite pale. Then she blinked, the smile came back more naturally, and the moment passed.
Roger was surprised at how easily conversation flowed among them—both about trivialities, and about Claire’s project. Brianna clearly had been interested in her father’s work, and knew a great deal more about the Jacobites than did her mother.
“It’s amazing they ever made it as far as Culloden,” she said. “Did you know the Highlanders won the battle of Prestonpans with barely two thousand men? Against an English army of eight thousand? Incredible!”
“Well, and the Battle of Falkirk was nearly that way as well,” Roger chimed in. “Outnumbered, outarmed, marching on foot…they should never have been able to do what they did…but they did!”
“Um-hm,” said Claire, taking a deep gulp of her whisky. “They did!”
“I was thinking,” Roger said to Brianna, with an assumed air of casualness. “Perhaps you’d like to come with me to some of the places—the battle sites and other places? They’re interesting, and I’m sure you’d be a tremendous help with the research.”
Brianna laughed and smoothed back her hair, which had a tendency to drop into her tea. “I don’t know about the help, but I’d love to come.”
“Terrific!” Surprised and elated with her agreement, he fumbled for the decanter and nearly dropped it. Claire fielded it neatly, and filled his glass with precision.
“The least I can do, after spilling it the last time,” she said, smiling in answer to his thanks.
Seeing her now, poised and relaxed, Roger was inclined to doubt his earlier suspicions. Maybe it had been an accident after all? That lovely cool face told him nothing.
A half-hour later, the tea table lay in shambles, the decanter stood empty, and the three of them sat in a shared stupor of content. Brianna shifted once or twice, glanced at Roger, and finally asked if she might use his “rest room.”
“Oh, the W.C.? Of course.” He heaved himself to his feet, ponderous with Dundee cake and almond sponge. If he didn’t get away from Fiona soon, he’d weigh three hundred pounds before he got back to Oxford.
“It’s one of the old-fashioned kind,” he explained, pointing down the hall in the direction of the bathroom. “With a tank on the ceiling and a pull-chain.”
“I saw some of those in the British Museum,” Brianna said, nodding. “Only they weren’t in with the exhibits, they were in the ladies’ room.” She hesitated, then asked, “You haven’t got the same sort of toilet paper they have in the British Museum, do you? Because if you do, I’ve got some Kleenex in my purse.”
Roger closed one eye and looked at her with the other. “Either that’s a very odd non sequitur,” he said, “or I’ve drunk a good deal more than I thought.” In fact, he and Claire had accounted very satisfactorily for the Muir Breame, though Brianna had confined herself to tea.
Claire laughed, overhearing the exchange, and got up to hand Brianna several folded facial tissues from her own bag. “It won’t be waxed paper stamped with ‘Property of H.M. Government,’ like the Museum’s, but it likely won’t be much better,” she told her daughter. “British toilet paper is commonly rather a stiff article.”
“Thanks.” Brianna took the tissues and turned to the door, but then turned back. “Why on earth would people deliberately make toilet paper that feels like tinfoil?” she demanded.
“Hearts of oak are our men,” Roger intoned, “stainless steel are their bums. It builds the national character.”
“In the case of Scots, I expect it’s hereditary nerve-deadening,” Claire added. “The sort of men who could ride horse-back wearing a kilt have bottoms like saddle leather.”
Brianna fizzed with laughter. “I’d hate to see what they used for toilet paper then,” she said.
“Actually, it wasn’t bad,” Claire said, surprisingly. “Mullein leaves are really very nice; quite as good as two-ply bathroom tissue. And in the winter or indoors, it was usually a bit of damp rag; not very sanitary, but comfortable enough.”
Roger and Brianna both gawked at her for a moment.
“Er…read it in a book,” she said, and blushed amazingly.
As Brianna, still giggling, made her way off in search of the facilities, Claire remained standing by the door.
“It was awfully nice of you to entertain us so grandly,” she said, smiling at Roger. The momentary discomposure had vanished, replaced by her usual poise. “And remarkably kind of you to have found out about those names for me.”
“My pleasure entirely,” Roger assured her. “It’s made a nice change from cobwebs and mothballs. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve found out anything else about your Jacobites.”
“Thank you.” Claire hesitated, glanced over her shoulder, and lowered her voice. “Actually, since Bree’s gone for the moment…there’s something I wanted to ask you, in private.”
Roger cleared his throat and straightened the tie he had donned in honor of the occasion.
“Ask away,” he said, feeling cheerfully expansive with the success of the tea party. “I’m completely at your service.”
“You were asking Bree if she’d go with you to do field research. I wanted to ask you…there’s a place I’d rather you didn’t take her, if you don’t mind.”
Alarm bells went off at once in Roger’s head. Was he going to find out what the secret was about Broch Tuarach?
“The circle of standing stones—they call it Craigh na Dun.” Claire’s face was earnest as she leaned slightly closer. “There’s an important reason, or I wouldn’t ask. I want to take Brianna to the circle myself, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you why, just now. I will, in time, but not quite yet. Will you promise me?”
Thoughts were chasing themselves through Roger’s mind. So it hadn’t been Broch Tuarach she wanted to keep the girl away from, after all! One mystery was explained, only to deepen another.
“If you like,” he said at last. “Of course.”
“Thank you.” She touched his arm once, lightly, and turned to go. Seeing her silhouetted against the light, he was suddenly reminded of something. Perhaps it wasn’t the moment to ask, but it couldn’t do any harm.
“Oh, Dr. Randall—Claire?”
Claire turned back to face him. With the distractions of Brianna removed, he could see that Claire Randall was a very beautiful woman in her own right. Her face was flushed from the whisky, and her eyes were the most unusual light golden-brown color, he thought—like amber in crystal.
“In all the records that I found dealing with these men,” Roger said, choosing his words carefully, “there was a mention of a Captain James Fraser, who seems to have been their leader. But he wasn’t on your list. I only wondered; did you know about him?”
She stood stock-still for a moment, reminding him of the way she had behaved upon her arrival that afternoon. But after a moment, she shook herself slightly, and answered with apparent equanimity.
“Yes, I knew about him.” She spoke calmly, but all the color had left her face, and Roger could see a small pulse beating rapidly at the base of her throat.
“I didn’t put him on the list because I already knew what happened to him. Jamie Fraser died at Culloden.”
“Are you sure?”
As though anxious to leave, Claire scooped up her handbag, and glanced down the hall toward the bathroom, where the rattling of the ancient knob indicated Brianna’s attempts to get out.
“Yes,” she said, not looking back. “I’m quite sure. Oh, Mr. Wakefield…Roger, I mean.” She swung back now, fixing those oddly colored eyes on him. In this light, they looked almost yellow, he thought; the eyes of a big cat, a leopard’s eyes.
“Please,” she said, “don’t mention Jamie Fraser to my daughter.”
It was late, and he should have been abed long since, but Roger found himself unable to sleep. Whether from the aggravations of Fiona, the puzzling contradictions of Claire Randall, or from exaltation over the prospect of doing field research with Brianna Randall, he was wide-awake, and likely to remain so. Rather than toss, turn, or count sheep, he resolved to put his wakefulness to good use. A rummage through the Reverend’s papers would probably put him to sleep in no time.
Fiona’s light down the hall was still on, but he tiptoed down the stair, not to disturb her. Then, snapping on the study light, he stood for a moment, contemplating the magnitude of the task before him.
The wall exemplified the Reverend Wakefield’s mind. Completely covering one side of the study, it was an expanse of corkboard measuring nearly twenty feet by twelve. Virtually none of the original cork was visible under the layers upon layers of papers, notes, photographs, mimeographed sheets, bills, receipts, bird feathers, torn-off corners of envelopes containing interesting postage stamps, address labels, key rings, postcards, rubber bands, and other impedimenta, all tacked up or attached by bits of string.
The trivia lay twelve layers deep in spots, yet the Reverend had always been able to set his hand unerringly on the bit he wanted. Roger thought that the wall must have been organized according to some underlying principle so subtle that not even American NASA scientists could discern it.
Roger viewed the wall dubiously. There was no logical point at which to start. He reached tentatively for a mimeographed list of General Assembly meeting dates sent out by the bishop’s office, but was distracted by the sight underneath of a crayoned dragon, complete with artistic puffs of smoke from the flaring nostrils, and green flames shooting from the gaping mouth.
ROGER was written in large, straggling capitals at the bottom of the sheet. He vaguely remembered explaining that the dragon breathed green fire because it ate nothing but spinach. He let the General Assembly list fall back into place, and turned away from the wall. He could tackle that lot later.
The desk, an enormous oak rolltop with at least forty stuffed-to-bursting pigeonholes, seemed like pie by comparison. With a sigh, Roger pulled up the battered office chair and sat down to make sense of all the documents the Reverend thought worth keeping.
One stack of bills yet to be paid. Another of official-looking documents: automobile titles, surveyor’s reports, building-inspection certificates. Another for historical notes and records. Another for family keepsakes. Another—by far the largest—for rubbish.
Deep in his task, he didn’t hear the door open behind him, or the approaching footsteps. Suddenly a large teapot appeared on the desk next to him.
“Eh?” He straightened up, blinking.
“Thought you might do with some tea, Mr. Wake—I mean, Roger.” Fiona set down a small tray containing a cup and saucer and a plate of biscuits.
“Oh, thanks.” He was in fact hungry, and gave Fiona a friendly smile that sent the blood rushing into her round, fair cheeks. Seemingly encouraged by this, she didn’t go away, but perched on the corner of the desk, watching him raptly as he went about his job between bites of chocolate biscuit.
Feeling obscurely that he ought to acknowledge her presence in some way, Roger held up a half-eaten biscuit and mumbled, “Good.”
“Are they? I made them, ye know.” Fiona’s flush grew deeper. An attractive little girl, Fiona. Small, rounded, with dark curly hair and wide brown eyes. He found himself wondering suddenly whether Brianna Randall could cook, and shook his head to clear the image.
Apparently taking this as a gesture of disbelief, Fiona leaned closer. “No, really,” she insisted. “A recipe of my gran’s, it is. She always said they were a favorite of the Reverend’s.” The wide brown eyes grew a trifle misty. “She left me all her cookbooks and things. Me being the only granddaughter, ye see.”
“I was sorry about your grandmother,” Roger said sincerely. “Quick, was it?”
Fiona nodded mournfully. “Oh, aye. Right as rain all day, then she said after supper as she felt a bit tired, and went up to her bed.” The girl lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “She went to sleep, and never woke up.”
“A good way to go,” Roger said. “I’m glad of it.” Mrs. Graham had been a fixture in the manse since before Roger himself had come, a frightened, newly orphaned five-year-old. Middle-aged even then, and widowed with grown children, still she had provided an abundant supply of firm, no-nonsense maternal affection during school holidays when Roger came home to the manse. She and the Reverend made an odd pair, and yet between them they had made the old house definitely a home.
Moved by his memories, Roger reached out and squeezed Fiona’s hand. She squeezed back, brown eyes suddenly melting. The small rosebud mouth parted slightly, and she leaned toward Roger, her breath warm on his ear.
“Uh, thank you,” Roger blurted. He pulled his hand out of her grasp as though scorched. “Thanks very much. For the…the…er, tea and things. Good. It was good. Very good. Thanks.” He turned and reached hastily for another stack of papers to cover his confusion, snatching a rolled bundle of newspaper clippings from a pigeonhole chosen at random.
He unrolled the yellowed clippings and spread them on the desk, holding them down between his palms. Frowning in apparent deep concentration, he bent his head lower over the smudged text. After a moment Fiona rose with a deep sigh, and her footsteps receded toward the door. Roger didn’t look up.
Letting out a deep sigh of his own, he closed his eyes briefly and offered a quick prayer of thanks for the narrow escape. Yes, Fiona was attractive. Yes, she was undoubtedly a fine cook. She was also nosy, interfering, irritating, and firmly bent on marriage. Lay one hand on that rosy flesh again, and they’d be calling the banns by next month. But if there was any bann-calling to be done, the name linked with Roger Wakefield in the parish register was going to be Brianna Randall’s, if Roger had anything to say about it.
Wondering just how much he would have to say about it, Roger opened his eyes and then blinked. For there in front of him was the name he had been envisioning on a wedding license—Randall.
Not, of course, Brianna Randall. Claire Randall. The headline read RETURNED FROM THE DEAD. Beneath was a picture of Claire Randall, twenty years younger, but looking little different than she did now, bar the expression on her face. She had been photographed sitting bolt upright in a hospital bed, hair tousled and flying like banners, delicate mouth set like a steel trap, and those extraordinary eyes glaring straight into the camera.
With a sense of shock, Roger thumbed rapidly through the bundle of clippings, then returned to read them more carefully. Though the papers had made as much sensation as possible of the story, the facts were sparse.
Claire Randall, wife of the noted historian Dr. Franklin W. Randall, had disappeared during a Scottish holiday in Inverness, late in the spring of 1946. A car she had been driving had been found, but the woman herself was gone without trace. All searches having proved futile, the police and bereaved husband had at length concluded that Claire Randall must have been murdered, perhaps by a roving tramp, and her body concealed somewhere in the rocky crags of the area.
And in 1948, nearly three years later, Claire Randall had returned. She had been found, disheveled and dressed in rags, wandering near the spot at which she had disappeared. While appearing to be in good physical health, though slightly malnourished, Mrs. Randall was disoriented and incoherent.
Raising his eyebrows slightly at the thought of Claire Randall ever being incoherent, Roger thumbed through the rest of the clippings. They contained little more than the information that Mrs. Randall was being treated for exposure and shock at a local hospital. There were photographs of the presumably overjoyed husband, Frank Randall. He looked stunned rather than overjoyed, Roger thought critically, not that one could blame him.
He examined the pictures curiously. Frank Randall had been a slender, handsome, aristocratic-looking man. Dark, with a rakish grace that showed in the angle of his body as he stood poised in the door of the hospital, surprised by the photographer on his way to visit his newly restored wife.
He traced the line of the long, narrow jaw, and the curve of the head, and realized that he was searching for traces of Brianna in her father. Intrigued by the thought, he rose and fetched one of Frank Randall’s books from the shelves. Turning to the back jacket, he found a better picture. The jacket photograph showed Frank Randall in color, in full-face view. No, the hair was definitely dark brown, not red. That blazing glory must have come from a grandparent, along with the deep blue eyes, slanted as a cat’s. Beautiful they were, but nothing like her mother’s. And not like her father’s either. Try as he might, he could see nothing of the flaming goddess in the face of the famous historian.
With a sigh, he closed the book and gathered up the clippings. He really must stop this mooning about and get on with the job, or he’d be sitting here for the next twelvemonth.
He was about to put the clippings into the keepsake pile, when one, headlined KIDNAPPED BY THE FAIRIES?, caught his eye. Or rather, not the clipping, but the date that appeared just above the headline. May 6, 1948.
He set the clipping down gently, as though it were a bomb that might go off in his hand. He closed his eyes and tried to summon up that first conversation with the Randalls. “You have to be twenty-one to drink in Massachusetts,” Claire had said. “Brianna still has eight months to go.” Twenty, then. Brianna Randall was twenty.
Unable to count backward fast enough, he rose and scrabbled through the perpetual calendar that the vicar had kept, in a clear space to itself on his cluttered wall. He found the date and stood with his finger pressed to the paper, blood draining from his face.
Claire Randall had returned from her mysterious disappearance disheveled, malnourished, incoherent—and pregnant.
In the fullness of time, Roger slept at last, but in consequence of his wakefulness, woke late and heavy-eyed, with an incipient headache, which neither a cold shower nor Fiona’s chirpiness over breakfast did much to dispel.
The feeling was so oppressive that he abandoned his work and left the house for a walk. Striding through a light rain, he found the fresh air improved his headache, but unfortunately cleared his mind enough to start thinking again about the implications of last night’s discovery.
Brianna didn’t know. That was clear enough, from the way she spoke about her late father—or about the man she thought was her father, Frank Randall. And presumably Claire didn’t mean her to know, or she would have told the girl herself. Unless this Scottish trip were meant to be a prelude to such a confession? The real father must have been a Scot; after all, Claire had disappeared—and reappeared—in Scotland. Was he still here?
That was a staggering thought. Had Claire brought her daughter to Scotland in order to introduce her to her real father? Roger shook his head doubtfully. Bloody risky, a thing like that. Bound to be confusing to Brianna, and painful as hell to Claire herself. Scare the shoes and socks off the father, too. And the girl plainly was devoted to Frank Randall. What was she going to feel like, realizing that the man she’d loved and idolized all her life in fact had no blood ties to her at all?
Roger felt bad for all concerned, including himself. He hadn’t asked to have any part of this, and wished himself in the same state of blissful ignorance as yesterday. He liked Claire Randall, liked her very much, and he found the thought of her committing adultery distasteful. At the same time, he jeered at himself for his old-fashioned sentimentality. Who knew what her life with Frank Randall had been like? Perhaps she’d had good reason for going off with another man. But then why had she come back?
Sweating and moody, Roger wandered back to the house. He shed his jacket in the hallway and went up to have a bath. Sometimes bathing helped to soothe him, and he felt much in need of soothing.
He ran a hand along the row of hangers in his closet, groping for the fuzzy shoulder of his worn white toweling robe. Then, pausing for a moment, he reached instead far to the back of the closet, sweeping the hangers along the rod until he could grasp the one he wanted.
He viewed the shabby old dressing gown with affection. The yellow silk of the background had faded to ochre, but the multicolored peacocks were bold as ever, spreading their tails with lordly insouciance, regarding the viewer with eyes like black beads. He brought the soft fabric to his nose and inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. The faint whiff of Borkum Riff and spilled whisky brought back the Reverend Wakefield as not even his father’s wall of trivia could do.
Many were the times he had smelled just that comforting aroma, with its upper note of Old Spice cologne, his face pressed against the smooth slickness of this silk, the Reverend’s chubby arms wrapped protectively around him, promising him refuge. He had given the old man’s other clothes to Oxfam, but somehow he couldn’t bear to part with this.
On impulse, he slipped the robe over his bare shoulders, mildly surprised at the light warmth of it, like the caress of fingers across his skin. He shifted his shoulders pleasurably under the silk, then wrapped it closely about his body, tying the belt in a careless knot.
Keeping a wary eye out in case of raids by Fiona, he made his way along the upper hall to the bathroom. The hot-water geyser stood against the head of the bath like the guardian of a sacred spring, squat and eternal. Another of his youthful memories was the weekly terror of trying to light the geyser with a flint striker in order to heat the water for his bath, the gas escaping past his head with a menacing hiss as his hands, sweaty with the fear of explosion and imminent death, slipped ineffectively on the metal of the striker.
Long since rendered automatic by an operation on its mysterious innards, the geyser now gurgled quietly to itself, the gas ring at its base rumbling and whooshing with unseen flame beneath the metal shield. Roger twisted the cracked “Hot” tap as far as it would go, added a half-turn of the “Cold,” then stood to study himself in the mirror while waiting for his bath to fill.
Nothing much wrong with him, he reflected, sucking in his stomach and pulling himself upright before the full-length reflection on the back of the door. Firm. Trim. Long-legged, but not spindle-shanked. Possibly a bit scrawny through the shoulders? He frowned critically, twisting his lean body back and forth.
He ran a hand through his thick black hair, until it stood on end like a shaving brush, trying to envision himself with a beard and long hair, like some of his students. Would he look dashing, or merely moth-eaten? Possibly an earring, while he was about it. He might look piratical then, like Edward Teach or Henry Morgan. He drew his brows together and bared his teeth.
“Grrrrr,” he said to his reflection.
“Mr. Wakefield?” said the reflection.
Roger leaped back, startled, and stubbed his toe painfully against the protruding claw-foot of the ancient bath.
“Ow!”
“Are you all right, Mr. Wakefield?” the mirror said. The porcelain doorknob rattled.
“Of course I am!” he snapped testily, glaring at the door. “Go away, Fiona, I’m bathing!”
There was a giggle from the other side of the door.
“Ooh, twice in one day. Aren’t we the dandy, though? Do you want some of the bay-rum soap? It’s in the cupboard there, if you do.”
“No, I don’t,” he snarled. The water level had risen midway in the tub, and he cut off the taps. The sudden silence was soothing, and he drew a deep breath of steam into his lungs. Wincing slightly at the heat, he stepped into the water and lowered himself gingerly, feeling a light sweat break out on his face as the heat rushed up his body.
“Mr. Wakefield?” The voice was back, chirping on the other side of the door like a hectoring robin.
“Go away, Fiona,” he gritted, easing himself back in the tub. The steaming water rose around him, comforting as a lover’s arms. “I have everything I want.”
“No, you haven’t,” said the voice.
“Yes, I have.” His eye swept the impressive lineup of bottles, jars, and implements arrayed on the shelf above the tub. “Shampoo, three kinds. Hair conditioner. Shaving cream. Razor. Body soap. Facial soap. After-shave. Cologne. Deodorant stick. I don’t lack a thing, Fiona.”
“What about towels?” said the voice, sweetly.
After a wild glance about the completely towel-less confines of the bathroom, Roger closed his eyes, clenched his teeth and counted slowly to ten. This proving insufficient, he made it twenty. Then, feeling himself able to answer without foaming at the mouth, he said calmly.
“All right, Fiona. Set them outside the door, please. And then, please…please, Fiona.…go.”
A rustle outside was succeeded by the sound of reluctantly receding footsteps, and Roger, with a sigh of relief, gave himself up to the joys of privacy. Peace. Quiet. No Fiona.
Now, able to think more objectively about his upsetting discovery, he found himself more than curious about Brianna’s mysterious real father. Judging from the daughter, the man must have had a rare degree of physical attractiveness; would that alone have been sufficient to lure a woman like Claire Randall?
He had wondered already whether Brianna’s father might have been a Scot. Did he live—or had he lived—in Inverness? He supposed such proximity might account for Claire’s nervousness, and the air she had of keeping secrets. But did it account for the puzzling requests she had made of him? She didn’t want him to take Brianna to Craigh na Dun, nor to mention the captain of the Broch Tuarach men to her daughter. Why on earth not?
A sudden thought made him sit upright in the tub, water sloshing heedlessly against the cast-iron sides. What if it were not the eighteenth-century Jacobite soldier she was concerned about, but only his name? What if the man who had fathered her daughter in 1947 was also named James Fraser? It was a common enough name in the Highlands.
Yes, he thought, that might very well explain it. As for Claire’s desire to show her daughter the stone circle herself, perhaps that was also connected with the mystery of her father; maybe that’s where she’d met the man, or perhaps that’s where Brianna had been conceived. Roger was well aware that the stone circle was commonly used as a trysting spot; he’d taken girls there himself in high school, relying on the circle’s air of pagan mystery to loosen their reserve. It always worked.
He had a sudden startling vision of Claire Randall’s fine white limbs, locked in wild abandon with the naked, straining body of a red-haired man, the two bodies slick with rain and stained with crushed grass, twisting in ecstasy among the standing stones. The vision was so shocking in its specificity that it left him trembling, sweat running down his chest to vanish into the steaming water of the bath.
Christ! How was he going to meet Claire Randall’s eyes, next time they met? What was he going to say to Brianna, for that matter? “Read any good books lately?” “Seen any good flicks?” “D’you know you’re illegitimate?”
He shook his head, trying to clear it. The truth was that he didn’t know what to do next. It was a messy situation. He wanted no part in it, and yet he did. He liked Claire Randall; he liked Brianna Randall, too—much more than liked her, truth be told. He wanted to protect her, and save her whatever pain he could. And yet there seemed no way to do that. All he could do was keep his mouth shut until Claire Randall did whatever it was she planned to do. And then be there to pick up the pieces.