22

THE ROYAL STUD

The coach bumped slowly over a particularly bad stretch of road, one left pitted and holed by the winter freeze and the beating of spring rains. It had been a wet year; even now, in early summer, there were moist, boggy patches under the lush growth of gooseberry bushes by the sides of the road.

Jamie sat beside me on the narrow, padded bench that formed one seat of the coach. Fergus sprawled in the corner of the other bench, asleep, and the motion of the coach made his head rock and sway like the head of a mechanical doll with a spring for its neck. The air in the coach was warm, and dust came through the windows in small golden spurts whenever we hit a patch of dry earth.

We had talked desultorily at first of the surrounding countryside, of the Royal stables at Argentan for which we were headed, of the small bits of gossip that composed the daily fare of conversation in Court and business circles. I might have slept, too, lulled by the coach’s rhythm and the warmth of the day, but the changing contours of my body made sitting in one position uncomfortable, and my back ached from the jolting. The baby was becoming increasingly active, too, and the small flutters of the first movements had developed into definite small pokes and proddings; pleasant in their own fashion, but distracting.

“Perhaps ye should have stayed at home, Sassenach,” Jamie said, frowning slightly as I twisted, adjusting my position yet again.

“I’m all right,” I said with a smile. “Just twitchy. And it would have been a shame to miss all this.” I waved at the coach window, where the broad sweep of fields shone green as emeralds between the windbreak rows of dark, straight poplars. Dusty or not, the fresh air of the countryside was rich and intoxicating after the close, fetid smells of the city and the medicinal stenches of L’Hôpital des Anges.

Louis had agreed, as a gesture of cautious amity toward the English diplomatic overtures, to allow the Duke of Sandringham to purchase four Percheron broodmares from the Royal stud at Argentan, with which to improve the bloodlines of the small herd of draft horses which His Grace maintained in England. His Grace was therefore visiting Argentan today, and had invited Jamie along to give advice on which mares should be chosen. The invitation was given at an evening party, and one thing leading to another, the visit had ended up as a full-scale picnic expedition, involving four coaches and several of the ladies and gentlemen of the Court.

“It’s a good sign, don’t you think?” I asked, with a cautious glance to be sure our companions were indeed fast asleep. “Louis giving the Duke permission to buy horses, I mean. If he’s making gestures toward the English, then he’s presumably not inclined to be sympathetic to James Stuart—at least not openly.”

Jamie shook his head. He declined absolutely to wear a wig, and the bold, clean shape of his polled head had occasioned no little excitement at Court. It had its advantages at the present moment; while a faint sheen of perspiration glowed on the bridge of his long, straight nose, he wasn’t nearly as wilted as I.

“No, I’m fairly sure now that Louis means to have nothing to do with the Stuarts—at least so far as any move toward restoration goes. Monsieur Duverney assures me that the Council is entirely opposed to any such thing; while Louis may eventually yield to the Pope’s urgings so far as to make Charles a small allowance, he isna disposed to bring the Stuarts into any kind of prominence in France, wi’ Geordie of England looking over his shoulder.” He wore his plaid today pinned with a brooch at the shoulder—a beautiful thing his sister had sent him from Scotland, made in the shape of two running stags, bodies bent so that they joined in a circle, heads and tails touching. He pulled up a fold of the plaid and wiped his face with it.

“I think I’ve spoken with every banker in Paris of any substance over the last months, and they’re united in basic disinterest.” He smiled wryly. “Money’s none so plentiful that anyone wants to back a dicey proposition like the Stuart restoration.”

“And that,” I said, stretching my back with a groan, “leaves Spain.”

Jamie nodded. “It does. And Dougal MacKenzie.” He looked smug, and I sat up, intrigued.

“Have you heard from him?” Despite an initial wariness, Dougal had accepted Jamie as a devoted fellow Jacobite, and the usual crop of coded letters had been augmented by a series of discreet communications sent by Dougal from Spain, meant to be read by Jamie and passed on to Charles Stuart.

“I have indeed.” I could tell from his expression that it was good news, and it was—though not for the Stuarts.

“Philip has declined to lend any assistance to the Stuarts,” Jamie said. “He’s had word from the papal office, ye ken; he’s to keep awa’ from the whole question of the Scottish throne.”

“Do we know why?” The latest interception from a papal messenger had contained several letters, but as these were all addressed to James or Charles Stuart, they might well contain no reference to His Holiness’s conversations with Spain.

“Dougal thinks he knows.” Jamie laughed. “He’s fair disgusted, is Dougal. Said he’d been kept cooling his heels in Toledo for nearly a month, and sent awa’ at last with no more than a vague promise of aid ‘in the fullness of time, Deo volente.’ ” His deep voice captured a pious intonation perfectly, and I laughed myself.

“Benedict wants to avoid friction between Spain and France; he doesna want Philip and Louis wasting money that he might have a use for, ye ken,” he added cynically. “It’s hardly fitting for a pope to say so, but Benedict has his doubts as to whether a Catholic king could hold England anymore. Scotland’s got its Catholic chiefs among the Highland clans, but it’s some time since England owned a Catholic king—likely to be the hell of a lot longer before they do again—Deo volente,” he added, grinning.

He scratched his head, ruffling the short red-gold hair above his temple. “It looks verra dim for the Stuarts, Sassenach, and that’s good news. No, there’ll be no aid from the Bourbon monarchs. The only thing that concerns me now is this investment Charles Stuart’s made with the Comte St. Germain.”

“You don’t think it’s just a business arrangement, then?”

“Well, it is,” he said, frowning, “and yet there’s more behind it. I’ve heard talk, aye?”

While the banking families of Paris were not inclined to take the Young Pretender to the throne of Scotland with any seriousness, that situation might easily change, were Charles Stuart suddenly to have money to invest.

“His Highness tells me he’s been talking to the Gobelins,” Jamie said. “St. Germain introduced him; otherwise they’d not give him the time o’ day. And old Gobelin thinks him a wastrel and a fool, and so does one of the Gobelin sons. The other, though—he says that he’ll wait and see; if Charles succeeds with this venture, then perhaps he can put other opportunities in his way.”

“Not at all good,” I observed.

Jamie shook his head. “No. Money breeds money, ye ken. Let him succeed at one or two large ventures, and the bankers will begin to listen to him. The man’s no great thinker,” he said, with a wry twist of his mouth, “but he’s verra charming in person; he can persuade people into things against their better judgment. Even so, he’ll make no headway without a small bit of capital to his name—but he’ll have that, if this investment succeeds.”

“Mm.” I shifted my position once more, wriggling my toes in their hot leather prison. The shoes had fit when made for me, but my feet were beginning to swell a bit, and my silk stockings were damp with sweat. “Is there anything we can do about it?”

Jamie shrugged, with a lopsided smile. “Pray for bad weather off Portugal, I suppose. Beyond the ship sinking, I dinna see much way for the venture to fail, truth be told. St. Germain has contracts already for the sale of the entire cargo. Both he and Charles Stuart stand to triple their money.”

I shivered briefly at the mention of the Comte. I couldn’t help recalling Dougal’s speculations. I had not told Jamie about Dougal’s visit, nor about his speculations as to the Comte’s nocturnal activities. I didn’t like keeping secrets from him, but Dougal had demanded my silence as his price for helping me in the matter of Jonathan Randall, and I had had little choice but to agree.

Jamie smiled suddenly at me, and stretched out a hand.

“I’ll think of something, Sassenach. For now, give me your feet. Jenny said it helped to have me rub her feet when she was wi’ child.”

I didn’t argue, but slipped my feet out of the hot shoes and swung them up onto his lap with a sigh of relief as the air from the window cooled the damp silk over my toes.

His hands were big, and his fingers at once strong and gentle. He rubbed his knuckles down the arch of my foot and I leaned back with a soft moan. We rode silently for several minutes, while I relaxed into a state of mindless bliss.

Head bent over my green silk toes, Jamie remarked casually, “It wasna really a debt, ye ken.”

“What wasn’t?” Fogged as I was by warm sun and foot massage, I hadn’t any idea what he meant.

Not stopping his rubbing, he looked up at me. His expression was serious, though the hint of a smile lit his eyes.

“You said that I owed ye a life, Sassenach, because you’d saved mine for me.” He took hold of one big toe and wiggled it. “But I’ve been reckoning, and I’m none so sure that’s true. Seems to me that it’s nearly even, taken all in all.”

“What you do mean, even?” I tried to pull my foot loose, but he held tight.

“If you’ve saved my life—and ye have—well, I’ve saved yours as well, and at least as often. I saved ye from Jack Randall at Fort William, you’ll recall—and I took ye from the mob at Cranesmuir, no?”

“Yes,” I said cautiously. I had no idea where he was going, but he wasn’t just making idle conversation. “I’m grateful for it, of course.”

He made a small Scottish noise of dismissal, deep in his throat. “It isna a matter for gratitude, Sassenach, on your part or mine—my point is only that it’s no a matter of obligation, either.” The smile had vanished from his eyes, and he was entirely serious.

“I didna give ye Randall’s life as an exchange for my own—it wouldna be a fair trade, for one thing. Close your mouth, Sassenach,” he added practically, “flies will get in.” There were in fact a number of the insects present; three were resting on the Fergus’s shirtfront, undisturbed by its constant rise and fall.

“Why did you agree, then?” I stopped struggling, and he wrapped both hands around my feet, running his thumbs slowly over the curves of my heels.

“Well, it wasna for any of the reasons you tried to make me see. As for Frank,” he said, “well, it’s true enough that I’ve taken his wife, and I do pity him for it—more sometimes than others,” he added, with an impudent quirk of one eyebrow. “Still, is it any different than if he were my rival here? You had free choice between us, and you chose me—even with such luxuries as hot baths thrown in on his side. Oof!” I jerked one foot loose and drove it into his ribs. He straightened up and grabbed it, in time to prevent me repeating the blow.

“Regretting your choice, are you?”

“Not yet,” I said, struggling to repossess my foot, “but I may any minute. Keep talking.”

“Well then. I couldna see that the fact that you picked me entitled Frank Randall to particular consideration. Besides,” he said frankly, “I’ll admit to bein’ just a wee bit jealous of the man.”

I kicked with my other foot, aiming lower. He caught that one before it landed, twisting my ankle skillfully.

“As for owing him his life, on general principles,” he continued, ignoring my attempts to escape, “that’s an argument Brother Anselm at the Abbey could answer better than I. Certainly I wouldna kill an innocent man in cold blood. But there again, I’ve killed men in battle, and is this different?”

I remembered the soldier, and the boy in the snow that I had killed in our escape from Wentworth. I no longer tormented myself with memories of them, but I knew they would never leave me.

He shook his head. “No, there are a good many arguments ye might make about that, but in the end, such choices come down to one: You kill when ye must, and ye live with it after. I remember the face of every man I’ve killed, and always will. But the fact remains, I am alive and they are not, and that is my only justification, whether it be right or no.”

“But that’s not true in this case,” I pointed out. “It isn’t a case of kill or be killed.”

He shook his head, dislodging a fly that had settled on his hair. “Now there you’re wrong, Sassenach. What it is that lies between Jack Randall and me will be settled only when one of us is dead—and maybe not then. There are ways of killing other than with a knife or a gun, and there are things worse than physical death.” His tone softened. “In Ste. Anne, you pulled me back from more than one kind of death, mo duinne, and never think I don’t know it.” He shook his head. “Perhaps I do owe you more than you owe me, after all.”

He let go my feet and rearranged his long legs. “And that leads me to consider your conscience as well as mine. After all, you had no idea what would happen when ye made your choice, and it’s one thing to abandon a man, and another to condemn him to death.”

I did not at all like this manner of describing my actions, but I couldn’t shirk the facts. I had in fact abandoned Frank, and while I could not regret the choice I had made, still I did and always would regret its necessity. Jamie’s next words echoed my thoughts eerily.

He continued, “If ye had known it might mean Frank’s—well, his death, shall we say—perhaps you would have chosen differently. Given that ye did choose me, have I the right to make your actions of more consequence than you intended?”

Absorbed in his argument, he had been oblivious of its effect on me. Catching sight of my face now, he stopped suddenly, watching me in silence as we jostled our way through the greens of the countryside.

“I dinna see how it can have been a sin for you to do as ye did, Claire,” he said at last, reaching out to lay a hand on my stockinged foot. “I am your lawful husband, as much as he ever was—or will be. You do not even know that ye could have returned to him; mo duinne, ye might have gone still further back, or gone forward to a different time altogether. You acted as ye thought ye must, and no one can do better than that.” He looked up, and the look in his eyes pierced my soul.

“I’m honest enough to say that I dinna care what the right and wrong of it may be, so long as you are here wi’ me, Claire,” he said softly. “If it was a sin for you to choose me…then I would go to the Devil himself and bless him for tempting ye to it.” He lifted my foot and gently kissed the tip of my big toe.

I laid my hand on his head; the short hair felt bristly but soft, like a very young hedgehog.

“I don’t think it was wrong,” I said softly. “But if it was…then I’ll go to the Devil with you, Jamie Fraser.”

He closed his eyes and bowed his head over my foot. He held it so tightly that I could feel the long, slender metatarsals pressed together; still, I didn’t pull back. I dug my fingers into his scalp and tugged his hair gently.

“Why then, Jamie? Why did you decide to let Jack Randall live?”

He still gripped my foot, but opened his eyes and smiled at me.

“Well, I thought a number of things, Sassenach, as I walked up and down that evening. For one thing, I thought that you would suffer, if I did kill the filthy scut. I would do, or not do, quite a few things to spare you distress, Sassenach, but—how heavily does your conscience weigh, against my honor?

“No.” He shook his head again, disposing of another point. “Each one of us can be responsible only for his own actions and his own conscience. What I do canna be laid to your account, no matter what the effects.” He blinked, eyes watering from the dusty wind, and passed a hand across his hair in a vain attempt to smooth the disheveled ends. Clipped short, the spikes of a cowlick stood up on the crest of his skull in a defiant spray.

“Why, then?” I demanded, leaning forward. “You’ve told me all the reasons why not; what’s left?”

He hesitated for a moment, but then met my eyes squarely.

“Because of Charles Stuart, Sassenach. So far we have stopped all the earths, but with this investment of his—well, he might yet succeed in leading an army in Scotland. And if so…well, ye ken better than I do what may come, Sassenach.”

I did, and the thought turned me cold. I could not help remembering one historian’s description of the Highlanders’ fate at Culloden—“the dead lay four deep, soaking in rain and their own blood.”

The Highlanders, mismanaged and starving, but ferocious to the end, would be wasted in one decisive half-hour. They would be left to lie in heaps, bleeding in a cold April rain, the cause they had cherished for a hundred years dead along with them.

Jamie reached forward suddenly and took my hands.

“I think it will not happen, Claire; I think we will stop him. And if not, then still I dinna expect anything to happen to me. But if it should…” He was in deadly earnest now, speaking soft and urgently. “If it does, then I want there to be a place for you; I want someone for you to go to if I am…not there to care for you. If it canna be me, then I would have it be a man who loves you.” His grasp on my fingers grew tighter; I could feel both rings digging into my flesh, and felt the urgency in his hands.

“Claire, ye know what it cost me to do this for you—to spare Randall’s life. Promise me that if the time should come, you’ll go back to Frank.” His eyes searched my face, deep blue as the sky in the window behind him. “I tried to send ye back twice before. And I thank God ye wouldna go. But if it comes to a third time—then promise me you will go back to him—back to Frank. For that is why I spare Jack Randall for a year—for your sake. Promise me, Claire?”

“Allez! Allez! Montez!” the coachman shouted from above, encouraging the team up a slope. We were nearly there.

“All right,” I said at last. “I promise.”

The stables at Argentan were clean and airy, redolent of summer and the smell of horses. In an open box stall, Jamie circled a Percheron mare, enamored as a horsefly.

“Ooh, what a bonnie wee lass ye are! Come here, sweetheart, let me see that beautiful fat rump. Mm, aye, that’s grand!”

“I wish my husband would talk that way to me,” remarked the Duchesse de Neve, provoking giggles from the other ladies of the party, who stood in the straw of the central aisle, watching.

“Perhaps he would, Madame, if your own back view provided such stimulation. But then, perhaps your husband does not share my lord Broch Tuarach’s appreciation for a finely shaped rump.” The Comte St. Germain allowed his eyes to drift over me with a hint of contemptuous amusement. I tried to imagine those black eyes gleaming through the slits of a mask, and succeeded only too well. Unfortunately, the lace of his wrist frills fell well past his knuckles; I couldn’t see the fork of his thumb.

Catching the byplay, Jamie leaned comfortably on the mare’s broad back, only his head, shoulders and forearms showing above the bulk of the Percheron.

“My lord Broch Tuarach appreciates beauty wherever it may be encountered, Monsieur le Comte; in animal or woman. Unlike some I might name, though, I am capable of telling the difference between the two.” He grinned maliciously at St. Germain, then patted the mare’s neck in farewell as the party broke out laughing.

Jamie took my arm to lead me toward the next stable, followed more slowly by the rest of the party.

“Ah,” he said, inhaling the mixture of horse, harness, manure, and hay as though it were incense. “I do miss the smell of a stable. And the country makes me sick for Scotland.”

“Doesn’t look a lot like Scotland,” I said, squinting in the bright sun as we emerged from the dimness of the stable.

“No, but it’s country,” he said, “it’s clean, and it’s green, and there’s nay smoke in the air, or sewage underfoot—unless ye count horse dung, which I don’t.”

The sun of early summer shone on the roofs of Argentan, nestled among gently rolling green hills. The Royal stud was just outside the town, much more solidly constructed than the houses of the King’s subjects nearby. The barns and stables were of quarried stone, stone-floored, slate-roofed, and maintained in a condition of cleanliness that surpassed that of L’Hôpital des Anges by a fair degree.

A loud whooping came from behind the corner of the stable, and Jamie stopped short, just in time to avoid Fergus, who shot out in front of us as though fired from a slingshot, hotly pursued by two stable-lads, both a good deal bigger. A dirty green streak of fresh manure down the side of the first boy’s face gave some clue as to the cause of the altercation.

With considerable presence of mind, Fergus doubled on his tracks, shot past his pursuers, and whizzed into the middle of the party, whence he took refuge behind the bulwark of Jamie’s kilted hips. Seeing their prey thus safely gone to earth, his pursuers glanced fearfully at the oncoming phalanx of courtiers and gowns, exchanged a look of decision, and, as one, turned and loped off.

Seeing them go, Fergus stuck his head out from behind my skirt and yelled something in gutter French that earned him a sharp cuff on the ear from Jamie.

“Off wi’ ye,” he said brusquely. “And for God’s sake, dinna be throwin’ horse apples at people bigger than you are. Now, go and keep out of trouble.” He followed up this advice with a healthy smack on the seat of the breeches that sent Fergus staggering off in the opposite direction to that taken by his erstwhile assailants.

I had been of two minds as to the wisdom of taking Fergus with us on this expedition, but most of the ladies were bringing pageboys with them, to run errands and carry the baskets of food and other paraphernalia deemed essential to a day’s outing. And Jamie had wanted to show the lad a bit of country, feeling that he’d earned a holiday. All well and good, except that Fergus, who had never been outside Paris in his life, had got the exhilaration of air, light, and beautiful huge animals right up his nose, and, demented with excitement, had been in constant trouble since our arrival.

“God knows what he’ll do next,” I said darkly, looking after Fergus’s retreating form. “Set one of the hayricks on fire, I expect.”

Jamie was unperturbed at the suggestion.

“He’ll be all right. All lads get into manure fights.”

“They do?” I turned around, scrutinizing St. Germain, immaculate in white linen, white serge, and white silk, bending courteously to listen to the Duchesse, as she minced slowly across the straw-strewn yard.

“Maybe you did,” I said. “Not him. Not the Bishop, either, I don’t think.” I was wondering whether this excursion had been a good idea, at least on my part. Jamie was in his element with the giant Percherons, and the Duke was clearly impressed with him, which was all to the good. On the other hand, my back ached miserably from the carriage ride, and my feet felt hot and swollen, pressing painfully against the tight leather of my shoes.

Jamie looked down at me and smiled, pressing my hand where it lay on his arm.

“None so long now, Sassenach. The guide wants to show us the breeding sheds, and then you and the other ladies can go and sit down wi’ the food, while the men stand about makin’ crude jests about the size of each other’s cock.”

“Is that the general effect of watching horses bred?” I asked, fascinated.

“Well, on men it is; I dinna ken what it does to ladies. Keep an ear out, and ye can tell me later.”

There was in fact an air of suppressed excitement among the members of the party as we all pressed into the rather cramped quarters of a breeding shed. Stone, like the other buildings, this one was equipped not with partitioned stalls down both sides, but with a small fenced pen, with holding stalls at either side, and a sort of chute or runway along the back, with several gates that could be opened or closed to control a horse’s movement.

The building itself was light and airy, owing to huge, unglazed windows that opened at either end, giving a view of a grassy paddock outside. I could see several of the enormous Percheron mares grazing near the edge of this; one or two seemed restless, breaking into a rocking gallop for a few paces, then dropping back to a trot or a walk, shaking heads and manes with a high, whinnying noise. Once, when this happened, there was a loud, nasal scream from one of the holding stalls at the end of the shed, and the paneling shook with the thud of a mighty kick from its inhabitant.

“He’s ready,” a voice murmured appreciatively behind me. “I wonder which is the lucky mademoiselle?”

“The one nearest the gate,” the Duchesse suggested, always ready to wager. “Five livres on that one.”

“Ah, no! You’re wrong, Madame, she’s too calm. It will be the little one, under the apple tree, rolling her eyes like a coquette. See how she tosses her head? That one’s my choice.”

The mares had all stopped at the sound of the stallion’s cry, lifting inquiring noses and flicking their ears nervously. The restless ones tossed their heads and whickered; one stretched her neck and let out a long, high call.

“That one,” Jamie said quietly, nodding at her. “Hear her call him?”

“And what is she saying, my lord?” the Bishop asked, a glint in his eye.

Jamie shook his head solemnly.

“It is a song, my lord, but one that a man of the cloth is deaf to—or should be,” he added, to gales of laughter.

Sure enough, it was the mare who had called who was chosen. Once inside, she stopped dead, head up, and stood testing the air with flaring nostrils. The stallion could smell her; his cries echoed eerily off the timbered roof, so loud that conversation was impossible.

No one wanted to talk now, anyway. Uncomfortable as I was, I could feel the quick tingle of arousal through my breasts, and a tightening of my swollen belly as the mare once more answered the stallion’s call.

Percherons are very large horses. A big one stands over five feet at the shoulder, and the rump of a well-fed mare is almost a yard across, a pale, dappled gray or shining black, adorned with a waterfall of black hair, thick as my arm at the root of it.

The stallion burst from his stall toward the tethered mare with a suddenness that made everyone fall back from the fence. Puffs of dust flew up in clouds as the huge hooves struck the packed dirt of the pen, and drops of saliva flew from his open mouth. The groom who had opened his stall door jumped aside, tiny and insignificant next to the magnicent fury let loose in the pen.

The mare curvetted and squealed in alarm, but then he was on her, and his teeth closed on the sturdy arch of her neck, forcing her head down into submission. The great swathe of her tail swept high, leaving her naked, exposed to his lust.

“Jésus,” whispered Monsieur Prudhomme.

It took very little time, but it seemed a lot longer, watching the heaving of sweat-darkened flanks, and the play of light on swirling hair and the sheen of great muscles, tense and straining in the flexible agony of mating.

Everyone was very quiet as we left the shed. Finally the Duke laughed, nudged Jamie, and said, “You are accustomed to such sights, my lord Broch Tuarach?”

“Aye,” Jamie answered. “I’ve seen it a good many times.”

“Ah?” the Duke said. “And tell me, my lord, how does the sight make you feel, after so many times?”

One corner of Jamie’s mouth twitched as he replied, but he remained otherwise straight-faced.

“Verra modest, Your Grace,” he said.

“What a sight!” the Duchesse de Neve said. She broke a biscuit, dreamy-eyed, and munched it slowly. “So arousing, was it not?”

“What a prick, you mean,” said Madame Prudhomme, rather coarsely. “I wish Philibert had one like that. As it is…” She cocked an eyebrow toward a plate of tiny sausages, each perhaps two inches long, and the ladies seated on the picnic cloth broke into giggles.

“A bit of chicken, please, Paul,” said the Comtesse St. Germain to her pageboy. She was young, and the bawdy conversation of the older ladies was making her blush. I wondered just what sort of marriage she had with St. Germain; he never took her out in public, save on occasions like this, where the presence of the Bishop prevented his appearing with one of his mistresses.

“Bah,” said Madame Montresor, one of the ladies-in-waiting, whose husband was a friend of the Bishop’s. “Size isn’t everything. What difference if it’s the size of a stallion’s, if he lasts no longer than one? Less than two minutes? I ask you, what good is that?” She held up a cornichon between two fingers and delicately licked the tiny pale-green pickle, the pink tip of her tongue pointed and dainty. “It isn’t what they have in their breeches, I say; it’s what they do with it.”

Madame Prudhomme snorted. “Well, if you find one who knows how to do anything with it but poke it into the nearest hole, tell me. I would be interested to see what else can be done with a thing like that.”

“At least you have one who’s interested,” broke in the Duchesse de Neve. She cast a glance of disgust at her husband, huddled with the other men near one of the paddocks, watching a harnessed mare being put through her paces.

“Not tonight, my dearest,” she imitated the sonorous, nasal tones of her husband to perfection. “I am fatigued.” She put a hand to her brow and rolled her eyes up. “The press of business is so wearing.” Encouraged by the giggles, she went on with her imitation, now widening her eyes in horror and crossing her hands protectively over her lap. “What, again? Do you not know that to expend the male essence gratuitously is to court ill-health? Is it not enough that your demands have worn me to a nubbin, Mathilde? Do you wish me to have an attack?”

The ladies cackled and screeched with laughter, loud enough to attract the attention of the Bishop, who waved at us and smiled indulgently, provoking further gales of hilarity.

“Well, at least he is not expending all his male essence in brothels—or elsewhere,” said Madame Prudhomme, with an eloquently pitying glance at the Comtesse St. Germain.

“No,” said Mathilde gloomily. “He hoards it as though it were gold. You’d think there was no more to be had, the way he…oh, Your Grace! Will you not have a cup of wine?” She smiled charmingly up at the Duke, who had approached quietly from behind. He stood smiling at the ladies, one fair brow slightly arched. If he had heard the subject of our conversation, he gave no sign of it.

Seating himself beside me on the cloth, His Grace made casual, witty conversation with the ladies, his oddly high-pitched voice forming no contrast to theirs. While he seemed to pay close attention to the conversation, I noticed that his eyes strayed periodically to the small cluster of men who stood by the paddock fence. Jamie’s kilt was bright even amid the gorgeous cut velvets and stiffened silk.

I had had some hesitation in meeting the Duke again. After all, our last visit had ended in the arrest of Jonathan Randall, upon my accusation of attempted rape. But the Duke had been all charming urbanity on this outing, with no mention of either of the Randall brothers. Neither had there been any public mention of the arrest; whatever the Duke’s diplomatic activities, they seemed to rank highly enough to merit a Royal seal of silence.

On the whole, I welcomed the Duke’s appearance at the picnic cloth. For one thing, his presence kept the ladies from asking me—as some bold souls did every so often, at parties—whether it was true about what Scotsmen wore beneath their kilts. Given the mood of the present party, I didn’t think my customary reply of “Oh, the usual” would suffice.

“Your husband has a fine eye for horses,” the Duke observed to me, freed for a moment when the Duchesse de Neve, on his other side, leaned across the cloth to talk to Madame Prudhomme. “He tells me that both his father and his uncle kept small but quite fine stables in the Highlands.”

“Yes, that’s true.” I sipped my wine. “But you’ve visited Colum MacKenzie at Castle Leoch; surely you’ve seen his stable for yourself.” I had in fact first met the Duke at Leoch the year before, though the meeting had been brief; he had left on a hunting expedition shortly before I was arrested for witchcraft. I thought surely he must have known about that, but if so, he gave no sign of it.

“Of course.” The Duke’s small, shrewd blue eyes darted left, then right, to see whether he was observed, then shifted into English. “At the time, your husband informed me that he did not reside upon his own estates, owing to an unfortunate—and mistaken—charge of murder laid against him by the English Crown. I wondered, my lady, whether that charge of outlawry still holds?”

“There’s still a price on his head,” I said bluntly.

The Duke’s expression of polite interest didn’t change. He reached absently for one of the small sausages on the platter.

“That is not an irremediable matter,” he said quietly. “After my encounter with your husband at Leoch, I made some inquiries—oh, suitably discreet, I assure you, my dear lady. And I think that the matter might be arranged without undue difficulty, given a word in the right ear—from the right sources.”

This was interesting. Jamie had first told the Duke of Sandringham about his outlawry at Colum MacKenzie’s suggestion, in the hopes that the Duke might be persuaded to intervene in the case. As Jamie had not in fact committed the crime in question, there could be little evidence against him; it was quite possible that the Duke, a powerful voice among the nobles of England, could indeed arrange to have the charges dismissed.

“Why?” I said. “What do you want in return?”

The sketchy blond brows shot upward, and he smiled, showing small white even teeth.

“My word, you are direct, are you not? Might it not be only that I appreciate your husband’s expertise and assistance in the selection of horses, and would like to see him restored to a place where that skill might once again be profitably exercised?”

“It might be, but it isn’t,” I said. I caught Madame Prudhomme’s sharp eyes on us, and smiled pleasantly at him. “Why?”

He popped the sausage whole into his mouth and chewed it slowly, his bland round face reflecting nothing more than enjoyment of the day and the meal. At last he swallowed and patted his mouth delicately with one of the linen napkins.

“Well,” he said, “as a matter of supposition only, you understand—”

I nodded, and he went on. “As a matter of supposition, then, perhaps we may suppose that your husband’s recent friendship with—a certain personage recently arrived from Rome? Ah, I see you understand me. Yes. Let us suppose that that friendship has become a matter of some concern to certain parties who would prefer this personage to return peaceably to Rome—or alternatively, to settle in France, though Rome would be better—safer, you know?”

“I see.” I took a sausage myself. They were richly spiced, and little bursts of garlic wafted up my nose at each bite. “And these parties take a sufficiently serious view of this friendship to offer a dismissal of the charges against my husband in return for its severance? Again, why? My husband is no one of great importance.”

“Not now,” the Duke agreed. “But he may be in future. He has linkages to several powerful interests among the French banking families, and more among the merchants. He is also received at Court, and has some access to Louis’s ear. In short, if he does not at present hold the power to command substantial sums of money and influence, he is likely to do so soon. He is also a member of not one but two of the more powerful Highland clans. And the parties who wish the personage in question to return to Rome harbor a not unreasonable fear that this influence might be exerted in undesirable directions. So much better if your husband were to return—his good name restored—to his lands in Scotland, do you not think?”

“It’s a thought,” I said. It was also a bribe, and an attractive one. Sever all connection with Charles Stuart, and be free to return to Scotland and Lallybroch, without the risk of being hanged. The removal of a possibly troublesome supporter of the Stuarts, at no expense to the Crown, was an attractive proposition from the English side, too.

I eyed the Duke, trying to figure out just where he fitted into the scheme of things. Ostensibly an envoy from George II, Elector of Hanover and King—so long as James Stuart remained in Rome—of England, he could well have a dual purpose in his visit to France. To engage with Louis in the delicate exchange of civility and threat that constituted diplomacy, and simultaneously to quash the specter of a fresh Jacobite rising? Several of Charles’s usual coterie had disappeared of late, pleading the press of urgent business abroad. Bought off or scared away? I wondered.

The bland countenance gave no clue to his thoughts. He pushed back the wig from a balding brow and scratched his head unselfconsciously.

“Do think about it, my dear,” he urged. “And when you have thought—speak to your husband.”

“Why don’t you speak to him yourself?”

He shrugged and took more sausages, three this time. “I find that so often men are more amenable to a word spoken from the home quarter, from one they trust, rather than to what they may perceive as pressure from an outside source.” He smiled. “There is the matter of pride to be considered; that must be handled delicately. And for delicate handling—well, they do talk of ‘the woman’s touch,’ do they not?”

I hadn’t time to respond to this, when a shout from the main stable jerked all heads in that direction.

A horse was coming toward us, up the narrow alley between the main stable and the long, open shed that held the forge. A Percheron colt, and a young one, no more than two or three, judging from the dappling of his hide. Even young Percherons are big, and the colt seemed huge, as he blundered to and fro at a slow trot, tail lashing from side to side. Plainly the colt was not yet broken to a saddle; the massive shoulders twitched in an effort to dislodge the small form that straddled his neck, both hands buried deep in the thick black mane.

“Bloody hell, it’s Fergus!” The ladies, disturbed by the shouting, had all gotten to their feet by now, and were peering interestedly at the sight.

I didn’t realize that the men had joined us until one woman said, “But how dangerous it seems! Surely the boy will be injured if he falls!”

“Well, if he doesna hurt himself falling off, I’ll attend to it directly, once I’ve got my hands on the wee bugger,” said a grim voice behind me. I turned to see Jamie peering over my head at the rapidly approaching horse.

“Should you get him off?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, let the horse take care of it.”

In fact, the horse seemed more bewildered than frightened by the strange weight on his back. The dappled gray skin twitched and shivered as though beset by hordes of flies, and the colt shook its head confusedly, as though wondering what was going on.

As for Fergus, his legs were stretched nearly at right angles across the Percheron’s broad back; clearly the only hold he had on the horse was his death-grip on the mane. At that, he might have managed to slide down or at least tumble off unscathed, had the victims of the manure fight not completed their plan to exact a measure of revenge.

Two or three grooms were following the horse at a cautious distance, blocking the alleyway behind it. Another had succeeded in running ahead, and opening the gate to an empty paddock that stood near us. The gate was between the group of visiting picnickers and the end of the alleyway between the buildings; clearly the intention was to nudge the horse quietly into the paddock, where it could trample Fergus or not as it chose, but at least would itself be safe from escape or injury.

Before this could be accomplished, though, a lithe form popped its head through a small loft window, high above the alleyway. The spectators intent on the horse, no one noticed but me. The boy in the loft observed, withdrew, and reappeared almost at once, holding a large flake of hay in both hands. Judging the moment to a nicety, he dropped it as Fergus and his mount passed directly beneath.

The effect was much like a bomb going off. There was an explosion of hay where Fergus had been, and the colt gave a panicked whinny, got its hindquarters under it, and took off like a Derby winner, heading straight for the little knot of courtiers, who scattered to the four winds, screeching like geese.

Jamie had flung himself on me, pushing me out of the way and knocking me to the ground in the process. Now he rose off my supine form, cursing fluently in Gaelic. Without pausing to inquire after my welfare, he raced off in the direction taken by Fergus.

The horse was rearing and twisting, altogether spooked, churning forelegs keeping at bay a small gang of grooms and stable-lads, all of whom were rapidly losing their professional calm at the thought of one of the King’s valuable horses damaging itself before their eyes.

By some miracle of stubbornness or fear, Fergus was still in place, skinny legs flailing as he slithered and bounced on the heaving back. The grooms were all shouting at him to let go, but he ignored this advice, eyes squeezed tight shut as he clung to the two handfuls of horsehair like a lifeline. One of the grooms was carrying a pitchfork; he waved this menacingly in the air, causing a shriek of dismay from Madame Montresor, who plainly thought he meant to skewer the child.

The shriek didn’t ease the colt’s nerves to any marked extent. It danced and skittered, backing away from the people who were beginning to surround it. While I didn’t think the groom actually intended to stab Fergus off the horse’s back, there was a real danger that the child would be trampled if he fell off—and I didn’t see how he was going to avoid that fate for much longer. The horse made a sudden dash for a small clump of trees that grew near the paddock, either seeking shelter from the mob, or possibly having concluded that the incubus on its back might be scraped off on a branch.

As it passed beneath the first branches, I caught a glimpse of red tartan among the greenery, and then there was a flash of red as Jamie launched himself from the shelter of a tree. His body struck the colt a glancing blow and he tumbled to the ground in a flurry of plaid and bare legs that would have revealed to a discerning observer that this particular Scotsman wasn’t wearing anything under his kilt at the moment.

The party of courtiers rushed up as one, concentrating on the fallen Lord Broch Tuarach, as the grooms pursued the disappearing horse on the other side of the trees.

Jamie lay flat on his back under the beech trees, his face a dead greenish-white, both eyes and mouth wide open. Both arms were locked tight around Fergus, who clung to his chest like a leech. Jamie blinked at me as I dashed up to him, and made a faint effort at a smile. The faint wheezings from his open mouth deepened into a shallow panting, and I relaxed in relief; he’d only had his wind knocked out.

Finally realizing that he was no longer moving, Fergus raised a cautious head. Then he sat bolt upright on his employer’s stomach and said enthusiastically, “That was fun, milord! Can we do it again?”

Jamie had pulled a muscle in his thigh during the rescue at Argentan, and was limping badly by the time we returned to Paris. He sent Fergus—none the worse either for the escapade or the scolding that followed it—down to the kitchen to seek his supper, and sank into a chair by the hearth, rubbing the swollen leg.

“Hurt much?” I asked sympathetically.

“A bit. All it needs is rest, though.” He stood up and stretched luxuriously, long arms nearly reaching the blackened oak beams above the mantel. “Cramped in that coach; I’d’ve sooner ridden.”

“Mmm. So would I.” I rubbed the small of my back, aching with the strain of the trip. The ache seemed to press downward through my pelvis to my legs—joints loosening from pregnancy, I supposed.

I ran an exploratory hand over Jamie’s leg, then gestured to the chaise.

“Come and lie on your side. I’ve some nice ointment I can rub your leg with; it might ease the ache a bit.”

“Well, if ye dinna mind.” He rose stiffly and lay down on his left side, kilt pulled above his knee.

I opened my medicine box and rummaged through the boxes and jars. Agrimony, slippery elm, pellitory-of-the-wall…ah, there it was. I pulled out the small blue glass jar Monsieur Forez had given me and unscrewed the lid. I sniffed cautiously; salves went rancid easily, but this one appeared to have a good proportion of salt mixed in for preservation. It had a nice mellow scent, and was a beautiful color—the rich yellow-white of fresh cream.

I scooped out a good bit of the salve and spread it down the long muscle of the thigh, pushing Jamie’s kilt above his hip to keep out of the way. The flesh of his leg was warm; not the heat of infection, only the normal heat of a young male body, flushed with exercise and the glowing pulse of health. I massaged the cream gently into the skin, feeling the swell of the hard muscle, probing the divisions of quadriceps and hamstring. Jamie made a small grunting sound as I rubbed harder.

“Hurt?” I asked.

“Aye, a bit, but don’t stop,” he answered. “Feels as though it’s doing me good.” He chuckled. “I wouldna admit it to any but you, Sassenach, but it was fun. I havena moved like that in months.”

“Glad you enjoyed yourself,” I said dryly, taking another dab of cream. “I had an interesting time myself.” Not pausing in the massage, I told him of Sandringham’s offer.

He grunted in response, wincing slightly as I hit a tender spot. “So Colum was right, when he thought the man might be able to help with the charges against me.”

“So it would seem. I suppose the question is—do you want to take him up on it?” I tried not to hold my breath, as I waited for his answer. For one thing, I knew what it would be; the Frasers as a family were renowned for stubbornness, and despite his mother’s having been a MacKenzie, Jamie was a Fraser through and through. Having made up his mind to stopping Charles Stuart, he was hardly likely to abandon the effort. Still, it was tempting bait—to me, as well as to him. To be able to go back to Scotland, to his home; to live in peace.

But there was another rub, of course. If we did go back, leaving Charles’s plans to run their course into the future I knew, then any peace in Scotland would be short-lived indeed.

Jamie gave a small snort, apparently having followed my own thought processes. “Well, I’ll tell ye, Sassenach. If I thought that Charles Stuart might succeed—might free Scotland from English rule—then I would give my lands, my liberty, and life itself to help him. Fool he might be, but a royal fool, and not an ungallant one, I think.” He sighed.

“But I know the man, and I’ve talked with him—and with all the Jacobites that fought with his father. And given what you tell me will happen if it comes to a Rising again…I dinna see that I’ve any choice but to stay, Sassenach.

Once he is stopped, then there may be a chance to go back—or there may not. But for now, I must decline His Grace’s offer wi’ thanks.”

I patted his thigh gently. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

He smiled at me, then glanced down at the yellowish cream that coated my fingers. “What’s that stuff?”

“Something Monsieur Forez gave me. He didn’t say what it’s called. I don’t think it’s got any active ingredients, but it’s a nice, greasy sort of cream.”

The body under my hands stiffened and Jamie glanced over his shoulder at the blue jar.

“Monsieur Forez gave it ye?” he said uneasily.

“Yes,” I answered, surprised. “What’s the matter?” For he had put aside my cream-smeared hands and, swinging his legs over the side of the chaise longue, was reaching for a towel.

“Has that jar a fleur-de-lys on the lid, Sassenach?” he asked, wiping the ointment from his leg.

“Yes, it has,” I said. “Jamie, what’s wrong with that salve?” The look on his face was peculiar in the extreme; it kept vacillating between dismay and amusement.

“Oh, I wouldna say there’s anything wrong about it, Sassenach,” he answered finally. Having rubbed his leg hard enough to leave the curly red-gold hair bristling above reddened skin, he tossed the towel aside and looked thoughtfully at the jar.

“Monsieur Forez must think rather highly of ye, Sassenach,” he said. “It’s expensive stuff, that.”

“But—”

“It’s not that I dinna appreciate it,” he assured me hastily. “It’s only that havin’ come within a day’s length of being one of the ingredients myself, it makes me feel a bit queer.”

“Jamie!” I felt my voice rising. “What is that stuff?” I grabbed the towel, hastily swabbing my salve-coated hands.

“Hanged-men’s grease,” he answered reluctantly.

“H-h-h…” I couldn’t even get the word out, and started over. “You mean…” Goose bumps rippled up my arms, raising the fine hairs like pins in a cushion.

“Er, aye. Rendered fat from hanged criminals.” He spoke cheerfully, regaining his composure as quickly as I was losing mine. “Verra good for the rheumatism and joint-ill, they say.”

I recalled the tidy way in which Monsieur Forez had gathered up the results of his operations in L’Hôpital des Anges, and the odd look on Jamie’s face when he had seen the tall chirurgien escort me home. My knees were watery, and I felt my stomach flip like a pancake.

“Jamie! Who in bloody fucking hell is Monsieur Forez?” I nearly screamed.

Amusement was definitely getting the upper hand in his expression.

“He’s the public hangman for the Fifth Arondissement, Sassenach. I thought ye knew.”

Jamie returned damp and chilled from the stableyard, where he had gone to scrub himself, the required ablutions being on a scale greater than the bedroom basin could provide.

“Don’t worry, it’s all off,” he assured me, skinning out of his shirt and sliding naked beneath the covers. His flesh was rough and chilly with gooseflesh, and he shivered briefly as he took me in his arms.

“What is it, Sassenach? I don’t still smell of it, do I?” he asked, as I huddled stiff under the bedclothes, hugging myself with my arms.

“No,” I said. “I’m scared. Jamie, I’m bleeding.”

“Jesus,” he said softly. I could feel the sudden thrill of fear that ran through him at my words, identical to the one that ran through me. He held me close to him, smoothing my hair and stroking my back, but both of us felt the awful helplessness in the face of physical disaster that made his actions futile. Strong as he was, he couldn’t protect me; willing he might be, but he couldn’t help. For the first time, I wasn’t safe in his arms, and the knowledge terrified both of us.

“D’ye think—” he began, then broke off and swallowed. I could feel the tremor run down his throat and hear the gulp as he swallowed his fear. “Is it bad, Sassenach? Can ye tell?”

“No,” I said. I held him tighter, trying to find an anchorage. “I don’t know. It isn’t heavy bleeding; not yet, anyway.”

The candle was still alight. He looked down at me, eyes dark with worry.

“Had I better fetch someone to ye, Claire? A healer, one of the women from the Hôpital?”

I shook my head and licked dry lips.

“No. I don’t…I don’t think there’s anything they could do.” It was the last thing I wanted to say; more than anything, I wanted there to be someone we could find who knew how to make it all right. But I remembered my early nurse’s training, the few days I had spent on the obstetrical ward, and the words of one of the doctors, shrugging as he left the bed of a patient who’d had a miscarriage. “There’s really nothing you can do,” he’d said. “If they’re going to lose a child, they generally do, no matter what you try. Bed rest is really the only thing, and even that often won’t do it.”

“It may be nothing,” I said, trying to hearten both of us. “It isn’t unusual for women to have slight bleeding sometimes during pregnancy.” It wasn’t unusual—during the first three months. I was more than five months along, and this was by no means usual. Still, there were many things that could cause bleeding, and not all of them were serious.

“It may be all right,” I said. I laid a hand on my stomach, pressing gently. I felt an immediate response from the occupant, a lazy, stretching push that at once made me feel better. I felt a rush of passionate gratitude that made tears come to my eyes.

“Sassenach, what can I do?” Jamie whispered. His hand came around me and lay over mine, cupping my threatened abdomen.

I put my other hand on top of his, and held on.

“Just pray,” I said. “Pray for us, Jamie.”