Brianna was nodding, though.
“We’ll do it,” she said simply.
“We?” said Roger, but he smiled.
“Are ye sure?” Jamie asked, and I saw the fingers of his right hand flutter briefly at the edge of the table.
“If you’re going to buy a lot of guns, you probably need to get your gold and whisky to the coast,” Bree pointed out reasonably. “Lord John’s offering me an assured safe-conduct pass—and armed escort, if I want it, which I don’t—to go there.” She lifted a shoulder. “What could be easier?”
Jamie lifted a brow. So did Roger.
“What?” she demanded, looking from one to the other. Jamie made a slight Scottish noise and looked away. Roger drew a deep breath as though about to speak, then let it out again.
“Ye’re thinking of hiding six casks of whisky and five hundred pounds in gold in your wee box of paints?” Jamie said.
“Under the noses of your armed guards,” Roger added, “who will presumably be British soldiers, charged, among other things, with the arrest of, of—”
“Moonshiners,” I said.
Jamie raised his other brow.
“Really,” I said. “The notion being that people with illegal stills operate them largely at night, I suppose.”
“Well, I do have a plan,” Brianna said, with some asperity. “I’m going to take the kids with me.”
“Wow!” said Jemmy. Amanda, having no idea what was being discussed, loyally chirped “Wow” as well, which made Fanny and Germain laugh.
Jamie said something under his breath in Gaelic. Roger didn’t say it, but might as well have had the words “God help us all” tattooed on his forehead. I felt similarly, but for once, I thought I’d concealed my sentiments better than the men, who weren’t trying to conceal theirs at all. I wiped my face with a towel, and started slicing the apple-and-raisin pie for dessert.
“Possibly there are a few refinements that could be added,” I said, as soothingly as possible, my back safely turned. “Why don’t we talk about it when the children are in bed.”
WE’D SHOOED ALL the children upstairs to bed and Jamie had brought down a bottle of the JFS. Aged seven years in sherry casks, it may not have been quite worth its weight in gold, but it was still an invaluable aid to conferences with a strong potential for going sideways.
He poured each of us a large tot and, sitting down himself, raised a hand for silence while he took a mouthful, held it for a long moment, then swallowed and sighed.
“All right,” he said, lowering his hand. “What is it ye have in mind, then, mo nighean ruadh?”
Roger gave a mild snort of amusement at hearing him call Brianna “my redhaired lass,” and I smiled into my whisky. It neatly carried the simultaneous implications that whatever she had in mind was likely reckless to an alarming degree—and that her propensity for such recklessness had likely come from her redheaded sire.
Bree picked that one up, too, raised her ruddy brows, and lifted her cup to him in toast.
“Well,” she said, having taken and savored her own first sip. “You need to get guns and horses.”
“I do,” Jamie said patiently. “The horses will be no great matter, though, so long as we do it carefully. I can get them from the Cherokee.”
She nodded and flipped a hand in acceptance of that.
“All right. The guns—you actually have two problems there, don’t you?”
“I’d be happy if it were only two,” he said, taking another sip. “Which problems d’ye mean, lass?”
“Buying the guns—oh, I see what you mean about more than two problems. But putting that aside for a minute: you need to buy the guns, and then you need to get them back here. Do you have an idea where you’re going to get them, by the way?”
“Fergus,” Jamie said promptly.
“How?” I asked, staring at him.
“He’s in Charles Town,” he said. “The Americans hold the city, under General Lincoln. And where there’s an army, there are guns.”
“You’re planning to steal guns from the Continental army?” I blurted. “Or make Fergus do it, which is even worse?”
“No,” he said patiently. “That would be treason, aye? I’m going to buy them from whoever is stealing them. Someone always is. Fergus will likely ken who the local smugglers are, already, but if not, I’ve considerable faith that he can find out.”