Beauchamp and the lawyer were each holding a glass of the cold sugared port, eyes fixed expectantly on Fergus, ready to toast their revelation.
Fergus straightened up and got his feet under him.
“I may or may not be a bastard, gentlemen, but I am most certainly not a child.”
Roger thought that was a good exit line, and also got his feet under him, but Fergus didn’t stand up. He leaned forward and deliberately picked up a glass of the negus, which he passed under his nose with the air of a king compelled to inspect a chamber pot.
“Here,” he said to Beauchamp, who was watching this with his mouth slightly open. “Exchange glasses with me, s’il vous pla?t.” Despite the overt politeness, it wasn’t a request, and Beauchamp, eyebrows nearly touching his hairline, obliged. Fergus silently indicated that Roger should likewise exchange drinks with the lawyer and this was done, Roger wondering—not for the first time—What the hell?
Fergus sat back in his chair, relaxed, and lifted his glass.
“To honesty, gentlemen, and honor among thieves.”
Beauchamp and the lawyer exchanged a nonplussed look, but then blinked and murmured the toast, glasses lifted an inch or so. Roger didn’t bother with the toast, but sipped and found the negus as good as he’d thought it might be. It slid beguilingly down his parched throat, cold and warming at the same time.
“Regardez,” Fergus said, as the glasses came down. The air was perfumed with ruby port and the spices used in the negus; the air in the sweltering salon became a little more tolerable.
“Since you are so familiar with my personal affairs, gentlemen, I presume you are aware that Lord Broch Tuarach employed me for a time in Paris, to obtain for him an assortment of useful documents. I therefore have seen many such things as that.” He lifted his glass to indicate the marriage contract on the table, infusing his voice with a touch of scorn.
“Milord Broch Tuarach also produced such documents, from time to time, as situations arose requiring them. I have seen it done, gentlemen, time upon time, and so you will give me leave to express some doubt regarding the … véracité of this particular document.”
One part of Roger’s mind was admiring Fergus’s performance, while another was noting in an abstract way that Jamie Fraser could never have been a forger: left-handed, but forced from childhood to write with his right hand—and that hand very recently crushed, at the time Fergus must be referring to. On the other hand, Fergus himself was a very accomplished forger, but he supposed that wasn’t something Fergus wanted to get around Charles Town society …
The lawyer looked as though he’d been taxidermized by someone who hated him, but Beauchamp spluttered negus and began to protest. Fergus looked at Roger, who obligingly put back his coat to show his knife and set his hand on the hilt, keeping his face impassive.
Beauchamp froze. Fergus nodded approvingly.
“Just so. And so, gentlemen … say for the sake of argument that persons less discerning than I might accept the truth of this document. What did you propose to do, had I been willing to do that? Plainly, you had something in mind—something that Monsieur le Comte’s heir might accomplish for you, eh?”
Color was coming back into Beauchamp’s face, and the lawyer lost a little of his stuffing; they exchanged glances and some decision was made.
“All right.” Percival Beauchamp sat up straight and touched a linen napkin to his port-stained lips. “This is the situation.”
The situation, as explained by Beauchamp with minor interruptions from the lawyer, was that the Comte St. Germain, a very wealthy man, had owned—well, still did own, technically—a majority of the stock of a syndicate investing in land in the New World. The main asset of this syndicate was a large piece of land in the very large area known as the Northwest Territory.
Fergus managed to look as though he knew exactly what this was, and quite possibly he did, but it rang only faint bells of recognition for Roger. It was a lot of land in the far north and was part of what the French and Indian War had been fought over. And the British had won, he was pretty sure of that.
Evidently the French—or some portion of the French, whom Beauchamp referred to obliquely as “our interests”—were not so sure.
And now that France had officially entered the war in alliance with the Americans, Beauchamp’s “interests” had it in mind to take the first steps toward securing at least a foothold on the Territory.
“By establishing Mr. Fraser’s claim to it?” Roger hadn’t said anything to this point, but sheer astonishment compelled him. The lawyer gave him an austere look, but Beauchamp inclined his head gracefully.