“You needn’t ask if Marsali knows about this place, either,” he assured Roger. “I won’t say I have no secrets from my wife—I think every man must require a few secrets—but this is not one of them.”
Roger’s heart was beginning to slow down, and he fished out a semi-clean handkerchief with which to mop his face. He found himself avoiding the tiny patch Miss Marigold’s fingers had touched, and scrubbed it briefly before putting the hankie away.
“The men we have just left,” Fergus said, dabbing his own face. “I recognize them.”
“Yes?”
“The fop—this is Percival Beauchamp, though I believe he used another name—perhaps more than one. He has approached me more than once with a similar taradiddle—that I was the son of a highborn man, had title to land—” He made a very French grimace of disdain, and Roger, already entertained by his pronunciation of “taradiddle,” made a similar grimace in order to keep from laughing.
“Now,” Fergus went on, hunching closer and lowering his voice, “at that time, he was attending the Comte de La Fayette as some sort of aide-de-camp. I dismissed him—I had met him once before that, and refused to speak with him then—and he went so far as to threaten me. Chienne,” he added, with contempt.
“Chienne?” Roger asked, careful with the pronunciation. “You think he’s a female dog?”
Fergus looked surprised.
“Well, there are other words,” he said, and wrinkled his brow as though trying to summon a few, “but surely you noticed …？”
“Er …” A wave of heat that had nothing to do with the atmosphere rose behind Roger’s ears. “Actually, no. I just thought he was a, um, Frenchman. Ornamental, you know?”
Fergus burst out laughing.
Roger coughed. “So. Ye’re saying that Percival whatever-he’s-calling-himself is what people in Scotland might call a Nancy-boy. D’ye think that’s got anything to do with … the present situation?”
Fergus was still simmering with mirth, but he shook his head.
“Oui, but perhaps only because a man with such tastes—when they are known, and plainly they are—cannot be trusted, because he is always subject to the threat of public exposure. You must look at the man who controls him.”
Roger felt a touch of uneasiness. Well, in honesty, he’d been uneasy since they walked into the house on Hasell Street.
“Who do you suppose that is?”
Fergus glanced at him in surprise, then shook his head in mild reproof.
“I tell you, mon frère, you require a great deal more experience in the fields of sin, if you hope to be a good minister.”
“Ye’re suggesting that I send for Miss Marigold and ask for lessons?”
“Well, no,” Fergus said, giggling slightly. “Your wife would—but that’s not what I meant. Only that your own goodness, which is undeniable”—he smiled at Roger, with a warmth in his eyes that touched Roger deeply—“is one thing, but to help those of your flock who lack that goodness, you need to understand something of evil and thus the struggle that afflicts them.”
“I wouldn’t say you’re wrong,” Roger said warily. “But I know more than one man of the cloth who’s got himself in serious trouble while seeking that sort of education.”
Fergus lifted one shoulder, laughing.
“You can learn a great deal from whores, mon frère, but I agree that perhaps you should not make such inquiries alone. Still,” he said, sobering, “that’s not what I meant by evil.”
“No. But you said you’ve had passages with this Percival before. He didn’t strike me as—”
“He’s not. He’s a whore; he has likely been one all his life.” Seeing Roger’s expression, he didn’t smile, but one corner of his mouth lifted. “What is it they say? ‘It takes one to know one.’”
Roger felt a sudden contraction of his stomach muscles, as though he’d been lightly punched. He’d known that Fergus had been a child-whore in Paris, before encountering Jamie Fraser, who had engaged him as a pickpocket—but he’d forgotten.
“Monsieur Beauchamp is too old to sell his arse, of course, but he will sell himself. From necessity,” Fergus added dispassionately. “A person who has lived like that for a long time ceases to believe that they have any value beyond what someone will pay for.”
Roger was silent, thinking not so much of the recent Percival Beauchamp but of Fergus—and of Jane and Fanny Pocock.