“No,” Cinnamon said thoughtfully, “but your brother was.”
“Oh. Was he looking for Lord John as well?”
“I don’t think so.” He stood silent for a moment, then added, “He was looking for other things. Maybe he’ll tell you; I can’t.”
“I see,” she said, wondering. Shocked—and moved—by meeting William, she hadn’t had time to wonder, let alone ask, what had led him to Savannah, why he had resigned his army commission, what he thought about his two fathers … what he thought about her. Who he was.
Her father had said almost nothing about William, and she hadn’t asked. Time enough, she’d felt. But the time had evidently come.
Still, she didn’t want to pry or discomfit John Cinnamon by asking whether—or what—he knew about Jamie Fraser.
“William said that he—or rather you—wanted a portrait made,” she said, changing to what seemed safer ground. “I’d be very happy to do that. Er … is it meant for some lucky lady?”
That surprised him, and he laughed, a low, warm sound.
“No, I don’t have a woman. I mean to send it to my father,” he said.
“Your father? Where is he?” The clouds had shredded and the light of a setting moon showed her his broad face, soft-eyed now, and thoughtful. He would be wonderful to paint.
“London,” he said, surprising her. He saw that he had surprised her and ducked his head, abashed.
“I am a bastard, of course,” he said, with a tone of apology. “My father was a British soldier; he got me on an Indian woman in Canada.”
“I … see.” There didn’t seem anything else she could say, and he gave her a small, shy smile.
“Yes. I thought—for many years, I thought that Lord John was my father. It was him who took me when my mother died—I was an infant—and gave me to the holy fathers at the mission in Gareon. He sent money for my keeping, you see.”
“That … seems very like him,” she said, though in fact she would never have thought of him doing such a thing.
“He is a kind man. Very kind,” he added firmly. “William brought me to Savannah to talk to him—William thought Lord John to be my father, too—and it was his lordship who told me the truth. My real father abandoned me; such things are common.”
His voice was matter-of-fact; probably such things were common.
“That doesn’t mean it’s right,” she said, angry at the unknown father.
He shrugged.
“But Lord John told me his name, and a direction. I know how to—to send the picture to him.”
“You want a portrait for a man who abandoned you? But—why?” She spoke cautiously. This young man was patently a realist; did he really think that a portrait of his half-breed child, now grown, would move the sort of selfish, coldhearted oaf who—
“I don’t think he will acknowledge me,” he assured her. “I don’t want him to. I don’t want money or anything he might value. But he has one thing that I want, and I hope that if he sees my face, he will give it to me.”
“What on earth is that?”
Even the dripping from the trees had ceased by now. The night was so still that she could hear him swallow.
“I want to know my name,” he said, so low she scarcely heard him. “I want to know the name my mother called me. He’s the only one who knows that.”
Her throat was too tight to speak. She stepped toward him and put her arms around him, holding him as his mother might have, had she lived to see him grown.
“I promise you,” she whispered when she could speak. “Your face will break his heart.”
He patted her back, very gently, and stepped back.
“You’re very kind,” he said. “You should sleep now.”
97
An Excellent Question
JOHN CINNAMON TACTFULLY LEFT William and Brianna soon after they had made their way back through the debris of the abatis line into the city, saying that he had business at the riverfront and would see William later at Lord John’s house.
“I like your friend a lot,” Brianna said, watching Cinnamon’s broad back disappear into the dappled sunlight of a square whose name she didn’t know.
“So do I. I only hope—” William checked himself, but his sister turned to him, a sympathetic expression on her face.
“Me, too,” she said. “You mean London, and this Matthew Stubbs?”
“Malcolm, but yes.”