“Jamie,” I said, trying to keep my voice from trembling. “If you love me … don’t. Please don’t. I can’t bear it.” I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear the thought of his being killed, but nor could I bear the thought of his hunting, performing execution. The sound of a rifle shot echoed in my head whenever I thought of the man he had killed, rousing other echoes—of that night, a heavy body in the dark, pain and terror and helpless suffocation.
“And I don’t even bloody know if you shot him,” I said abruptly, and sat down. “The man … whose name I don’t know.”
He looked at me for a moment, head on one side, then reached out delicately and scooped up a bit of yellow with a fingertip. He touched this to my lower lip and I licked it off by reflex: warm, savory, delicious.
“I love you,” he said softly, and his hand cupped my cheek, big and warm. “As an egg loves salt. Dinna fash, mo chridhe. I’ll think o’ something else.”
133
Such an Odd Feeling
Fraser’s Ridge
July 8, A.D. 1780
From: Captain William C.H.G. Ransom
To: Mrs. Roger MacKenzie of Fraser’s Ridge
Dear Sister—
Such an odd Feeling to write that; my first Time of doing it.
I haven’t much—Time, I mean—but I have recently been involved in a number of strange Circumstances, one of which invoked your Name—or rather, not your Name; the Fellow only said, “I know your Sister.”
Possibly he does. However, I have known this Man—his Name is Ezekiel Richardson—over the Course of several Years, during which he has arguably attempted on one or more Occasions to kill or abduct me, or otherwise to interfere with my Actions. I first knew him as a Captain in His Majesty’s Army, and much more recently, as a Major in the Continental Army.
Upon our most recent Meeting （near Charles Town）， he looked at me oddly and remarked that he knew you. His Manner—and indeed, his saying such a Thing at all—was Peculiar in the Extreme and aroused a profound Feeling of Unease in me.
I will not presume to instruct you, as I haven’t the vaguest Notion as to what Advice I should give. But I felt that I must warn you— though against What, I have no Idea.
With my Deepest Respect and Affection,
Your Brother （damn, I’ve never written that before, either），
William
PostScriptum: Such was my Sense of Disquiet, I undertook to try to sketch Major Richardson’s Likeness, in Case he should seek you out. He has a most undistinguished Face; the only Distinction I remarked in it is that his Ears are placed unevenly—possibly not to the Extent in which they appear in this crude Sketch, but if he is telling the Truth, you may perhaps recognize him, should he ride up to your Door one Day, and be on your Guard.
BRIANNA’S HANDS HAD GROWN sweaty in the reading, and a trickle of perspiration ran down the side of her neck. She knuckled it absently away and wiped her wet hand on her skirt before unfolding the smaller paper.
It was a crude sketch, a face-on portrait with the ears comically oversized and attached asymmetrically to the head, like butterflies about to take flight. She smiled for an instant, and then looked closer at the face between those ears. It wasn’t distinctive at all—which might have made the drawing better than it otherwise might have been, she thought, frowning. There was simply nothing complicated about the major’s very ordinary face, though she was pleased to see that William did indeed have at least some basic skill in drawing: he’d added a deep chiaroscuro to the left side of the face and quick thumb-shading to add hollows beneath the small, clever-looking eyes that …
She stopped, something tickling at her brain, and looked closer. Could anyone actually have ears that noticeably off-kilter? Big ears were one thing, but displaced ears … Perhaps if the man had had an accident that severed one ear and a surgeon had sewed it back on awry … The notion made her smile, despite her uneasiness, but another thought was pushing up behind the first, triggered by the thought of surgery. Plastic surgery.
She looked again, closer, at that very ordinary face, lacking most of the normal lines of expression. Alarm was flooding through her, even before her mind had dotted the I’s and crossed the T’s.
She felt suddenly ill and sat down abruptly, eyes closed. She hadn’t eaten lunch and now felt nauseated on an empty stomach. Common with morning sickness, her mother had said—but this wasn’t morning sickness. She opened her eyes and looked again.
And this time she breathed cold air smelling of pine and heather and burning rubber and hot metal and the acrid ghost of gunpowder. Remembered the hail-like sound of shotgun pellets pattering through gorse and heather. And the warm, greasy feel of an old wool cap in her hand, pulled off the head of a man whose face she hadn’t quite seen, as he tried to kidnap Jem and Mandy from the dark dooryard of Lallybroch. But now she saw him plain and saw through his disguise. Both of them.