“Why?”
“Why?” Jamie echoed, astonished. “Did you not order the guards to douse me wi’ water before leaving me in a freezing cell?”
“I did not, no.” It was clear enough that the Major was telling the truth; his face was pale under the ruddy flush of the firelight, and he looked angry. His lips thinned to a fine line.
“I apologize for this, Mr. Fraser.”
“Accepted, Major.” Small wisps of steam were beginning to rise from his clothes, but the warmth was seeping through the damp cloth. His muscles ached from the shivering, and he wished he could lie down on the hearthrug, dog or not.
“Did your escape have anything to do with the matter of which you learned at the Lime Tree Inn?”
Jamie stood silent. The ends of his hair were drying, and small wisps floated across his face.
“Will you swear to me that your escape had nothing to do with that matter?”
Jamie stood silent. There seemed no point in saying anything, now.
The little Major was pacing up and down the hearth before him, hands locked behind his back. Now and then, the Major glanced up at him, and then resumed his pacing.
Finally he stopped in front of Jamie.
“Mr. Fraser,” he said formally. “I will ask you once more—why did you escape from the prison?”
Jamie sighed. He wouldn’t get to stand by the fire much longer.
“I cannot tell you, Major.”
“Cannot or will not?” Grey asked sharply.
“It doesna seem a useful distinction, Major, as ye willna hear anything, either way.” He closed his eyes and waited, trying to soak up as much heat as possible before they took him away.
Grey found himself at a loss, both for words and action. Stubborn does not begin to describe it, Quarry had said. It didn’t.
He took a deep breath, wondering what to do. He found himself embarrassed by the petty cruelty of the guards’ revenge; the more so because it was just such an action he had first contemplated upon hearing that Fraser was his prisoner.
He would be perfectly within his rights now to order the man flogged, or put back in irons. Condemned to solitary confinement, put on short rations—he could in justice inflict any of a dozen different punishments. And if he did, the odds of his ever finding the Frenchman’s Gold became vanishingly small.
The gold did exist. Or at least there was a good probability that it did. Only a belief in that gold would have stirred Fraser to act as he had.
He eyed the man. Fraser’s eyes were closed, his lips set firmly. He had a wide, strong mouth, whose grim expression was somewhat belied by the sensitive lips, set soft and exposed in their curly nest of red beard.
Grey paused, trying to think of some way to break past the man’s wall of bland defiance. To use force would be worse than useless—and after the guards’ actions, he would be ashamed to order it, even had he the stomach for brutality.
The clock on the mantelpiece struck ten. It was late; there was no sound in the fortress, save the occasional footsteps of the soldier on sentry in the courtyard outside the window.
Clearly neither force nor threat would work in gaining the truth. Reluctantly, he realized that there was only one course open to him, if he still wished to pursue the gold. He must put aside his feelings about the man and take Quarry’s suggestion. He must pursue an acquaintance, in the course of which he might worm out of the man some clue that would lead him to the hidden treasure.
If it existed, he reminded himself, turning to his prisoner. He took a deep breath.
“Mr. Fraser,” he said formally, “will you do me the honor to take supper tomorrow in my quarters?”
He had the momentary satisfaction of having startled the Scottish bastard, at least. The blue eyes opened wide, and then Fraser regained the mastery of his face. He paused for a moment, and then bowed with a flourish, as though he wore a kilt and swinging plaid, and not damp prison rags.
“It will be my pleasure to attend ye, Major,” he said.
March 7, 1755
Fraser was delivered by the guard and left to wait in the sitting room, where a table was laid. When Grey came through the door from his bedroom a few moments later, he found his guest standing by the bookshelf, apparently absorbed in a copy of Nouvelle Hélo?se.
“You are interested in French novels?” he blurted, not realizing until too late how incredulous the question sounded.
Fraser glanced up, startled, and snapped the book shut. Very deliberately, he returned it to its shelf.
“I can read, Major,” he said. He had shaved; a slight flush burned high on his cheekbones.
“I—yes, of course I did not mean—I merely—” Grey’s own cheeks were more flushed than Fraser’s. The fact was that he had subconsciously assumed that the other did not read, his evident education notwithstanding, merely because of his Highland accent and shabby dress.
While his coat might be shabby, Fraser’s manners were not. He ignored Grey’s flustered apology, and turned to the bookshelf.
“I have been telling the men the story, but it has been some time since I read it; I thought I would refresh my memory as to the sequence of the ending.”
“I see.” Just in time, Grey stopped himself from saying “They understand it?”
Fraser evidently read the unspoken question in his face, for he said dryly, “All Scottish children are taught their letters, Major. Still, we have a great tradition of storytelling in the Highlands.”
“Ah. Yes. I see.”
The entry of his servant with dinner saved him from further awkwardness, and the supper passed uneventfully, though there was little conversation, and that little, limited to the affairs of the prison.
* * *
The next time, he had had the chess table set up before the fire, and invited Fraser to join him in a game before the supper was served. There had been a brief flash of surprise from the slanted blue eyes, and then a nod of acquiescence.
That had been a small stroke of genius, Grey thought in retrospect. Relieved of the need for conversation or social courtesies, they had slowly become accustomed to each other as they sat over the inlaid board of ivory and ebony-wood, gauging each other silently by the movements of the chessmen.
When they had at length sat down to dine, they were no longer quite strangers, and the conversation, while still wary and formal, was at least true conversation, and not the awkward affair of starts and stops it had been before. They discussed matters of the prison, had a little conversation of books, and parted formally, but on good terms. Grey did not mention gold.
* * *
And so the weekly custom was established. Grey sought to put his guest at ease, in the hopes that Fraser might let drop some clue to the fate of the Frenchman’s Gold. It had not come so far, despite careful probing. Any hint of inquiry as to what had transpired during the three days of Fraser’s absence from Ardsmuir met with silence.
Over the mutton and boiled potatoes, he did his best to draw his odd guest into a discussion of France and its politics, by way of discovering whether there might exist any links between Fraser and a possible source of gold from the French Court.
Much to his surprise, he was informed that Fraser had in fact spent two years living in France, employed in the wine business, prior to the Stuart rebellion.
A certain cool humor in Fraser’s eyes indicated that the man was well aware of the motives behind this questioning. At the same time, he acquiesced gracefully enough in the conversation, though taking some care always to lead questions away from his personal life, and instead toward more general matters of art and society.