“No,” Grey said. His lips felt slightly numb, though that might only be the cheroot. “No, I have only one brother.” His heart had begun to pound again, but this time with a heavy, dull beat. Had the Scottish bastard remembered all the time who he was?
“Our meeting was necessarily rather brief,” the Scot said dryly. “But memorable.” He picked up his glass and took a drink, watching Grey across the crystal rim. “Perhaps ye didna know that I had met Lord Melton, on Culloden Field?”
“I knew. I fought at Culloden.” All Grey’s pleasure in his victory had evaporated. He felt slightly nauseated from the smoke. “I didn’t know that you would recall Hal, though—or know of the relationship between us.”
“As I have that meeting to thank for my life, I am not likely to forget it,” Fraser said dryly.
Grey looked up. “I understand that you were not so thankful when Hal met you at Culloden.”
The line of Fraser’s mouth tightened, then relaxed.
“No,” he said softly. He smiled without humor. “Your brother verra stubbornly refused to shoot me. I wasna inclined to be grateful for the favor at the time.”
“You wished to be shot?” Grey’s eyebrows rose.
The Scot’s eyes were remote, fixed on the chessboard, but clearly seeing something else.
“I thought I had reason,” he said softly. “At the time.”
“What reason?” Grey asked. He caught a gimlet glance and added hastily, “I mean no impertinence in asking. It is only—at that time, I—I felt similarly. From what you have said of the Stuarts, I cannot think that the loss of their cause would have led you to such despair.”
There was a faint flicker near Fraser’s mouth, much too faint to be called a smile. He inclined his head briefly, in acknowledgment.
“There were those who fought for love of Charles Stuart—or from loyalty to his father’s right of kingship. But you are right; I wasna one of those.”
He didn’t explain further. Grey took a deep breath, keeping his eyes fixed on the board.
“I said that I felt much as you did, at the time. I—lost a particular friend at Culloden,” he said. With half his mind he wondered why he should speak of Hector to this man, of all men; a Scottish warrior who had slashed his way across that deadly field, whose sword might well have been the one…At the same time, he could not help but speak; there was no one to whom he could speak of Hector, save this man, this prisoner who could speak to no one else, whose words could do him no damage.
“He made me go and look at the body—Hal did, my brother,” Grey blurted. He looked down at his hand, where the deep blue of Hector’s sapphire burned against his skin, a smaller version of the one Fraser had reluctantly given him.
“He said that I must; that unless I saw him dead, I should never really believe it. That unless I knew Hector—my friend—was really gone, I would grieve forever. If I saw, and knew, I would grieve, but then I should heal—and forget.” He looked up, with a painful attempt at a smile. “Hal is generally right, but not always.”
Perhaps he had healed, but he would never forget. Certainly he would not forget his last sight of Hector, lying wax-faced and still in the early morning light, long dark lashes resting delicately on his cheeks as they did when he slept. And the gaping wound that had half-severed his head from his body, leaving the windpipe and large vessels of the neck exposed in butchery.
They sat silent for a moment. Fraser said nothing, but picked up his glass and drained it. Without asking, Grey refilled both glasses for the third time.
He leaned back in his chair, looking curiously at his guest.
“Do you find your life greatly burdensome, Mr. Fraser?”
The Scot looked up then, and met his eyes with a long, level gaze. Evidently, Fraser found nothing in his own face save curiosity, for the broad shoulders across the board relaxed their tension somewhat, and the wide mouth softened its grim line. The Scot leaned back, and flexed his right hand slowly, opening and closing it to stretch the muscles. Grey saw that the hand had been damaged at one time; small scars were visible in the firelight, and two of the fingers were set stiffly.
“Perhaps not greatly so,” the Scot replied slowly. He met Grey’s eyes with dispassion. “I think perhaps the greatest burden lies in caring for those we cannot help.”
“Not in having no one for whom to care?”
Fraser paused before answering; he might have been weighing the position of the pieces on the table.
“That is emptiness,” he said at last, softly. “But no great burden.”
It was late; there was no sound from the fortress around them save the occasional step of the soldier on sentry in the courtyard below.
“Your wife—she was a healer, you said?”
“She was. She…her name was Claire.” Fraser swallowed, then lifted his cup and drank, as though trying to dislodge something stuck in his throat.
“You cared very much for her, I think?” Grey said softly.
He recognized in the Scot the same compulsion he had had a few moments earlier—the need to speak a name kept hidden, to bring back for a moment the ghost of a love.
“I had meant to thank you sometime, Major,” the Scot said softly.
Grey was startled.
“Thank me? For what?”
The Scot looked up, eyes dark over the finished game.
“For that night at Carryarrick where we first met.” His eyes were steady on Grey’s. “For what ye did for my wife.”
“You remembered,” Grey said hoarsely.
“I hadna forgotten,” Fraser said simply. Grey steeled himself to look across the table, but when he did so, he found no hint of laughter in the slanted blue eyes.
Fraser nodded at him, gravely formal. “Ye were a worthy foe, Major; I wouldna forget you.”
John Grey laughed bitterly. Oddly enough, he felt less upset than he had thought he would, at having the shameful memory so explicitly recalled.
“If you found a sixteen-year-old shitting himself with fear a worthy foe, Mr. Fraser, then it is little wonder that the Highland army was defeated!”
Fraser smiled faintly.
“A man that doesna shit himself with a pistol held to his head, Major, has either no bowels, or no brains.”
Despite himself, Grey laughed. One edge of Fraser’s mouth turned slightly up.
“Ye wouldna speak to save your own life, but ye would do it to save a lady’s honor. The honor of my own lady,” Fraser said softly. “That doesna seem like cowardice to me.”
The ring of truth was too evident in the Scot’s voice to mistake or ignore.
“I did nothing for your wife,” Grey said, rather bitterly. “She was in no danger, after all!”
“Ye didna ken that, aye?” Fraser pointed out. “Ye thought to save her life and virtue, at the risk of your own. Ye did her honor by the notion—and I have thought of it now and again, since I—since I lost her.” The hesitation in Fraser’s voice was slight; only the tightening of the muscles in his throat betrayed his emotion.
“I see.” Grey breathed deep, and let it out slowly. “I am sorry for your loss,” he added formally.