Dragonfly In Amber

They were coins and buttons, the small metal objects. And gaberlunzies. The tiny lead seals that gave a beggar license to plead his poverty through a given parish. Hugh Munro had four of them, a mark of favor for his trials at the hands of the Turk. Not Jamie, but Hugh.

I was shaking so badly that my legs would hardly carry me, but I ran to the door and pounded on it with all my strength.

“Let me out!” I shrieked. “I have to see the Duke! Let me out, I say!”

There was no response to my continued yelling and pounding, and I dashed back to the window. The scene below was eminently peaceful now; a boy stood holding a torch for one of the gardeners, who was kneeling at the edge of the lawn, tenderly replacing the divots of turf dug up by the fight.

“Hoy!” I roared. Covered as they were by bars, I couldn’t crank the casements outward. I ran across the room to fetch one of the heavy silver candlesticks, dashed back, and smashed a pane of glass, heedless of the flying fragments.

“Help! Ahoy, down there! Tell the Duke I want to see him! Now! Help!” I thought one of the figures turned its head toward me, but neither made any motion toward the house, going on with their work as though no more than a night bird’s cry disturbed the darkness around them.

Back to the door I ran, hammering and shouting, and back to the window, and back to the door again. I shouted, pleaded, and threatened until my throat was raw and hoarse, and beat upon the unyielding door until my fists were red and bruised, but no one came. I might have been alone in the great house, for all I could hear. The silence in the hallway was as deep as that of the night outside; as silent as the grave. All check on my fear was gone, and I sank at last to my knees before the door, sobbing without restraint.

I woke, chilled and stiff, with a throbbing headache, to feel something wide and solid shoving me across the floor. I came awake with a jerk as the opening edge of the heavy door pinched my thigh against the floor.

“Ow!” I rolled clumsily, then scrabbled to my hands and knees, hair hanging in my face.

“Claire! Oh, do be quiet, p-please! Darling, are you hurt?” With a rustle of starched lawn, Mary dropped to her knees beside me. Behind her, the door swung shut and I heard the click of the lock above.

“Yes – I mean, no. I’m all right,” I said dazedly. “But Hugh…” I clamped my lips shut and shook my head, trying to clear it. “What in bloody hell are you doing here, Mary?”

“I b-bribed the housekeeper to let me in,” she whispered. “Must you talk so loudly?”

“It doesn’t matter much,” I said, in a normal tone of voice. “That door’s so thick, nothing short of a football match could be heard through it.”

“A what?”

“Never mind.” My mind was begi

“You bribed the housekeeper?” I said, wiping my face with a towel. “But we’re still locked in, aren’t we? I heard the key turn.”

Mary was pale in the dimness of the room. The candle had guttered out while I slept on the floor, and there was no light but the deep red glow of the fireplace embers. She bit her lip.

“It was the b-best I could do. Mrs. Gibson was too afraid of the Duke to give me a key. All she would do was agree to lock me in with you, and let me out in the morning. I thought you m-might like company,” she added timidly.

“Oh,” I said. “Well… thank you. It was a kind thought.” I took a new candle from the drawer and went to the fireplace to light it. The candlestick was clotted with wax from the burned-out candle; I tipped a small puddle of melted wax onto the tabletop and set the fresh candle in it, heedless of damage to the Duke’s intaglio.

“Claire,” Mary said. “Are you… are you in trouble?”

I bit my lip to prevent a hasty reply. After all, she was only seventeen, and her ignorance of politics was probably even more profound than her lack of knowledge of men had been.

“Er, yes,” I said. “Rather a lot, I’m afraid.” My brain was starting to work again. Even if Mary was not equipped to be of much practical help in escaping, she might at least be able to provide me with information about her godfather and the doings of his household.

“Did you hear the racket out by the wood earlier?” I asked. She shook her head. She was begi

“No, but I heard one of the cookmaids saying the keepers had caught a poacher in the park. It’s awfully cold. Can’t we get into b-bed?”

She was already crawling across the coverlet, burrowing beneath the bolster for the edge of the sheet. Her bottom was round and neat, childlike under the white nightdress.

“That wasn’t a poacher,” I said. “Or rather it was, but it was also a friend. He was on his way to find Jamie, to tell him I was here. Do you know what happened after the keepers took him?”

Mary swung around, face a pale blur within the shadows of the bed hangings. Even in this light, I could see that the dark eyes had grown huge.

“Oh, Claire! I’m so sorry!”

“Well, so am I,” I said impatiently. “Do you know where the poacher is, though?” If Hugh had been imprisoned somewhere accessible, like the stables, there was a bare chance that Mary might be able to release him somehow in the morning.

The trembling of her lips, making her normal stutter seem comprehensible by comparison, should have warned me. But the words, once she got them out, struck through my heart, sharp and sudden as a thrown dirk.

“Th-they h-h-hanged him,” she said. “At the p-park g-gate.”

It was some time before I was able to pay attention to my surroundings. The flood of shock, grief, fear, and shattered hope washed over me, swamping me utterly. I was dimly conscious of Mary’s small hand timidly patting my shoulder, and her voice offering handkerchiefs and drinks of water, but remained curled in a ball, not speaking, but shaking, and waiting for the relaxation of the wrenching despair that clenched my stomach like a fist. Finally I exhausted the panic, if not myself, and opened my eyes blearily.

“I’ll be all right,” I said at last, sitting up and wiping my nose inelegantly on my sleeve. I took the proffered towel and blotted my eyes with it. Mary hovered over me, looking concerned, and I reached out and squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“Really,” I said. “I’m all right now. And I’m very glad you’re here.” A thought struck me, and I dropped the towel, looking curiously at her.

“Come to think of it, why are you here?” I asked. “In this house, I mean.”

She looked down, blushing, and picked at the coverlet.

“The D-Duke is my godfather, you know.”

“Yes, so I gathered,” I said. “Somehow I doubt that he merely wanted the pleasure of your company, though.”

She smiled a little at the remark. “N-no. But he – the Duke, I mean – he thinks he’s found another h-h-husband for me.” The effort to get out “husband” left her red-faced. “Papa brought me here to meet him.”

I gathered from her demeanor that this wasn’t news requiring immediate congratulations. “Do you know the man?”

Only by name, it turned out. A Mr. Isaacson, an importer, of London. Too busy to travel all the way to Edinburgh to meet his intended, he had agreed to come to Bellhurst, where the marriage would take place, all parties being agreeable.

I picked up the silver-backed hairbrush from the bed table and abstractedly began to tidy my hair. So, having failed to secure an alliance with the French nobility, the Duke was intending to sell his goddaughter to a wealthy Jew.

“I have a new trousseau,” Mary said, trying to smile. “Forty-three embroidered petticoats – two with g-gold thread.” She broke off, her lips pressed tight together, staring down sightlessly at her bare left hand. I put my own hand over it.