Dragonfly In Amber

“What am I doing?” I echoed. I swallowed, working some moisture back into my dry mouth. “What am I doing? I’m sitting here with a lock of your hair in my hand, wondering whether you were dead or not! That’s what I’m doing!”

“I’m not dead.” He crossed to the armoire and opened it. He wore his sword, but had changed clothes since our visit to Sandringham’s house; now he was dressed in his old coat – the one that allowed him free movement of his arms.

“Yes, I noticed,” I said. “Thoughtful of you to come tell me.”

“I came to fetch my clothes.” He pulled out two shirts and his full-length cloak and laid them across a stool while he went to rummage in the chest of drawers for clean linen.

“Your clothes? Where on earth are you going?” I hadn’t known what to expect when I saw him again, but I certainly hadn’t expected this.

“To an i

“When I sent ye home in the coach, I walked for a bit, until I had a grip on myself once more. Then I came home to fetch my sword, and returned to the Duke’s house to give Randall a formal challenge. The butler told me Randall had been arrested.”

His gaze rested on me, remote as the ocean depths. I swallowed once more.

“I went to the Bastille. They told me you’d sworn to an accusation against Randall, saying he’d attacked you and Mary Hawkins the other night. Why, Claire?”

My hands were shaking, and I dropped the lock of hair I had been holding. Its cohesion disturbed by handling, it disintegrated, and the fine red hairs spilled loose across my lap.

“Jamie,” I said, and my voice was shaking, too, “Jamie, you can’t kill Jack Randall.”

One corner of his mouth twitched, very slightly.

“I di

“That isn’t what I mean! Jamie-”

“Fortunately,” he went on, as though not hearing me, “Randall has proof that he was at the Duke’s residence all during the evening of the rape. As soon as the police finish interviewing the guests who were present, and satisfy themselves that Randall is i

He stuffed the shirts and linen into a traveling-bag and slung his cloak over his arm. He was turning to go through the door when I sprang up from the bed and caught him by the sleeve.

“Jamie! For God’s sake, Jamie, listen to me! You can’t kill Jack Randall because I won’t let you!”

He stared down at me in utter astonishment.

“Because of Frank,” I said. I let go of his sleeve and stepped back.

“Frank,” he repeated, shaking his head slightly as though to clear a buzzing in his ears. “Frank.”

“Yes,” I said. “If you kill Jack Randall now, then Frank… he won’t exist. He won’t be born. Jamie, you can’t kill an i

His face, normally a pale, ruddy bronze, had faded to a blotchy white as I spoke. Now the red began to rise again, burning the tips of his ears and flaming in his cheeks.

“An i

“Frank is an i

“Well, I do!” He snatched up the bag and strode toward the door, cloak streaming over one arm. “Jesus God, Claire! You’d try to stop me taking my vengeance on the man who made me play whore to him? Who forced me to my knees and made me suck his cock, smeared with my own blood? Christ, Claire!” He flung the door open with a crash and was in the hallway by the time I could reach him.

It had grown dark by now, but the servants had lit the candles, and the hallway was aglow with soft light. I grasped him by the arm and yanked at him.

“Jamie! Please!”

He jerked his arm impatiently out of my grasp. I was almost crying, but held back the tears. I caught the bag and pulled it out of his hand.

“Please, Jamie! Wait, just for a year! The child – Randall’s – it will be conceived next December. After that, it won’t matter. But please – for my sake, Jamie – wait that long!”

The candelabra on the gilt-edged table threw his shadow huge and wavering against the far wall. He stared up at it, hands clenched, as though facing a giant, blank-faced and menacing, that towered above him.

“Aye,” he whispered, as though to himself, “I’m a big chap. Big and strong. I can stand a lot. Yes, I can stand it.” He whirled on me, shouting.

“I can stand a lot! But just because I can, does that mean I must? Do I have to bear everyone’s weakness? Can I not have my own?”

He began to pace up and down the hall, the shadow following in silent frenzy.

“You ca

He hit the stone wall of the passage repeatedly as he walked, smashing the side of his fist viciously into the limestone wall. The stone swallowed each blow in soundless violence.

He turned back and came to a halt facing me, breathing heavily. I stood stock-still, afraid to move or speak. He nodded once or twice, rapidly, as though making up his mind about something, then drew the dirk from his belt with a hiss and held it in front of my nose. With a visible effort, he spoke calmly.

“You may have your choice, Claire. Him, or me.” The candle flames danced in the polished metal as he turned the knife slowly. “I ca

I pulled back with all my strength, but he forced the tip of the blade against the soft hollow above the collarbone, just below the livid cicatrice that Randall’s own knife had left there years before.

“Jamie! Stop it! Stop it right now!” I brought my other hand down on his wrist as hard as I could, jarring his grip enough to jerk my fingers free. The knife clattered to the floor, bouncing from the stones to a quiet landing on a corner of the leafy Aubusson carpet. With that clarity of vision for small details that afflicts life’s most awful moments, I saw that the blade lay stark across the curling stem of a bunch of fat green grapes, as though about to sever it and cut them free of the weft to roll at our feet.

He stood frozen before me, face white as bone, eyes burning. I gripped his arm, hard as wood beneath my fingers.

“Please believe me, please. I wouldn’t do this if there were any other way.” I took a deep, quivering breath to quell the leaping pulse beneath my ribs.

“You owe me your life, Jamie. Not once, twice over. I saved you from hanging at Wentworth, and when you had fever at the Abbey. You owe me a life, Jamie!”

He stared down at me for a long moment before answering. When he did, his voice was quiet again, with an edge of bitterness.

“I see. And ye’ll claim your debt now?” His eyes burned with the clear, deep blue that burns in the heart of a flame.

“I have to! I can’t make you see reason any other way!”

“Reason. Ah, reason. No, I ca

The passage was lined with paintings, some lighted from below by torchere or candelabra, some from above by the gilded sconces; a few less favored, skulked in the darkness between. Jamie walked slowly between them, glancing up now and again as though in converse with the wigged and painted gallery.