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Blessed Michael defend us.The words came to him suddenly, though he was neither Catholic nor even religious. It was a common saying among the Scottish prisoners at Ardsmuir, though. He had heard it in the Gaelic, many times, and finally had asked Jamie Fraser for the English meaning, one night when they had dined together.
Plainly he had found the right place. A small oil lamp burned in the passage, throwing the archangel’s visage into stern relief, and the flicker of candlelight was visible through the crack between the wooden doors under the archway. Wondering anew just what he was doing here, he hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and murmured “Blessed Michael defend us.” He passed beneath the arch.
The chapel was tiny, and dark save the tall white candles that burned at head and foot of the closed coffin. It was draped in white silk, and glimmered like water.
He took a step toward it. Something large stirred in the darkness at his feet.
“Jesus!”
He dropped the taper, clapping a hand to his belt—where, alas, he had not placed his dagger.
A dark figure rose immense, very slowly, from the flags at his feet.
Every hair on his body stood erect and his heart thundered in his ears, as recognition tried vainly to overcome shock. The taper had gone out, and the man was visible only as a dark silhouette, haloed with the fire of the candles behind him.
He swallowed hard, trying to force his heart from his throat, and groped for words that were not altogether blasphemous.
“Bloody…Christ,” he managed, after several incoherent tries. “What in the name of God Himself are youdoing here?”
“Praying,” said a soft Scots voice, its softness no disguise for the shock in it—and an even more patent anger. “What are youdoing here?”
“Praying?” Grey echoed, disbelief in his voice. “Lying on the floor?”
He couldn’t see Fraser’s face, but heard the hiss of air through his teeth. They stood close enough to each other that he felt the cold emanating from Fraser’s body, as though the other had been carved from ice. Christ, how long had the man been pressed to the freezing flags? And why? His eyes adjusting, he saw that the Scot wore nothing but his shirt; his long body was a shadow, the candlelight glowing dim through threadbare fabric.
“It is a Catholic custom,” Fraser said, his voice as stiff as his posture. “Of respect.”
“Indeed.” The shock of the encounter was fading, and Grey found his voice come easier. “You will pardon me, Mr. Fraser, if I find that suggestion somewhat peculiar—as is your presence here.” He was growing angry now himself, feeling absurdly practiced upon—though logic told him that Fraser had risen as he did only because Grey would have stepped on him in another moment, and not with the intent of taking him at a disadvantage.
“It is immaterial to me, Major, what you find peculiar and what ye do not,” Fraser said, his voice still low. “If ye wish to suppose that I have chosen to sleep in a freezing chapel in company with a corpse, rather than in my own bed, you may think as ye like.” He made a motion as though to pass, obviously intending to leave the chapel—but the aisle was narrow, and Grey was not moving.
“Did you know the—the countess well?” Curiosity was overcoming shock and anger.
“The countess…oh.” Fraser glanced involuntarily over his shoulder at the coffin. Grey saw him draw breath, the mist of it briefly white. “I suppose she was. A countess. And, yes, I kent her well enough. I was her groom.”
There was something peculiar about thatremark, Grey noted with interest. There was a wealth of feeling in that statement, “I was her groom,” but damned if he could tell what sort of feeling it was.
He wondered for an instant whether Fraser had been in love with Geneva—and felt a surprising sear of jealousy at the thought. Knowing Fraser’s feeling for his dead wife, he would suppose…but why in God’s name would he come at night to pray by Geneva’s coffin, if not—but no. That “I was her groom” had been spoken with a tone of…hostility? Bitterness? It wasn’t the respectful statement of a loyal and grieving servant, he’d swear thaton a stack of Bibles.
Grey dismissed this confusion and took a breath of cold air and candle wax, imagining for an instant that he smelt the hint of corruption on the frigid air.
Fraser stood like a stone angel, no more than a foot from him; he could hear the Scot’s breathing, faintly hoarse, congested. My God, had he been weeping? He dismissed the thought; the weather was enough to give anyone the catarrh, let alone anyone mad enough to lie half naked on freezing stones.
“I was her friend,” Grey said quietly.
Fraser said nothing in reply, but continued to stand between Grey and the coffin. Grey saw him turn his head, the candle glow sparking red from brows and sprouting beard, limning the lines of his face in gold. The long throat moved once, swallowing. Then Fraser turned toward him, his face disappearing once more into shadow.
“Then I leave her in your hands ’til dawn.”
It was said so quietly that Grey was not sure he’d heard it. But something touched his hand, light as a cold wind passing, and Fraser moved past him and was gone, the muffled thud of the chapel door the only sound to mark his leaving.
Grey turned in disbelief to look, but there was nothing to be seen. The chapel was dark, and silent save for the sound of rain thrumming on the slates of the roof.
Had that remarkable encounter really happened? He thought for an instant that he might be dreaming—must have fallen asleep in his chair by the fire, lulled by the rain. But he put a hand on the end of the pew beside him and felt hard wood, cold under his fingers.
And the coffin stood before him, stark and white in the candlelight. The flames quivered, the air in the chapel disturbed, then settled, pure and steady. Keeping watch.
Not quite knowing what to do, he sat down in the front pew. He should pray, perhaps, but not yet.
What was it Fraser had said? I suppose she was. A countess.
So she had been—for the brief months of her marriage. And now there was nothing left of her or her husband, save that small, enigmatic morsel of flesh, the ninth Earl of Ellesmere.
I leave her in your hands ’til dawn.
Had Fraser himself meant to keep watch all night, prostrate before her coffin? Plainly he meant Grey to stay through the remaining hours of cold dark. Grey shifted uneasily on the hard wood, aware that he could not now bring himself to leave.
He shivered, then wrapped his cloak more tightly, resigned. The chill of the slate floor was seeping through his slippers; his feet had gone numb already. He thought of Fraser in his shirt, and shivered again at the thought of pressing his own bare flesh against the icy slates.
Respect, Fraser had said. It scarcely seemed respectful, such an extraordinary act. What, he wondered, would have happened, had he actually stepped on the man? He still held that overwhelming impression of Fraser’s presence, towering, cold as stone, and pushed aside a fleeting thought of what that frozen flesh might feel like, had he touched it. Restless, he stood and went forward, drawn like a moth to the glimmering white of the coffin.
More like something from the Middle Ages, he thought, and snorted, breath white in the dark air. Those Catholic buggers who walked barefoot through Paris or flagellated themselves to bloody shreds as an act of penance.
An act of penance.
He felt the words drop into place in his mind, like the tumblers of a lock. Recalled his sense of the Dunsanys, that some deep uneasiness tinged their grief.
“Oh, Geneva,” he said softly.
He saw again that vision of her at his window, pale-faced, wide-eyed, adrift in the night. So cold, and all alone. The outline of the stable behind her. From somewhere in the house, he thought he heard the creak of footsteps, and a far-off infant’s cry.