The Scottish Prisoner

Am I right to treat him thus?he wondered, watching Fraser’s broad back as the Scot preceded him from the dining room. Will it give him something to remember, to recollect with pleasure when he goes back—or only increase the bitterness of his position? God, I wish I knew.

But then … there was the possibility of freedom. He felt his stomach knot at the thought but wasn’t sure whether it was from fear that Fraser would gain his freedom—or that he wouldn’t. Hal had certainly mentioned it as a possibility, but if there proved to be a fresh Jacobite plot, the country would be swept up once more in fear and hysteria; it would be nearly impossible to have Fraser pardoned in such circumstances.

He was so caught up in these reflections that it was some moments before he realized that he knew the voice coming from the billiards room to his right.

Edward Twelvetrees was at the green-baize table. He looked up from a successful shot, his face alight with pleasure, then caught a glimpse of Grey in the hallway, and his face went stiff, the smile freezing into a tooth-baring rictus. The friend with whom he’d been playing stared at him in astonishment, then turned a bewildered face toward Grey.

“Colonel Grey?” he said, tentative. It was Major Berkeley Tarleton, the father of Richard Tarleton, who had been Grey’s ensign at Crefeld. He knew Grey, of course, but plainly could not understand the sudden hostility that had sprung up like a wall of thorns between the two men.

“Major Tarleton,” Grey said, with a nod that did not take his eyes away from Twelvetrees. The tip of Twelvetrees’s nose had gone white. He’d received his summons to the court-martial, then.

“You unspeakable whelp.” Twelvetrees’s voice was almost conversational.

Grey bowed.

“Your servant, sir,” he said. He felt Jamie come up behind him and saw Twelvetrees’s eyes narrow at sight of the Scot.

“And you.” Twelvetrees shook his head, as though so appalled that he could find no speech to address the situation. He turned his gaze upon Grey again. “I wonder at it, sir. Indeed, I wonder at it. Who would bring such as this fellow, this depraved Scotch creature, a convicted traitor”—his voice rose a little on the word—“into the sacred precincts of this club?” He was still holding his cue, clutching it like a quarterstaff.

“Captain Fraser is my particular friend, sir,” Grey said coldly.

Twelvetrees uttered a most unpleasant laugh.

“I daresay he is. A very closefriend, I have heard.” The edge of his lip lifted in a sneer.

“What do you imply, sir?” Fraser’s voice came from behind him, calm, and so formal as almost to lack his usual accent. Twelvetrees’s hot eyes left Grey, rising to Fraser’s face.

“Why, sir, since you are so civil as to inquire, I implythat this arse-wipe is your”—he hesitated for an instant, and then said, elaborately sardonic—“not merely your most particular friend. For surely only the loyalty of a bedfellow can have led him to do your bidding.”

Grey felt a ringing in his ears, like the aftereffects of ca

“Gentlemen!” Tarleton was shocked but firm. “Surely you ca

Grey wrenched his arm free.

“You bloody murderer!” he said. “I’ll—”

“You’ll what? Fucking sodomite!” Twelvetrees’s hands were clenched on the cue stick, his knuckles white.

A much bigger hand came down on Grey’s shoulder and dragged him out of the way. Fraser stepped in front of him, reached across the corner of the table, and plucked the cue out of Twelvetrees’s hands as though it were a broomstraw. He took it in his hands and, with a visible effort, broke it neatly in two and laid the pieces on the table.

“Do you call me traitor, sir?” he said politely to Twelvetrees. “I take no offense at this, for I stand convicted of that crime. But I say to you that you are a greater traitor still.”

“You—what?” Twelvetrees looked mildly stu

“You speak of particular friends, sir. Your own most particular friend, Major Siverly, faces a posthumous court-martial for corruption and treason of a most heinous kind. And I say that you should be tried along with him, for you have been partner to his crimes—and if justice is served, doubtless you will be. And if the justice of the Almighty be served, you will then join him in hell. I pray it may be swift.”

Tarleton made a small gobbling noise that Grey would have found fu

Twelvetrees stood stock-still, beady eyes a-bulge, and then his face convulsed and he leapt upon the table, launching himself from it at Jamie Fraser. Fraser dodged aside, and Twelvetrees struck him no more than a glancing blow, falling to the floor at Grey’s feet.

He remained in a crumpled heap for a moment, panting heavily, then rose slowly to his feet. No one tried to assist him.

He stood up, slowly straightened his clothing, and then walked toward Fraser, who had withdrawn into the hall. He reached the Scotsman, looked up as though gauging the distance, then, drawing back his arm, slapped Fraser bare-handed across the face with a sound like a pistol shot.

“Let your seconds call upon me, sir,” he said, in a voice little more than a whisper.

The hall was full of men, emerged from smoking room, library, and dining room at the sound of raised voices. They parted like the waves of the Red Sea for Twelvetrees, who walked deliberately away, back ramrod-straight and eyes fixed straight ahead.

Major Tarleton, with some presence of mind, had fished a handkerchief out of his sleeve and handed it to Fraser, who was wiping his face with it, Twelvetrees’s blow having been hard enough to make his eyes water and slightly bloody his nose.

“Sorry about that,” Grey said to Tarleton. He could breathe again, though his muscles were jumping with the need to move. He put a hand on the edge of the billiards table, not to steady himself but merely to keep himself from flying out in some unsuitable way. He saw that Twelvetrees’s bootheel had made a small tear in the baize of the table.

“I ca

Fraser had regained his self-possession—well, in justice, Grey thought, he’d never lost it—and now handed Tarleton back his handkerchief, neatly folded.

“He spoke so in an effort to discredit Colonel Grey’s testimony,” he said quietly—but audibly enough to be heard by everyone in the hallway. “For what I said to him is the truth. He is a Jacobite traitor and deeply involved, both in Siverly’s treason—and in his death.”

“Oh,” said Tarleton. He coughed and turned a helpless face on Grey, who shrugged apologetically. The witnesses out in the hallway—for he realized that this was what they were, what Fraser had intended them to be—had begun to whisper and buzz among themselves.

“Your servant, sir,” Fraser said to Tarleton, and bowing politely he turned and went out. He didn’t go toward the front door, as Twelvetrees had, but rather toward the stairway, which he ascended in apparent unawareness of the many eyes fixed on his broad back.