Surely, surely he would not have gone back into the Duke's house? No, I reassured myself. He had no sword. Whatever he might be feeling—and my soul sank within me to think of what he felt—he wouldn't act precipitously. I had seen him in battle before, mind working in an icy calm, severed from the emotions that could cloud his judgment. And for this, above all things, surely he would adhere to the formalities. He would seek the rigid prescriptions, the formulae for the satisfaction of honor, as a refuge—something to cling to against the tides that shook him, the bone-deep surge of bloodlust and revenge.
I stopped in the hallway, mechanically shedding my cloak and pausing by the mirror to straighten my hair. Think, Beauchamp, I silently urged my pale reflection. If he's going to fight a duel, what's the first thing he'll need?
A sword? No, couldn't be. His own was upstairs, hanging on the armoire. While he might easily borrow one, I couldn't imagine his setting out to fight the most important duel of his life armed with any but his own. His uncle, Dougal MacKenzie, had given it to him at seventeen, seen him schooled in its use, taught him the tricks and the strengths of a left-handed swordsman, using that sword. Dougal had made him practice, left hand against left hand, for hours on end, until, he told me, he felt the length of Spanish metal come alive, an extension of his arm, hilt welded to his palm. Jamie had said he felt naked without it. And this was not a fight to which he would go naked.
No, if he had needed the sword at once, he would have come home to fetch it. I ran my hand impatiently through my hair, trying to think. Damn it, what was the protocol of dueling? Before it came to swords, what happened? A challenge, of course. Had Jamie's words in the hallway constituted that? I had vague ideas of people being slapped across the face with gloves, but had no idea whether that was really the custom, or merely an artifact of memory, born of a film-maker's imagination.
Then it came to me. First the challenge, then a place must be arranged—a suitably circumspect place, unlikely to come to the notice of the police or the King's Guard. And to deliver the challenge, to arrange the place, a second was required. Ah. That was where he had gone, then; to find his second. Murtagh.
Even if Jamie found Murtagh before Fergus did, still there would be the formalities to arrange. I began to breathe a little easier, though my heart was still pounding, and my laces still seemed too tight. None of the servants was visible; I yanked the laces loose and drew a deep, expanding breath.
"I didna know ye were in the habit of undressing in the hallways, or I would ha' stayed in the drawing room," said an ironic Scots voice behind me.
I whirled, my heart leaping high enough to choke me. The man standing stretched in the drawing room doorway, arms outspread to brace him casually against the frame, was big, nearly as large as Jamie, with the same taut grace of movement, the same air of cool self-possession. The hair was dark, though, and the deep-set eyes a cloudy green. Dougal MacKenzie, appearing suddenly in my home as though called by my thought. Speak of the devil.
"What in God's name are you doing here?" The shock of seeing him was subsiding, though my heart still pounded. I hadn't eaten since breakfast, and a sudden wave of queasiness washed over me. He stepped forward and grasped me by the arm, pulling me toward a chair.
"Sit ye down, lass," he said. "Ye'll no be feeling just the thing, it looks like."
"Very observant of you," I said. Black spots floated at the edge of my vision, and small bright flashes danced before my eyes. "Excuse me," I said politely, and put my head between my knees.
Jamie. Frank. Randall. Dougal. The faces flickered in my mind, the names seemed to ring in my ears. My palms were sweating, and I pressed them under my arms, hugging myself to try to stop the tremblings of shock. Jamie wouldn't be facing Randall immediately; that was the important thing. There was a little time, in which to think, to take preventive action. But what action? Leaving my subconscious to wrestle with this question, I forced my breathing to slow and turned my attention to matters closer to hand.
"I repeat," I said, sitting up and smoothing back my hair, "what are you doing here?"
The dark brows flickered upward.
"Do I need a reason to visit a kinsman?"
I could still taste the bile at the back of my throat, but my hands had stopped trembling, at least.
"Under the circumstances, yes," I said. I drew myself up, grandly ignoring my untied laces, and reached for the brandy decanter. Anticipating me, Dougal took a glass from the tray and poured out a teaspoonful. Then, after a considering glance at me, he doubled the dose.
"Thanks," I said dryly, accepting the glass.
"Circumstances, eh? And which circumstances would those be?" Not waiting for answer or permission, he calmly poured out another glass for himself and lifted it in a casual toast. "To His Majesty."
I felt my mouth twist sideways. "King James, I suppose?" I took a small sip of my own drink, and felt the hot aromatic fumes sear the membranes behind my eyes. "And does the fact that you're in Paris mean that you've converted Colum to your way of thinking?" For while Dougal MacKenzie might be a Jacobite, it was his brother Colum who led the MacKenzies of Leoch as chieftain. Legs crippled and twisted by a deforming disease, Colum no longer led his clan into battle; Dougal was the war chieftain. But while Dougal might lead men into battle, it was Colum who held the power to say whether the battle would take place.
Dougal ignored my question, and having drained his glass, immediately poured out another drink. He savored the first sip of this one, rolling it visibly around his mouth and licking a final drop from his lips as he swallowed.
"Not bad," he said. "I must take some back for Colum. He needs something a bit stronger than the wine, to help him sleep nights."
This was indeed an oblique answer to my question. Colum's condition was degenerating, then. Always in some pain from the disease that eroded his body, Colum had taken fortified wine in the evenings, to help him to sleep. Now he needed straight brandy. I wondered how long it would be before he might be forced to resort to opium for relief.
For when he did, that would be the end of his reign as chieftain of his clan. Deprived of physical resources, still he commanded by sheer force of character. But if the strength of Colum's mind were lost to pain and drugs, the clan would have a new leader—Dougal.
I gazed at him over the rim of my glass. He returned my stare with no sign of abashment, a slight smile on that wide MacKenzie mouth. His face was much like his brother's—and his nephew's—strong and boldly modeled, with broad, high cheekbones and a long, straight nose like the blade of a knife.
Sworn as a boy of eighteen to support his brother's chieftainship, he had kept that vow for nearly thirty years. And would keep it, I knew, until the day that Colum died or could lead no longer. But on that day, the mantle of chief would descend on his shoulders, and the men of clan MacKenzie would follow where he led—after the saltire of Scotland, and the banner of King James, in the vanguard of Bonnie Prince Charlie.
"Circumstances?" I said, turning to his earlier question. "Well, I don't suppose one would consider it in the best of taste to come calling on a man whom you'd left for dead and whose wife you'd tried to seduce."
Being Dougal MacKenzie, he laughed. I didn't know quite what it would take to disconcert the man, but I certainly hoped I was there to see it when it finally happened.
"Seduction?" he said, lips quirked in amusement. "I offered ye marriage."
"You offered to rape me, as I recall," I snapped. He had, in fact, offered to marry me—by force—after declining to help me in rescuing Jamie from Wentworth Prison the winter before. While his principal motive had been the possession of Jamie's estate of Lallybroch—which would belong to me upon Jamie's death—he hadn't been at all averse to the thought of the minor emoluments of marriage, such as the regular enjoyment of my body.
"As for leaving Jamie in the prison," he went on, ignoring me as usual, "there seemed no way to get him out, and no sense in risking good men in a vain attempt. He'd be the first to understand that. And it was my duty as his kinsman to offer his wife my protection, if he died. I was the lad's foster father, no?" He tilted back his head and drained his glass.
I took a good gulp of my own, and swallowed quickly so as not to choke. The spirit burned down my throat and gullet, matching the heat that was rising in my cheeks. He was right; Jamie hadn't blamed him for his reluctance to break into Wentworth Prison—he hadn't expected me to do it, either, and it was only by a miracle that I had succeeded. But while I had told Jamie, briefly, of Dougal's intention of marrying me, I hadn't tried to convey the carnal aspects of that intention. I had, after all, never expected to see Dougal MacKenzie again.
I knew from past experience that he was a seizer of opportunities; with Jamie about to be hanged, he had not even waited for execution of the sentence before trying to secure me and my about-to-be-inherited property. If—no, I corrected myself, when—Colum died or became incompetent, Dougal would be in full command of clan MacKenzie within a week. And if Charles Stuart found the backing he was seeking, Dougal would be there. He had some experience in being a power behind the throne, after all.
I tipped up the glass, considering. Colum had business interests in France; wine and timber, mostly. These undoubtedly were the pretext for Dougal's visit to Paris, might even be his major ostensible reason. But he had other reasons, I was sure. And the presence in the city of Prince Charles Edward Stuart was almost certainly one of them.