Outlander 03 - Voyager

She blinked once, then twice, and the smooth round face melted and thawed into life. It was not like the sudden possession of the loas; this was a slow, tentative coming, of something shy and fearful.

“Aye, I ken ye, Jamie,” she said at last. Her voice was rich and pure, a young girl’s voice. Her lips curled up, and her eyes came alive once more, her face still held in the hollow of his hands.

“It’s been lang since I saw ye, Jamie,” she said, looking up into his eyes. “Will ye have word of Ewan, then? Is he well?”

He stood very still for a minute, his face that careful blank mask that hid strong feeling.

“He is well,” he whispered at last. “Verra well, Margaret. He gave me this, to keep until I saw ye.” He bent his head and kissed her gently.

Several of the women had stopped, standing silently by to watch. At this, they moved and began to murmur, glancing uneasily at each other. When he released Margaret Campbell and stepped back, they closed in around her, protective and wary, nodding him back.

Margaret seemed oblivious; her eyes were still on Jamie’s face, the smile on her lips.

“I thank ye, Jamie!” she called, as her attendant took her arm and began to urge her away. “Tell Ewan I’ll be with him soon!” The little band of white-clothed women moved away, disappearing like ghosts into the darkness by the cane field.

Jamie made an impulsive move in their direction, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Let her go,” I whispered, mindful of what lay on the floor in the salon of the plantation house. “Jamie, let her go. You can’t stop her; she’s better with them.”

He closed his eyes briefly, then nodded.

“Aye, you’re right.” He turned, then stopped suddenly, and I whirled about to see what he had seen. There were lights in Rose Hall now. Torchlight, flickering behind the windows, upstairs and down. As we watched, a surly glow began to swell in the windows of the secret workroom on the second floor.

“It’s past time to go,” Jamie said. He seized my hand and we went quickly, diving into the dark rustle of the canes, fleeing through air suddenly thick with the smell of burning sugar.

62

ABANDAWE

“You can take the Governor’s pinnace; that’s small, but it’s seaworthy.” Grey fumbled through the drawer of his desk. “I’ll write an order for the dockers to hand it over to you.”

“Aye, we’ll need the boat—I canna risk the Artemis; as she’s Jared’s—but I think we’d best steal it, John.” Jamie’s brows were drawn together in a frown. “I wouldna have ye be involved wi’ me in any visible way, aye? You’ll be having trouble enough with things, without that.”

Grey smiled unhappily. “Trouble? Yes, you might call it trouble, with four plantation houses burnt, and over two hundred slaves gone—God knows where! But I vastly doubt that anyone will take notice of my social acquaintance, under the circumstances. Between fear of the Maroons and fear of the Chinaman, the whole island is in such a panic that a mere smuggler is the most negligible of trivialities.”

“It’s a great relief to me to be thought trivial,” Jamie said, very dryly. “Still, we’ll steal the boat. And if we’re taken, ye’ve never heard my name or seen my face, aye?”

Grey stared at him, a welter of emotions fighting for mastery of his features, amusement, fear, and anger among them.

“Is that right?” he said at last. “Let you be taken, watch them hang you, and keep quiet about it—for fear of smirching my reputation? For God’s sake, Jamie, what do you take me for?”

Jamie’s mouth twitched slightly.

“For a friend, John,” he said. “And if I’ll take your friendship—and your damned boat!—then you’ll take mine, and keep quiet. Aye?”

The Governor glared at him for a moment, lips pressed tight, but then his shoulders sagged in defeat.

“I will,” he said shortly. “But I should regard it as a great personal favor if you would endeavor not to be captured.”

Jamie rubbed a knuckle across his mouth, hiding a smile.

“I’ll try verra hard, John.”

The Governor sat down, wearily. There were deep circles under his eyes, and his impeccable linen was wilted; obviously he had not changed his clothes from the day before.

“All right. I don’t know where you’re going, and it’s likely better I don’t. But if you can, keep out of the sealanes north of Antigua. I sent a boat this morning, to ask for as many men as the barracks there can supply, marines and sailors both. They’ll be heading this way by the day after tomorrow at the latest, to guard the town and harbor against the escaped Maroons in case of an outright rebellion.”

I caught Jamie’s eye, and raised one brow in question, but he shook his head, almost imperceptibly. We had told the Governor of the uprising on the Yallahs River, and the escape of the slaves—something he had heard about from other sources, anyway. We had not told him what we had seen later that night, lying to under cover of a tiny cove, sails taken down to hide their whiteness.