Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade by Diana Gabaldon Page A

cheeks. “To be sure.” Her eyes were still fixed on Grey, but she was no longer looking at him, rather at something far beyond him. She drew a long breath, then pushed back from the table in sudden decision.
    “You will excuse me, my dears. I have a good many things to do this morning.”
    “But you’ve barely touched a thing, Aunt Bennie!” Olivia protested. “Won’t you have a kipper, a bit of porridge perhaps…” But the countess had already gone, in a whisk of skirts.
    Olivia turned a suspicious gaze on Grey.
    “What was
that
about?”
    “I have no idea,” Grey replied honestly.
    “Something about this wretched Mr. Fraser of yours disturbed her,” Olivia said, frowning at the doorway through which the countess had vanished. “Who
is
he?”
    Christ, how was he to answer such a question? He chose the only possible avenue, that of strict factuality.
    “He is, as my mother remarked, a Jacobite officer, a Scot. He was amongst the prisoners at Ardsmuir; I came to know him there.”
    “But he is at Helwater? How comes he to be there?” Olivia asked, baffled.
    “Ardsmuir was closed, the prisoners removed,” he replied, paying careful attention to his kipper. He lifted the bones and set them neatly aside, shrugging one shoulder. “Fraser was paroled, but not allowed to return to Scotland. He labors as a groom at Helwater.”
    “Hmm!” Olivia seemed satisfied with that. “Well, and serve him right, no doubt, horrid creature. But why does Aunt Bennie call him your pet?”
    “Only her little jest,” Grey replied casually, forking up a bite of kipper. “As I am a longtime friend to the Dunsany family, I visit Helwater regularly—and as the erstwhile governor of Ardsmuir, it behooves me to see that Mr. Fraser is well behaved and in good health.”
    Olivia nodded, chewing. She swallowed her toast, then, with a covert glance at the footman, leaned toward Grey, lowering her voice.
    “Is he really a
murderer
?” she whispered.
    That took Grey off guard, and he was obliged to simulate a minor coughing fit.
    “I do not believe so,” he said at last, clearing his throat. “I imagine my mother spoke rhetorically. She has the lowest opinion of Jacobites in general, you see.”
    Olivia nodded wisely, eyes round. She had been no more than five or six at the time of the Rising, but must have heard some echoes of the public hysteria as the forces of Charles Stuart made what had seemed for a time their inexorable advance on London. Even the king had prepared to flee, and the streets were flooded with broadsheets painting the Highlanders as vicious savages who skewered children, pillaged and raped without mercy, and put whole villages to the torch.
    As for his mother’s personal animus toward the Jacobites…he did not know whether Olivia had ever been told anything; probably not. It had all happened long before she was born, and neither his mother nor Hal ever spoke of it, he knew from experience. Well, it was no business of Grey’s to inform Olivia of the gory details of the family scandal. His mother and brother were both determined to let the past bury its dead, and surely…
    He stopped eating, an extraordinary apprehension making the hair prickle on his nape.
    No. Surely not. But it had been the mention of Fraser and the word “Jacobite” that had made the countess blench and pale. Yet she had known about Fraser—Grey had gone several times to Helwater since Fraser had been paroled there. He had never made much of the matter himself, though, never mentioned Fraser’s presence as the principal reason for his visits. No, some thought had occurred to his mother, something that had not struck her before. Could it be that she had suddenly thought his reasons for keeping James Fraser in England had to do with…
    Something small and cold slid wormlike through his entrails.
    Olivia had lost interest in the Scottish prisoner, and was happily outlining her plans for the suit he would wear for the