Drums of Autumn (66 page)

“Here.” He leaned forward and handed the cup to the boy, wondering whether forever after, the lad too would feel troubled by the scent of lavender, or if he would find in it a memory of comfort. That, he supposed, might well depend on whether John Grey lived or died.

The respite had given Willie back his outward composure, but his face was still marked with grief. Jamie smiled at the boy, hiding his own concern. Knowing both John and Claire as he did, he was less fearful than the boy—but the dread was still there, persistent as a thorn in the sole of his foot.

“That will ease ye,” he said, nodding at the cup. “My wife made it; she’s a verra fine healer.”

“Is she?” The boy took a deep, trembling breath of the steam, and touched a cautious tongue to the hot liquid. “I saw her—do things. With the Indian who died.” The accusation there was clear; she’d done things, and the man had died anyway.

Neither Claire nor Ian had spoken much of that, nor had he been able to ask her what had happened—she had given him a lifted brow and a brief gold look, to say that he should not speak of it before Willie, who had come back with her from the corncrib, white-faced and clammy.

“Aye?” he said curiously. “What sort of—things?”

What the hell had she done? he wondered. Nothing to cause the man’s death, surely; he would have seen that in her at once. Nor did she feel herself at fault, or helpless—he had held her in his arms more than once, comforting her as she wept for those she could not save. This time she had been quiet, subdued—as had Ian—but not deeply upset. She had seemed vaguely puzzled.

“She had mud on her face. And she sang to him. I think she was singing a Papist song; it was in Latin, and it had something to do with sacraments.”

“Indeed?” Jamie suppressed his own astonishment at this description. “Aye, well. Perhaps she meant only to give the man a bit of comfort, if she saw she couldna save him. The Indians are much more sensible of the effects of measles, ye ken; an infection that will kill one of them wouldna cause a white man to blink twice. I’ve had the measle myself, as a wee lad, and took no harm from it at all.” He smiled and stretched, demonstrating his evident health.

The tense lines of the boy’s face relaxed a little, and he took a cautious sip of the hot tea.

“That’s what Mrs. Fraser said. She said Papa would be all right. She—she gave me her word upon it.”

“Then ye may depend upon it that he will,” Jamie said firmly. “Mrs. Fraser is an honorable woman.” He coughed, and hitched the plaid up around his shoulders; it wasn’t a cold night, but there was a breeze coming down the hill. “Is the drink helping a bit?”

Willie looked blank, then looked down at the cup in his hand.

“Oh! Yes. Yes, thank you; it’s very good. I feel very much improved. Perhaps it was not the dried apples, after all.”

“Perhaps not,” Jamie agreed, bending his head to hide a smile. “Still, I think we’ll manage better for our supper tomorrow; if luck is with us, we’ll have trout.”

This attempt at distraction was successful; Willie’s head popped up from his cup, an expression of deep interest on his face.

“Trout? We can fish?”

“Have ye done much fishing in England? I canna think that the trout streams would compare with these, but I know there is good fishing to be had in the Lake District—or so your father tells me.”

He held his breath. What in God’s name had made him ask that? He had himself taken a five-year-old William fishing for char on the lake near Ellesmere, when he had served his indenture there. Did he
want
the boy to remember?

“Oh…yes. It’s pleasant on the lakes, surely—but nothing like
this
.” Willie waved in the vague direction of the creek. The lines in the boy’s face had smoothed themselves, and a small flicker of life had come back into his eyes. “I have never seen such a place. It’s not at all like England!”

“That it is not,” Jamie agreed, amused. “Will ye not miss England, though?”

Willie thought about it for a moment, as he slurped the rest of his tea.

“I don’t think so,” he said, with a decided shake of his head. “I miss Grandmamma sometimes, and my horses, but nothing else. It was all tutors and dancing lessons and Latin and Greek—ugh!” He wrinkled his nose, and Jamie laughed.

“Ye dinna care for the dancing, then?”

“No. You have to do it with girls.” He shot Jamie a look under his fine, dark brows. “Do you care for music, Mr. Fraser?”

“No,” Jamie said, smiling. “I like the girls fine, though.” The girls were going to like this wee laddie just fine, too, he thought, covertly noting the youngster’s breadth of shoulder and long shanks, and the long, dark lashes that hid his bonny blue eyes.

“Yes. Well, Mrs. Fraser is very pretty,” the Earl said politely. His mouth curled suddenly up on one side. “Though she did look funny, with the mud on her face.”

“I daresay. Will ye have another cup, my lord?”

Claire had said the mixture was for calming; it seemed to be working. As they talked desultorily of the Indians and their strange beliefs, William’s eyelids began to droop, and he yawned more than once. At last, Jamie reached over and took the empty cup from his unresisting hand.

“The night is cold, my lord,” he said. “Will ye choose to lie next to me, that we may share our coverings?”

The night was chilly, but a long way from cold. He had guessed right, though; Willie seized the excuse with alacrity. He could not take a lord in his arms to comfort him, nor could a young earl admit to wanting such comfort. Two men could lie close together without shame, though, for the sake of warmth.

Willie fell asleep at once, nestled close against his side. Jamie lay awake for a long time, one arm laid lightly across the sleeping body of his son.

“Now the wee speckled one. Just on top, and hold it with your finger, aye?” He wrapped the thread tightly around the tiny roll of white wool, just missing Willie’s finger but catching the end of the woodpecker’s down feather, so the fluffy barbs rose up pertly, quivering in the light air.

“You see? It looks like a wee bug taking flight.”

Willie nodded, intent on the fly. Two tiny yellow tail feathers lay smooth under the down feather, simulating the spread wing casings of a beetle.

“I see. Is it the color that matters, or the shape?”

“Both, but more the shape, I think.” Jamie smiled at the boy. “What matters most is how hungry the fish are. Choose your time right, and they’ll strike anything—even a bare hook. Choose it wrong, and ye might as well be fishing wi’ lint from your navel. Dinna tell that to a fly fisherman, though; they’ll be taking all the credit, and none left to the fish.”

Willie didn’t laugh—the boy didn’t laugh much—but he smiled and took the willow pole with its newly tied fly.

“Is it the right time, now, do you think, Mr. Fraser?” He shaded his eyes and looked out over the water. They stood in the cool shadow of a grove of black willow, but the sun was still above the horizon, and the water of the stream glittered like metal.

“Aye, trout feed at sunset. D’ye see the prickles on the water? This pool’s waking.”

The surface of the pool was restless; the water itself lay calm, but dozens of tiny ripples spread and overlapped, rings of light and shadow spreading and breaking in endless profusion.

“The rings? Yes. Is that fish?”

“Not yet. It’s the hatching; midges and gnats hatch from their cases and burst through the surface to the air—the trout will see them and come to feed.”

Without warning, a silver streak shot into the air and fell back with a splash. Willie gasped.

“That’s a fish,” Jamie said, unnecessarily. He quickly threaded his line through the carved guides, tied a fly to his line, and stepped forward. “Watch now.”

He drew back his arm and rocked his wrist, back and forth, feeding more line with each circle of his forearm, until with a snap of the wrist, he sent the line sailing out in a great lazy loop, the fly floating down like a circling gnat. He felt the boy’s eyes on him, and was glad the cast had been good.

He let the fly float for a moment, watching—it was hard to see, in the sparkling brightness—then began slowly to pull the line in. Quick as thought, the fly went under. The ring of its disappearance had not even begun to spread before he had jerked the line hard and felt the answering savage tug in reply.

“You’ve got one! You’ve got one!” He could hear Willie, dancing on the bank behind him with excitement, but had no attention to spare for anything save the fish.

He had no reel; only the twig that held his spare line. He pulled the tip of the rod far back, let it fall forward and gathered in the loose line with a snatch of the hand. Once more, line in, and then a desperate rush that took out all the line gained, and more.

He could see nothing amid the flashing sparks of light, but the tug and pull through his arms was as good as sight; a quiver as live as the trout itself, as though he held the thing in his hands, squirming and wriggling, fighting…

Free. The line went limp, and he stood for a moment, the vibrations of struggle dying away along the muscles of his arms, breathing in the air he had forgotten to take in the heat of battle.

“He got away! Oh, bad luck, sir!” Willie scampered down the bank, pole in hand, face open in sympathy.

“Good luck for the fish.” Still exhilarated from the fight, Jamie grinned and wiped a wet hand over his face. “Will ye try, lad?” Too late, he remembered that he must call the boy “lord,” but Willie was too eager to have noticed the omission.

Face fixed in a scowl of determination, Willie drew back his arm, squinted at the water, and snapped his wrist with a mighty jerk. The rod sailed from his fingers and flew gracefully into the pond.

The boy gaped after it, then turned an expression of utter dismay on Jamie, who made no effort at all to keep back his laughter. The young lord looked thoroughly taken aback, and not very pleased, but after a moment, one corner of his wide mouth curved up in wry acknowledgment. He gestured at the rod, floating some ten feet from the bank.

“Will it not frighten all the fish, if I go in after it?”

“It will. Take mine; I’ll fetch that one back later.”

Willie licked his lips and set his jaw in concentration, taking a firm grip on the new rod, testing it with little whips and jerks. Turning to the pool, he rocked his arm back and forth, then snapped his wrist hard. He froze, the tip of the rod extended in a perfect line with his arm. The loose line wrapped itself around the rod and draped over Willie’s head.

“A verra pretty cast, my lord,” Jamie said, rubbing a knuckle hard over his mouth. “But I think we must put on a new fly first, aye?”

“Oh.” Slowly, Willie relaxed his rigid posture, and looked sheepishly at Jamie. “I didn’t think of that.”

Slightly chastened by these misadventures, the Earl allowed Jamie to fasten a fresh fly in place, and then to take him by the wrist to demonstrate the proper way of casting.

Standing behind the boy, he took Willie’s right wrist in his own, marveling both at the slenderness of the arm and at the knobby wristbones that gave promise of both size and strength to come. The boy’s skin was cool with perspiration, and the feel of his arm much like the tingle of the trout on the line, live and muscular, vivid to his touch. Then Willie twisted free, and he felt a moment’s confusion, and a peculiar sense of loss at the breaking of their brief contact.

“That’s not right,” Willie was saying, turning to look up at him. “You cast with the left hand. I saw you.”

“Aye, but I’m cack-handed, my lord. Most men would cast with the right.”

“Cack-handed?” Willie’s mouth curved up again.

“I find my left hand more convenient to most purposes than is the right, my lord.”

“That’s what I thought it meant. I’m the same.” Willie looked at once rather pleased and mildly shamefaced at this statement. “My—my mother said it wasn’t proper, and that I must learn to use the other, as a gentleman ought. But Papa said no, and made them let me write with my left hand. He said it didn’t matter so much if I should look awkward with a quill; when it came to fighting with a sword, I should be at an advantage.”

“Your father is a wise man.” His heart twisted, with something between jealousy and gratitude—but gratitude was far the uppermost.

“Papa was a soldier.” Willie drew himself up a little, straightening his shoulders with unconscious pride. “He fought in Scotland, in the Ris—oh.” He coughed, and his face went a dull red as he caught sight of Jamie’s kilt and realized that he was quite possibly talking to a defeated warrior of that particular fight. He fiddled with the rod, not knowing where to look.

“Aye, I know. That’s where I met him, first.” Jamie was careful to keep any hint of amusement from his voice. He was tempted to tell the boy the circumstances of that first meeting, but that would be poor repayment to John for his priceless gift, these precious few days with his son.

“He was a verra gallant soldier, indeed,” Jamie agreed, straight-faced. “And right about the hands, as well. Have ye begun your schooling with the sword, then?”

“Just a little.” Willie was forgetting his embarrassment in enthusiasm for the new topic. “I’ve had a little whinger since I was eight, and learnt feint and parry. Papa says I shall have a proper sword when we reach Virginia, now I am tall enough for the reach of tierce and longé.”

“Ah. Well, then, if ye’ve been handling a sword in your left hand, I think ye’ll have nay great trouble in mastering a rod that way. Here, let us try again, or we’ll have no supper.”

On the third try, the fly settled sweetly, to float for no more than a second before a small but hungry trout roared to the surface and engulfed it. Willie let out a shriek of excitement, and yanked the rod so hard that the astounded trout flew through the air and past his head, to land with a splat on the bank beyond.

“I did it! I did it! I caught a fish!” Willie waved his rod and ran around in little circles whooping, forgetting the dignity of both age and title.

“Indeed ye did.” Jamie picked up the trout, which measured perhaps six inches from nose to tail, and clapped the capering Earl on the back in congratulations. “Well done, lad! It looks as though they’re biting well the e’en; let’s have another cast or two, aye?”