Outlander 03 - Voyager

He seemed as surprised as I, but after blinking at me, he smiled and stepped forward to grip me by the elbow.

“And a good morning to you, my dear. I didn’t expect to find any of you ladies up and about so early in the morning.”

“Well, you know what they say about early to bed and early to rise,” I said, trying to extricate my elbow.

He laughed, showing rather badly stained teeth in a narrow jaw. “No, what do they say about it?”

“Well, it’s something they say in America, come to think of it,” I replied, suddenly realizing that Benjamin Franklin, even if currently publishing, probably didn’t have a wide readership in Edinburgh.

“Got a wit about you, chuckie,” he said, with a slight smile. “Send you down as a decoy, did she?”

“No. Who?” I said.

“The madam,” he said, glancing around. “Where is she?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “Let go!”

Instead, he tightened his grip, so that his fingers dug uncomfortably into the muscles of my upper arm. He leaned closer, whispering in my ear with a gust of stale tobacco fumes.

“There’s a reward, you know,” he murmured confidentially. “A percentage of the value of the seized contraband. No one would need to know but you and me.” He flicked one finger gently under my breast, making the nipple stand up under the thin cotton. “What d’ye say, chuck?”

I stared at him. “The excisemen are on my heels,” Jamie had said. This must be one, then; an officer of the Crown, charged with the prevention of smuggling and the apprehension of smugglers. What had Jamie said? “The pillory, transportation, flogging, imprisonment, ear-nailing,” waving an airy hand as though such penalties were the equivalent of a traffic ticket.

“Whatever are you talking about?” I said, trying to sound puzzled. “And for the last time, let go of me!” He couldn’t be alone, I thought. How many others were there around the building?

“Yes, please let go,” said a voice behind me. I saw the exciseman’s eyes widen as he glanced over my shoulder.

Mr. Willoughby stood on the second stair in rumpled blue silk, a large pistol gripped in both hands. He bobbed his head politely at the excise officer.

“Not stinking whore,” he explained, blinking owlishly. “Honorable wife.”

The exciseman, clearly startled by the unexpected appearance of a Chinese, gawked from me to Mr. Willoughby and back again.

“Wife?” he said disbelievingly. “You say she’s your wife?”

Mr. Willoughby, clearly catching only the salient word, nodded pleasantly.

“Wife,” he said again. “Please letting go.” His eyes were mere bloodshot slits, and it was apparent to me, if not to the exciseman, that his blood was still approximately 80 proof.

The exciseman pulled me toward himself and scowled at Mr. Willoughby. “Now, listen here—” he began. He got no further, for Mr. Willoughby, evidently assuming that he had given fair warning, raised the pistol and pulled the trigger.

There was a loud crack, an even louder shriek, which must have been mine, and the landing was filled with a cloud of gray powder-smoke. The exciseman staggered back against the paneling, a look of intense surprise on his face, and a spreading rosette of blood on the breast of his coat.

Moving by reflex, I leapt forward and grasped the man under the arms, easing him gently down to the floorboards of the landing. There was a flurry of noise from above, as the inhabitants of the house crowded chattering and exclaiming onto the upper landing, attracted by the shot. Bounding footsteps came up the lower stairs two at a time.

Fergus burst through what must be the cellar door, a pistol in his hand.

“Milady,” he gasped, catching sight of me sitting in the corner with the exciseman’s body sprawled across my lap. “What have you done?”

“Me?” I said indignantly. “I haven’t done anything; it’s Jamie’s pet Chinaman.” I nodded briefly toward the stair, where Mr. Willoughby, the pistol dropped unregarded by his feet, had sat down on the step and was now regarding the scene below with a benign and bloodshot eye.

Fergus said something in French that was too colloquial to translate, but sounded highly uncomplimentary to Mr. Willoughby. He strode across the landing, and reached out a hand to grasp the little Chinaman’s shoulder—or so I assumed, until I saw that the arm he extended did not end in a hand, but in a hook of gleaming dark metal.

“Fergus!” I was so shocked at the sight that I stopped my attempts to stanch the exciseman’s wound with my shawl. “What—what—” I said incoherently.

“What?” he said, glancing at me. Then, following the direction of my gaze, said, “Oh, that,” and shrugged. “The English. Don’t worry about it, milady, we haven’t time. You, canaille, get downstairs!” He jerked Mr. Willoughby off the stairs, dragged him to the cellar door and shoved him through it, with a callous disregard for safety. I could hear a series of bumps, suggesting that the Chinese was rolling downstairs, his acrobatic skills having temporarily deserted him, but had no time to worry about it.

Fergus squatted next to me, and lifted the exciseman’s head by the hair. “How many companions are with you?” he demanded. “Tell me quickly, cochon, or I slit your throat!”

From the evident signs, this was a superfluous threat. The man’s eyes were already glazing over. With considerable effort, the corners of his mouth drew back in a smile.

“I’ll see…you…burn…in…hell,” he whispered, and with a last convulsion that fixed the smile in a hideous rictus upon his face, he coughed up a startling quantity of bright red foamy blood, and died in my lap.