“That’s a verra useful thought, Sassenach,” he said, giving me a nod. “It will be easy enough to find out whether a pigtailed seaman with one eye has been here recently; I’ll have Jeanne ask among her lassies.”
He stood up, and stretched rackingly, his hands nearly touching the wooden rafters.
“And then, Sassenach, perhaps we’ll go to bed, aye?” He lowered his arms and blinked at me with a smile. “What wi’ one thing and another, it’s been the bloody hell of a day, no?”
“It has, rather,” I said, smiling back.
Jeanne, summoned for instructions, arrived together with Fergus, who opened the door for the madam with the easy familiarity of a brother or cousin. Little wonder if he felt at home, I supposed; he had been born in a Paris brothel, and spent the first ten years of his life there, sleeping in a cupboard beneath the stairs, when not making a living by picking pockets on the street.
“The brandy is gone,” he reported to Jamie. “I have sold it to MacAlpine—at a small sacrifice in price, I regret, milord. I thought a quick sale the best.”
“Better to have it off the premises,” Jamie said, nodding. “What have ye done wi’ the body?”
Fergus smiled briefly, his lean face and dark forelock lending him a distinctly piratical air.
“Our intruder also has gone to MacAlpine’s tavern, milord—suitably disguised.”
“As what?” I demanded.
The pirate’s grin turned on me; Fergus had turned out a very handsome man, the disfigurement of his hook notwithstanding.
“As a cask of creme de menthe, milady,” he said.
“I do not suppose anyone has drunk creme de menthe in Edinburgh any time in the last hundred years,” observed Madame Jeanne. “The heathen Scots are not accustomed to the use of civilized liqueurs; I have never seen a customer here take anything beyond whisky, beer, or brandywine.”
“Exactly, Madame,” Fergus said, nodding. “We do not want Mr. MacAlpine’s tapmen broaching the cask, do we?”
“Surely somebody’s going to look in that cask sooner or later,” I said. “Not to be indelicate, but—”
“Exactly, milady,” Fergus said, with a respectful bow to me. “Though creme de menthe has a very high content of alcohol. The tavern’s cellar is but a temporary resting place on our unknown friend’s journey to his eternal rest. He goes to the docks tomorrow, and thence to somewhere quite far away. It is only that I did not want him cluttering up Madame Jeanne’s premises in the meantime.”
Jeanne addressed a remark in French to St. Agnes that I didn’t quite catch, but then shrugged and turned to go.
“I will make inquiries of
“For now, speaking of leisure,” Fergus interrupted, “might Mademoiselle Sophie find herself unemployed this evening?”
The madam favored him with a look of ironic amusement. “Since she saw you come in,
“Oh, aye.” Jamie looked consideringly at his nephew. “I suppose ye can lay a pallet in my room.”
“Oh, no!” Young Ian blurted. “You’ll want to be alone wi’ your wife, will ye not, Uncle?”
“What?” Jamie stared at him uncomprehendingly.
“Well, I mean…” Young Ian hesitated, glancing at me, and then hastily away. “I mean, nay doubt you’ll be wanting to…er…mmphm?” A Highlander born, he managed to infuse this last noise with an amazing wealth of implied indelicacy.
Jamie rubbed his knuckles hard across his upper lip.
“Well, that’s verra thoughtful of ye, Ian,” he said. His voice quivered slightly with the effort of not laughing. “And I’m flattered that ye have such a high opinion of my virility as to think I’m capable of anything but sleeping in bed after a day like this. But I think perhaps I can forgo the satisfaction of my carnal desires for one night—fond as I am of your auntie,” he added, giving me a faint grin.
“But Bruno tells me the establishment is not busy tonight,” Fergus put in, glancing round in some bewilderment. “Why does the boy not—”
“Because he’s no but fourteen, for God’s sake!” Jamie said, scandalized.
“Almost fifteen!” Young Ian corrected, sitting up and looking interested.
“Well, that is certainly sufficient,” Fergus said, with a glance at Madame Jeanne for confirmation. “Your brothers were no older when I first brought them here, and they acquitted themselves honorably.”
“You
“Well, someone had to,” Fergus said, with slight impatience. “Normally, a boy’s father—but of course, le Monsieur is not—meaning no disrespect to your esteemed father, of course,” he added, with a nod to Young Ian, who nodded back like a mechanical toy, “but it is a matter for experienced judgment, you understand?”
“Now”—he turned to Madame Jeanne, with the air of a gourmand consulting the wine steward—“Dorcas, do you think, or Penelope?”
“No, no,” she said, shaking her head decidedly, “it should be the second Mary, absolutely. The small one.”
“Oh, with the yellow hair? Yes, I think you are right,” Fergus said approvingly. “Fetch her, then.”
