“Afraid not,” I said, shaking my head. “Nobody dies of seasickness; though I must say it seems a wonder that they don’t, looking at you.”
“Not that.” He opened his eyes, and struggled up on one elbow, an effort that left him clammy with sweat and white to the lips.
“Claire. Be careful. I should have told ye before—but I didna want to worry ye, and I thought—” His face changed. Familiar as I was with expressions of bodily infirmity, I had the basin there just in time.
“Oh, God.” He lay limp and exhausted, pale as the sheet.
“What should you have told me?” I asked, wrinkling my nose as I put the basin on the floor near the door. “Whatever it was, you should have told me before we sailed, but it’s too late to think of that.”
“I didna think it would be so bad,” he murmured.
“You never do,” I said, rather tartly. “What did you want to tell me, though?”
“Ask Fergus,” he said. “Say I said he must tell ye. And tell him Innes is all right.”
“What are you talking about?” I was mildly alarmed; delirium wasn’t a common effect of seasickness.
His eyes opened, and fixed on mine with great effort. Beads of sweat stood out on his brow and upper lip.
“Innes,” he said. “He canna be the one. He doesna mean to kill me.”
A small shiver ran up my spine.
“Are you quite all right, Jamie?” I asked. I bent and wiped his face, and he gave me the ghost of an exhausted smile. He had no fever, and his eyes were clear.
“Who?” I said carefully, with a sudden feeling that there were eyes fixed on my back. “Who
“I don’t know.” A passing spasm contorted his features, but he clamped his lips tight, and managed to subdue it.
“Ask Fergus,” he whispered, when he could talk again. “In private. He’ll tell ye.”
I felt exceedingly helpless. I had no notion what he was talking about, but if there was any danger, I wasn’t about to leave him alone.
“I’ll wait until he comes down,” I said.
One hand was curled near his nose. It straightened slowly and slid under the pillow, coming out with his dirk, which he clasped to his chest.
“I shall be all right,” he said. “Go on, then, Sassenach. I shouldna think they’d try anything in daylight. If at all.”
I didn’t find this reassuring in the slightest, but there seemed nothing else to do. He lay quite still, the dirk held to his chest like a stone tomb-figure.
“Go,” he murmured again, his lips barely moving.
Just outside the cabin door, something stirred in the shadows at the end of the passage. Peering sharply, I made out the crouched silk shape of Mr. Willoughby, chin resting on his knees. He spread his knees apart, and bowed his head politely between them.
“Not worry, honorable First Wife,” he assured me in a sibilant whisper. “I watch.”
“Good,” I said, “keep doing it.” And went, in considerable distress of mind, to find Fergus.
Fergus, found with Marsali on the after deck, peering into the ship’s wake at several large white birds, was somewhat more reassuring.
“We are not sure that anyone intends actually to kill milord,” he explained. “The casks in the warehouse might have been an accident—I have seen such things happen more than once—and likewise the fire in the shed, but —”
“Wait one minute, young Fergus,” I said, gripping him by the sleeve. “
“Oh,” he said, looking surprised. “Milord did not tell you?”
“Milord is sick as a dog, and incapable of telling me anything more than that I should ask you.”
Fergus shook his head, clicking his tongue in a censorious French way.
“He never thinks he will be so ill,” he said. “He always is, and yet every time he must set foot on a ship, he insists that it is only a matter of will; his mind will be master, and he will not allow his stomach to be dictating his actions. Then within ten feet of the dock, he has turned green.”
“He never told me that,” I said, amused at this description. “Stubborn little fool.”
Marsali had been hanging back behind Fergus with an air of haughty reserve, pretending that I wasn’t there. At this unexpected description of Jamie, though, she was surprised into a brief snort of laughter. She caught my eye and turned hastily away, cheeks flaming, to stare out to sea.
Fergus smiled and shrugged. “You know what he is like, milady,” he said, with tolerant affection. “He could be dying, and one would never know.”
“You’d know if you went down and looked at him now,” I said tartly. At the same time, I was conscious of surprise, accompanied by a faint feeling of warmth in the pit of my stomach. Fergus had been with Jamie almost daily for twenty years, and still Jamie would not admit to him the weakness that he would readily let me see. Were he dying,
“Men,” I said, shaking my head.
