her pocket. “The fox will be back—Fraser is his name, is it no? I thought Clotilda said something else, but the stupid bitch likely got it wrong.”
As we made our way down the long workroom, something small and brown darted across the floor in front of me. Geilie was quick, despite her size; her small foot stamped on the centipede before I could react.
She watched the half-crushed beast wriggling on the floor for a moment, then stooped and slid a sheet of paper under it. Scooping it up, she decanted the thing thriftily into a glass jar.
“Ye dinna want to believe in witches and zombies and things that go bump in the night?” she said, with a small, sly smile at me. She nodded at the centipede, struggling round and round in frenzied, lopsided circles. “Well, legends are many-legged beasties, aye? But they generally have at least one foot on the truth.”
She took down a clear brown-glass jug and poured the liquid into the centipede’s bottle. The pungent scent of alcohol rose in the air. The centipede, washed up by the wave, kicked frantically for a moment, then sank to the bottom of the bottle, legs moving spasmodically. She corked the bottle neatly, and turned to go.
“You asked me why I thought we can pass through the stones,” I said to her back. “Do you know why, Geilie?” She glanced over her shoulder at me.
“Why, to change things,” she said, sounding surprised. “Why else? Come along; I hear your man down there.”
Whatever Jamie had been doing, it had been hard work; his shirt was dampened with sweat, and clung to his shoulders. He swung around as we entered the room, and I saw that he had been looking at the wooden puzzle-box that Geilie had left on the table. It was obvious from his expression that I had been correct in my surmise—it was the box he had found on the silkies’ isle.
“I believe I have succeeded in mending your sugar press, mistress,” he said, bowing politely to Geilie. “A matter of a cracked cylinder, which your overseer and I contrived to stuff with wedges. Still, I fear ye may be needing another soon.”
Geilie quirked her eyebrows, amused.
“Well, and I’m obliged to ye, Mr. Fraser. Can I not offer ye some refreshment after your labor?” Her hand hovered over the row of bells, but Jamie shook his head, picking up his coat from the sofa.
“I thank ye, mistress, but I fear we must take our leave. It’s quite some way back to Kingston, and we must be on our way, if we mean to reach it before dark.” His face went suddenly blank, and I knew he must have felt the pocket of his coat and realized that the photographs were missing.
He glanced quickly at me, and I gave him a brief nod, touching the side of my skirt where they lay.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” I said, snatching up my hat, and moving toward the door with alacrity. Now that Jamie was back, I wanted nothing so much as to get quickly away from Rose Hall and its owner. Jamie hung back a moment, though.
“I wondered, Mistress Abernathy—since ye mentioned having lived in Paris for a time—whether ye might have been acquainted there wi’ a gentleman of my own acquaintance. Did ye by chance ken the Duke of Sandringham?”
She cocked her cream-blond head at him inquisitively, but as he said no more, she nodded.
“Aye, I kent him. Why?”
Jamie gave her his most charming smile. “No particular reason, mistress; only a curiosity, ye might say.”
The sky was completely overcast by the time we passed the gate, and it was clear that we weren’t going to make it back to Kingston without getting soaked. Under the circumstances, I didn’t care.
“Ye’ve got Brianna’s pictures?” was the first thing Jamie asked, reining up for a moment.
“Right here.” I patted my pocket. “Did you find any sign of Ian?”
He glanced back over his shoulder, as though fearing we might be pursued.
“I couldna get anything out of the overseer or any o’ the slaves—they’re bone-scairt of that woman, and I canna say I blame them a bit. But I know where he is.” He spoke with considerable satisfaction.
“Where? Can we sneak back and get him?” I rose slightly in my saddle, looking back; the slates of Rose Hall were all that was visible through the treetops. I would have been most reluctant to set foot on the place again for any reason—except for Ian.
“Not now.” Jamie caught at my bridle, turning the horse’s head back to the trail. “I’ll need help.”
Under the pretext of finding material to repair the damaged sugar press, Jamie had managed to see most of the plantation within a quarter-mile of the house, including a cluster of slave huts, the stables, a disused drying shed for tobacco, and the building that housed the sugar refinery. Everyplace he went, he suffered no interference beyond curious or hostile glances—except near the refinery.
“That big black bugger who came up onto the porch was sitting on the ground outside,” he said. “When I got too close to him, it made the overseer verra nervous indeed; he kept calling me away, warning me not to get too close to the fellow.”
“That sounds like a really excellent idea,” I said, shuddering slightly. “Not getting close to him, I mean. But you think he has something to do with Ian?”
“He was sitting in front of a wee door fixed into the ground, Sassenach.” Jamie guided his horse adroitly around a fallen log in the path. “It must lead to a cellar beneath the refinery.” The man had not moved an inch, in all the time that Jamie contrived to spend around the refinery. “If Ian’s there, that’s where he is.”
“I’m fairly sure he’s there, all right.” I told him quickly the details of my visit, including my brief conversation with the kitchenmaids. “But what are we going to do?” I concluded. “We can’t just leave him there! After all, we don’t know what Geillis wants with him, but it can’t be innocent, if she wouldn’t admit he was there, can it?”
“Not innocent at all,” he agreed, grim-faced. “The overseer wouldna speak to me of Ian, but he told me other things that would curl your hair, if it wasna already curled up like sheep’s wool.” He glanced at me, and a half-smile lit his face, in spite of his obvious perturbation.
“Judging by the state of your hair, Sassenach, I should say that it’s going to rain verra soon now.”
