Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(143)
“This will not do,” she said aloud, though under her breath. She had no idea of Mrs. Simpson’s personal circumstances, and it was pointless to waste emotion on something that might not exist. She blinked hard to refocus her mind and suddenly saw it.
The thing sitting atop a pigskin-bound edition of Volume III of History of the Papacy (Antwerp) was as long as her thumb and, for a cockroach, remarkably immobile. Minnie had been staring at it unwittingly for nearly a minute, and it hadn’t so much as twitched an antenna. Perhaps it was dead? She picked a ratty quill out of the collection in the Chinese jar and gingerly poked the thing with the quill’s pointy end.
The thing hissed like a teakettle and she let out a small yelp, dropping the quill and leaping backward. The roach, disturbed, turned round in a slow, huffy circle, then settled back on the gilt-embossed capital “P” and tucked its thorny legs back under itself, obviously preparing to resume its nap.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” she said to it, and turned to the shelves in search of something heavy enough to smash it but with a cover that wouldn’t show the stain. She’d set her hand on a Vulgate Bible with a dark-brown pebble-grain cover when the secret door beside the shelves opened, revealing her father.
“Oh, you’ve met Frederick?” he said, stepping forward and taking the Bible out of her hand. “You needn’t worry, my dear; he’s quite tame.”
“Tame? Who would trouble to domesticate a cockroach?”
“The inhabitants of Madagascar, or so I’m told. Though the trait is heritable; Frederick here is the descendant of a long and noble line of hissing cockroaches but has never set foot on the soil of his native land. He was born—or hatched, I suppose—in Bristol.”
Frederick had suspended his nap long enough to nuzzle inquiringly at her father’s thumb, extended as one might hold out one’s knuckles to a strange dog. Evidently finding the scent acceptable, the roach strolled up the thumb and onto the back of her father’s hand. Minnie twitched, unable to keep the gooseflesh from rippling up her arms.
Mr. Rennie edged carefully toward the big shelves on the east wall, hand cradled next to his chest. These shelves contained the salable but less-valuable books: a jumble of everything from Culpeper’s Herbal to tattered copies of Shakespeare’s plays and—by far the most popular—a large collection of the more lurid gallows confessions of an assortment of highwaymen, murderers, forgers, and husband-slayers. Amid the volumes and pamphlets was scattered a miscellany of small curiosities, ranging from a toy bronze cannon and a handful of sharp-edged stones said to be used at the dawn of time for scraping hides to a Chinese fan that showed erotic scenes when spread. Her father picked a wicker cricket cage from the detritus and decanted Frederick neatly into it.
“Not before time, either, old cock,” he said to the roach, now standing on its hind legs and peering out through the wickerwork. “Here’s your new master, just coming.”
Minerva peered round her father and her heart jumped a little; she recognized that tall, broad-shouldered silhouette automatically ducking beneath the lintel in order to avoid being brained.
“Lord Broch Tuarach!” Her father stepped forward, beaming, and inclined his head to the customer.
“Mr. Fraser will do,” he said, as always, extending a hand. “Your servant, sir.”
He’d brought a scent of the streets inside with him: the sticky sap of the plane trees, dust, manure and offal, and Paris’s pervasive smell of piss, lightly perfumed by the orange-sellers outside the theater down the street. He carried his own deep tang of sweat, wine, and oak casks, as well; he often came from his warehouse. She inhaled appreciatively, then let her breath out as he turned, smiling, from her father toward her.
“Mademoiselle Rennie,” he said, in a deep Scotch accent that rolled the “R” delightfully. He seemed a bit surprised when she held out her hand, but he obligingly bent over it, breathing courteously on her knuckles. If I were married, he’d kiss it, she thought, her grip tightening unconsciously on his. He blinked, feeling it, but straightened up and bowed to her, as elegantly as any courtier.
Her father made a slight sound in his throat and tried to catch her eye, but she ignored him, picking up the feather duster and heading industriously for the shelves behind the counter—the ones containing a select assortment of erotica from a dozen different countries. She knew perfectly well what his glance would have said.
“Frederick?” she heard Mr. Fraser say, in a bemused tone of voice. “Does he answer to his name?”
“I—er—I must admit that I’ve never called him to heel,” her father replied, a little startled. “But he’s very tame; will come to your hand.” Evidently her father had unlatched the cricket cage in order to demonstrate Frederick’s talents, for she heard a slight shuffle of feet.
“Nay, dinna bother,” Mr. Fraser—his Christian name was James; she’d seen it on a bill of sale for a calf-bound octavo of Persian Letters with gilt impressions—said, laughing. “The beastie’s not my pet. A gentleman of my acquaintance wants something exotic to present to his mistress—she’s a taste for animals, he says.”
Her sensitive ear easily picked up the delicate hesitation before “gentleman of my acquaintance.” So had her father, for he invited James Fraser to take coffee with him, and in the next instant the two of them had vanished behind the latticework door that concealed her father’s private lair and she was blinking at Frederick’s stubby antennae, waving inquisitively from the cricket cage her father had dropped onto the shelf in front of her.