Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(144)
“Put up a bit of food for Mr. Fraser to take along,” her father called back to her from behind the screen. “For Frederick, I mean.”
“What does he eat?” she called.
“Fruit!” came a faint reply, and then a door closed behind the screen.
She caught one more glimpse of Mr. Fraser when he left half an hour later, giving her a smile as he took the parcel containing Frederick and the insect’s breakfast of strawberries. Then he ducked once more beneath the lintel, the afternoon sun glinting off his bright hair, and was gone. She stood staring at the empty door.
Her father had emerged from the back room, as well, and was regarding her, not without sympathy.
“Mr. Fraser? He’ll never marry you, my dear—he has a wife, and quite a striking woman she is, too. Besides, while he’s the best of the Jacobite agents, he doesn’t have the scope you’d want. He’s only concerned with the Stuarts, and the Scottish Jacobites will never amount to anything. Come, I’ve something to discuss with you.” Without waiting, he turned and headed for the Chinese screen.
A wife. Striking, eh? While the word “wife” was undeniably a blow to the liver, Minnie’s next thought was that she didn’t necessarily need to marry Jamie Fraser. And if it came to striking, she could deal a man a good, sharp buffet in the cods herself. She twirled a lock of ripe-wheat hair around one finger and tucked it behind her ear.
She followed her father, finding him at the little satinwood table. The coffee cups had been pushed aside, and he was pouring wine; he handed her a glass and nodded for her to sit.
“Don’t you think of it, my girl.” Her father was watching her over his own glass, not unkindly. “After you’re married, you do what you like. But you need to keep your virginity until we’ve got you settled. The English are notorious bores about virginity, and I have my heart set on an Englishman for you.”
She made a dismissive noise with her lips and took a delicate sip of the wine.
“What makes you think I haven’t already…?”
He lifted one eyebrow and tapped the side of his nose.
“Ma chère, I could smell a man on you a mile away. And even when I’m not here…I’m here.” He lifted the other eyebrow and stared at her. She sniffed, drained her glass, and poured another.
Was he? She sat back and examined him, her own face carefully bland. True, he had informants everywhere; after listening to him do business all day behind the latticework, she dreamed of spiders all night, busy in their webs. Spinning, climbing, hunting along the sleek silk paths that ran hidden through the sticky stuff. And sometimes just hanging there, round as marbles in the air, motionless. Watching with their thousands of eyes.
But the spiders had their own concerns, and for the most part she wasn’t one of them. She smiled suddenly at her father, dimpling, and was pleased to see a flicker of unease in his eyes. She lowered her lashes and buried the smile in her wine.
He coughed.
“So,” he said, sitting up straight. “How would you like to visit London, my darling?”
London…
She tilted her head from side to side, considering.
“The food’s terrible, but the beer’s not bad. Still, it rains all the time.”
“You could have a new dress.”
That was interesting—not purely a book-buying excursion, then—but she feigned indifference.
“Only one?”
“That depends somewhat on your success. You might need…something special.”
That made something twitch behind her ears.
“Why do you bother with this nonsense?” she demanded, putting her glass down with a thump. “You know you can’t cozen me into things anymore. Just tell me what you have in mind, and we’ll discuss it. Like rational beings.”
That made him laugh but not unkindly.
“You do know that women aren’t rational, don’t you?”
“I do. Neither are men.”
“Well, you have a point,” he admitted, patting a dribble of wine off his chin with a napkin. “But they do have patterns. And women’s patterns are…” He paused, squinting over the gold rims of his spectacles, in search of the word.
“More complex?” she suggested, but he shook his head.
“No, no—superficially they seem chaotic, but in fact women’s patterns are brutally simple.”
“If you mean the influence of the moon, I might point out that every lunatic I’ve met has been a man.”
His eyebrows rose. They were beginning to thicken and gray, to grow unruly; she saw of a sudden that he was becoming elderly, and her heart gave a small lurch at the thought.
He didn’t ask how many lunatics she’d met—in the book business, such people were a weekly occurrence—but shook his head.
“No, no, such things are mere physical calendar-keeping. I mean the patterns that cause women to do what they do. And those all come down to survival.”
“The day I marry a man merely to survive…” She didn’t bother finishing the sentence but flicked her fingers scornfully and rose to take the steaming kettle off its spirit lamp and refresh the teapot. Two glasses of wine were her strict limit—particularly when dealing with her father—and today of all days she wanted her wits about her.