Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(178)
She drew a breath that went down to her shoes and let it out slowly.
“I suppose I want what Captain Quarry wants: to scotch the notion that His Grace is insane and to get his regiment re-commissioned. I think I have to do both those things. But how?”
“And ye can’t—or ye won’t—do it with the letters….” He eyed her sideways, to see if she might be convinced otherwise, but she shook her head at him.
“Get a false witness?” he suggested. “Bribe someone to say there was an affair betwixt the countess and the poet?”
Minnie shook her head dubiously.
“I’m not saying I couldn’t find someone who would take a bribe,” she said. “But not one who’d be believed. Most young women aren’t good liars at all.”
“No,” he agreed. “You’re one of a kind, so ye are.” It was said with admiration, and she nodded briefly at the compliment but went on with her train of thought.
“The other thing is that it’s easy enough to start a rumor, but once it’s started, it’s quite likely to take on a life of its own. You can’t control it, I mean. If I got someone—man or woman—to say he or she knew about the affair, it wouldn’t stop there. And because it wouldn’t be the truth to start with, there’s no telling where it might go. You don’t set light to a fuse without knowing where it’s laid,” she added, raising a brow at him. “My father always told me that.”
“A wise man, your father.” Mick touched the brim of his hat in respect. “If it’s not to be bribery and false witness, then…what might his honor, your da, recommend?”
“Well…forgery, most likely,” she said with a shrug. “But I don’t think writing a false version of those letters would be a great deal better than showing the originals, in terms of effect.” She rubbed her thumb across her fingers, feeling the faint slick of lard from the piecrust. “Get me another pie, will you, Mick? Thinking is hungry work.”
She finished the second pie and, thus fortified, reluctantly began to mentally revisit Esmé’s letters. It was, after all, Countess Melton who was the fons et origo of all this misery.
Would you think it was worth it, I wonder? she thought toward the absent Esmé. Likely the woman had only wanted to make her husband jealous; she probably hadn’t had the slightest intent of causing her husband to shoot one of his friends; most certainly she hadn’t had any intent of dying, along with her child. That circumstance struck Minnie with a particular poignancy and, for some odd reason, made her think of her mother.
I don’t suppose you intended anything that happened, either, she thought with compassion. You certainly didn’t intend me. Still, she thought her mother’s situation, while very regrettable, wasn’t the theatrical tragedy that Esmé’s had been. I mean, we both survived.
And speaking only for myself, she added, I’m quite glad to be here. I’m reasonably sure that Father’s pleased about that, too.
A slight sound pulled her from her thoughts, and she perceived that Mick had adjusted his position, indicating silently that he thought it was getting late and best they begin walking back to Great Ryder Street.
He was right; the shadows of the huge trees had begun to edge across the path like a seeping stain of spilled tea. And the sounds had changed, too: the cawing laughter of the society women with their parasols had mostly vanished, replaced by the male voices of soldiers and businessmen and clerks, all heading for their tea with the single-mindedness of donkeys headed for their mangers.
She stood up and shook her skirts back into place, retrieved her hat and pinned it firmly to her hair. She nodded to Mick and indicated with a small movement of the hand that he should walk with her, rather than follow. She was wearing a decent but very demure blue gingham with a plain straw hat; she might easily pass for an upper housemaid walking out with an admirer, as long as they didn’t meet anyone she knew—and that wasn’t likely at this hour.
“This chap what his lordship shot,” Mick said, after half a block. “They say he was a poet, was he?”
“So I’m told.”
“Have ye maybe read any of his poems, like?”
She glanced at him, surprised.
“No. Why?”
“Well, it was just ye mentioned your da thinkin’ highly o’ forgery in some situations. I was wonderin’ what ye might forge that would help, and it struck me—what if your man Twelvetrees had written a poem of an incriminatin’ nature about the countess? Or, rather,” he added, in case she was missing his point, which she wasn’t, “what if ye were to write one for him?”
“It’s a thought,” she said slowly. “Perhaps quite a good thought, too—but let’s turn it over for a bit, shall we?”
“Aye,” said Mick, beginning to grow enthused. “Well, first off, o’ course: what class of a forger might ye be, at all?”
“Not inspired,” she admitted. “I mean, no hope of me doing a proper banknote. And I’ve really not done much in the way of true forgery, either—copying the writing of a real person, I mean. It’s mostly writing a false letter but one that’s meant for a person who doesn’t know the sender. And only now and then, not often.”
Mick emitted a low humming noise.