Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(52)
Joan had seen gypsies before, though not often. A dark-skinned man loitered nearby, talking with a group of others; their eyes passed over her habit without pausing, and she sighed with relief. Being a nun was as good as having a cloak of invisibility in most circumstances, she thought.
She looked round for her companions and saw that Sister Mathilde had been called into consultation regarding a big warty lump of something that looked like the excrement of a seriously diseased hog. Good, she could wait for a minute longer.
In fact, it took very little more than that before Léonie slipped out from behind the curtain, tucking something into the small basket on her arm. For the first time, it struck Joan as unusual that someone like Léonie should be shopping without a servant to push back crowds and carry purchases—or even be in a public market. Michael had told her about his own household during the voyage—how Madame Hortense, the cook, went to the markets at dawn to be sure of getting the freshest things. What would a lady like Léonie be buying, alone?
Joan slithered as best she could through the rows of stalls and wagons, following the bobbing blue feather. A sudden stop allowed her to come up behind Léonie, who had paused by a flower stall, fingering a bunch of white jonquils.
It occurred suddenly to Joan that she had no idea what Léonie’s last name was, but she couldn’t worry about politeness now.
“Ah…madame?” she said tentatively. “Mademoiselle, I mean?” Léonie swung round, eyes huge and face pale. Finding herself faced with a nun, she blinked, confused.
“Er…it’s me,” Joan said, diffident, resisting the impulse to pull off her veil. “Joan MacKimmie?” It felt odd to say it, as though “Joan MacKimmie” were truly someone else. It took a moment for the name to register, but then Léonie’s shoulders relaxed a little.
“Oh.” She put a hand to her bosom and mustered a small smile. “Michael’s cousin. Of course. I didn’t…er…How nice to see you!” A small frown wrinkled the skin between her brows. “Are you…alone?”
“No,” Joan said hurriedly. “And I mustn’t stop. I only saw you, and I wanted to ask—” It seemed even stupider than it had a moment ago, but no help for it. “Would you tell Monsieur Murray that I must talk to him? I know something—something important—that I have to tell him.”
“Soeur Gregory?” Sister George’s stentorian tones boomed through the higher-pitched racket of the market, making Joan jump. She could see the top of Sister Mathilde’s head, with its great white sails, turning to and fro in vain search.
“I have to go,” she said to the astonished Léonie. “Please. Please tell him!” Her heart was pounding, and not only from the sudden meeting. She’d been looking at Léonie’s basket, where she caught the glint of a brown glass bottle half hidden beneath a thick bunch of what even Joan recognized as black hellebores. Lovely cup-shaped flowers of an eerie greenish-white—and deadly poison.
She dodged back across the market to arrive breathless and apologizing at Sister Mathilde’s side, wondering if…She hadn’t spent much time at all with Da’s wife—but she had heard her talking with Da as she wrote down receipts in a book, and she’d mentioned black hellebore as something women used to make themselves miscarry. If Léonie were pregnant…Holy Mother of God, could she be with child by Michael? The thought struck her like a blow in the stomach.
No. No, she couldn’t believe it. He was still in love with his wife, anyone could see that, and even if not, she’d swear he wasn’t the sort to…But what did she ken about men, after all?
Well, she’d ask him when she saw him, she decided, her mouth clamping tight. And ’til then…Her hand went to the rosary at her waist and she said a quick, silent prayer for Léonie. Just in case.
As she was bargaining doggedly in her execrable French for six aubergines (wondering meanwhile what on earth they were for, medicine or food?), she became aware of someone standing at her elbow. A handsome man of middle age, taller than she was, in a well-cut dove-gray coat. He smiled at her and, touching one of the peculiar vegetables, said in slow, simple French, “You don’t want the big ones. They’re tough. Get small ones, like that.” A long finger tapped an aubergine half the size of the ones the vegetable seller had been urging on her, and the vegetable seller burst into a tirade of abuse that made Joan step back, blinking.
Not so much because of the expressions being hurled at her—she didn’t understand one word in ten—but because a voice in plain English had just said clearly, “Tell him not to do it.”
She felt hot and cold at the same time.
“I…er…je suis…um…merci beaucoup, monsieur!” she blurted, and, turning, ran, scrambling back between piles of paper narcissus bulbs and fragrant spikes of hyacinth, her shoes skidding on the slime of trodden leaves.
“Soeur Gregory!” Sister Mathilde loomed up so suddenly in front of her that she nearly ran into the massive nun. “What are you doing? Where is Sister Miséricorde?”
“I…oh.” Joan swallowed, gathering her wits. “She’s—over there.” She spoke with relief, spotting Mercy’s small head in the forefront of a crowd by the meat-pie wagon. “I’ll get her!” she blurted, and walked hastily off before Sister Mathilde could say more.