Virgins: An Outlander Novella (Outlander #0.5)(24)

“May we speak with Mademoiselle Hauberger?” Ian asked politely. “Just to be sure she’s come of her own free will, aye?”

“Rather plainly she did, since you followed her here.” The vicomte hadn’t liked Jamie’s noise. “No, you may not. She’s busy.” He raised his hands and clapped them sharply, and the rough fellows came back in, along with a half dozen or so male servants as reinforcement, led by a tall, severe-looking butler armed with a stout walking-stick.

“Go with Ecrivisse, gentlemen. He’ll see to your comfort.”

—

“Comfort” proved to be the chateau’s wine cellar, which was fragrant but cold. Also dark. The vicomte’s hospitality did not extend so far as a candle.

“If he meant to kill us, he’d have done it already,” Ian reasoned.

“Mmphm.” Jamie sat on the stairs, the fold of his plaid pulled up around his shoulders against the chill. There was music coming from somewhere outside: the faint sound of a fiddle and the tap of a little hand drum. It started, then stopped, then started again.

Ian wandered restlessly to and fro; it wasn’t a very large cellar. If he didn’t mean to kill them, what did the vicomte intend to do with them?

“He’s waiting for something to happen,” Jamie said suddenly, answering the thought. “Something to do wi’ the lass, I expect.”

“Aye, reckon.” Ian sat down on the stairs, nudging Jamie over. “A Dhia, that’s cold!”

“Mm,” said Jamie absently. “Maybe they mean to run. If so, I hope he leaves someone behind to let us out and doesna leave us here to starve.”

“We wouldna starve,” Ian pointed out logically. “We could live on wine for a good long time. Someone would come before it ran out.” He paused a moment, trying to imagine what it would be like to stay drunk for several weeks.

“That’s a thought.” Jamie got up, a little stiff from the cold, and went off to rummage the racks. There was no light to speak of, save what seeped through the crack at the bottom of the door to the cellar, but Ian could hear Jamie pulling out bottles and sniffing the corks.

He came back in a bit with a bottle and, sitting down again, drew the cork with his teeth and spat it to one side. He took a sip, then another, and tilted back the bottle for a generous swig, then handed it to Ian.

“No bad,” he said.

It wasn’t, and there wasn’t much conversation for the next little while. Eventually, though, Jamie set the empty bottle down, belched gently, and said, “It’s her.”

“What’s her? Rebekah, ye mean. I daresay.” Then after a moment, “What’s her?”

“It’s her,” Jamie repeated. “Ken what the Jew said—Ephraim bar-Sefer? About how his gang knew where to strike, because they got information from some outside source? It’s her. She told them.”

Jamie spoke with such certainty that Ian was staggered for a moment, but then he marshaled his wits.

“That wee lass? Granted, she put one over on us—and I suppose she at least kent about Pierre’s abduction, but…”

Jamie snorted. “Aye, Pierre. Does the mannie strike ye either as a criminal or a great schemer?”

“No, but—”

“Does she?”

“Well…”

“Exactly.”

Jamie got up and wandered off into the racks again, this time returning with what smelled to Ian like one of the very good local red wines. It was like drinking his mam’s strawberry preserves on toast with a cup of strong tea, he thought approvingly.

“Besides,” Jamie went on, as though there’d been no interruption in his train of thought, “mind what ye told me the maid said, when I got my heid half-stove in? ‘Perhaps he’s been killed, too. How would you feel then?’ Nay, she’d planned the whole thing—to have Pierre and his lads stop the coach and make away with the women and the scroll and doubtless Monsieur Pickle, too. But,” he added, sticking up a finger in front of Ian’s face to stop him interrupting, “then Josef-from-Alsace tells ye that thieves—and the same thieves as before, or some of them—attacked the band wi’ the dowry money. Ye ken well that canna have been Pierre. It had to be her who told them.”

Ian was forced to admit the logic of this. Pierre had enthusiasm but couldn’t possibly be considered a professional highwayman.

“But a lass…” he said helplessly. “How could she—”

Jamie grunted. “D’Eglise said Dr. Hasdi’s a man much respected among the Jews of Bordeaux. And plainly he’s kent as far as Paris, or how else did he make the match for his granddaughter? But he doesna speak French. Want to bet me that she didna manage his correspondence?”

“No,” Ian said, and took another swallow. “Mmphm.”

Some minutes later he said, “That rug. And the other things Monsieur le Vicomte mentioned—her dowry.”

Jamie made an approving noise. “Aye. Her percentage of the take, more like. Ye can see our lad Pierre hasna got much money, and he’d lose all his property when he converted. She was feathering their nest, like—makin’ sure they’d have enough to live on. Enough to live well on.”

“Well, then,” Ian said, after a moment’s silence. “There ye are.”