Free A Plague of Zombies: An Outlander Novella by Diana Gabaldon

nuisance; he’d been hoping to discover more about the original incident that had incited the rebellion, and as he was obviously not going to learn anything from Warren … He waved a hand at Fettes; it hardly mattered why Peters had gone.
    ‘Right. Well, then—’ Breathing through his mouth as much as possible, Grey pushed open the door. Tom, behind him, made an involuntary sound but then stepped carefully up and squatted beside the body.
    Grey squatted beside him. He could hear thickened breathing behind him.
    ‘Major,’ he said, without turning round. ‘If Captain Cherry has found Mr Dawes, would you be so kind as to fetch him in here?’
    * * *
    They were hard at it when Dawes came in, accompanied by both Fettes and Cherry, and Grey ignored all of them.
    ‘The bite marks
are
human?’ he asked, carefully turning one of Warren’s lower legs towards the light from the window. Tom nodded, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.
    ‘Sure of it, me lord. I been bitten by dogs—nothing like this. Besides—’ He inserted his forearm into his mouth and bit down fiercely, then displayed the results to Grey. ‘See, me lord? The teeth go in a circle, like.’
    ‘No doubt of it.’ Grey straightened and turned to Dawes, who was sagging at the knees to such an extent that Captain Cherry was obliged to hold him up. ‘Do sit down, please, Mr Dawes, and give me your opinion of matters here.’
    Dawes’s round face was blotched, his lips pale. He shook his head and tried to back away but was prevented by Cherry’s grip on his arm.
    ‘I know nothing, sir,’ he gasped. ‘Nothing at all. Please, may I go? I, I … really, sir, I grow faint!’
    ‘That’s all right,’ Grey said pleasantly. ‘You can lie down on the bed if you can’t stand up.’
    Dawes glanced at the bed, went white, and sat down heavily on the floor. Saw what was on the floor beside him and scrambled hurriedly to his feet, where he stood swaying and gulping.
    Grey nodded at a stool, and Cherry propelled the little secretary, not ungently, onto it.
    ‘What’s he told you, Fettes?’ Grey asked, turning back towards the bed. ‘Tom, we’re going to wrap Mr Warren up in the counterpane, then lay him on the floor and roll him up in the carpet. To prevent leakage.’
    ‘Right, me lord.’ Tom and Captain Cherry set gingerly about this process, while Grey walked over and stood looking down at Dawes.
    ‘Pled ignorance, for the most part,’ Fettes said, joining Grey and giving Dawes a speculative look. ‘He did tell us that Derwent Warren had seduced a woman called Nancy Twelvetrees, in London. Threw her over, though, and married the heiress to the Atherton fortune.’
    ‘Who had better sense than to accompany her husband to the West Indies, I take it? Yes. Did he know that Miss Twelvetrees and her brother had inherited a plantation on Jamaica and were proposing to emigrate here?’
    ‘No, sir.’ Dawes’s voice was little more than a croak. He cleared his throat and spoke more firmly. ‘He was entirely surprised to meet the Twelvetrees at his first assembly.’
    ‘I daresay. Was the surprise mutual?’
    ‘It was. Miss Twelvetrees went white, then red, then removed her shoe and set about the governor with the heel of it.’
    ‘I wish I’d seen that,’ Grey said, with real regret. ‘Right. Well, as you can see, the governor is no longer in need of your discretion. I, on the other hand, am in need of your loquacity. You can start by telling me why he was afraid of snakes.’
    ‘Oh.’ Dawes gnawed his lower lip. ‘I cannot be sure, you understand—’
    ‘Speak up, you lump,’ growled Fettes, leaning menacingly over Dawes, who recoiled.
    ‘I—I—’ he stammered. ‘Truly, I don’t know the details. But it—it had to do with a young woman. A young black woman. He—the governor, that is—women were something of a weakness for him …’
    ‘And?’ Grey prodded.
    The young woman, it appeared, was a slave in the household.