Free The Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon

business of the family, and no one else.

    JAMIE WAS STILL IN a good humor as he bridled the horses for exercise the next morning, mind filled with a pleasant muddle of memories past and of present content. There was a fuzzy bank of cloud above the fells, betokening later rain, but no wind, and for the moment the air was cold but still and the horses bright but not frenetic, tossing their heads with anticipation of a gallop.
    “MacKenzie.” He hadn’t heard the man’s footsteps on the sawdust of the paddock, and turned, a little startled. More startled to see George Roberts, one of the footmen. It was usually Sam Morgan who came to tell him to saddle a horse or hitch up the carriage; Roberts was a senior footman, and such errands were beneath him.
    “I want to talk to you.” Roberts was in his livery breeches but wore a shapeless loose jacket over his shirt. His hands hung half curled at his sides, and something in his face and voice made Jamie draw himself up a little.
    “I’m about my work now,” Jamie said, courteous. He gestured at the four horses he had on leading reins and at Augustus, still waiting to be saddled. “Come just after dinner, if ye like. I’ll have time then.”
    “You’ll have time now,” said Roberts, in an odd, half-strangled voice. “It won’t take long.”
    Jamie nearly took the punch, not expecting it. But the man gave clear notice, falling back on his heel and pulling back his fist as though he meant to hurl a stone, and Jamie dodged by reflex. Roberts shot past, unbalanced, and came up with a thud, catching himself on the fence. The horses who were tied to it all shied, stamping and snorting, not liking this kind of nonsense so early in the day.
    “What the devil d’ye think you’re doing?” Jamie asked, more in a tone of curiosity than hostility. “Or, more to the point, what d’ye think
I’ve
done?”
    Roberts pushed away from the fence, his face congested. He was not quite as tall as Jamie but heavier in the body.
    “You know damned well what you’ve done, you Scotch bugger!”
    Jamie eyed the man and lifted one brow.
    “A guessing game, is it? Aye, well, then. Someone pissed in your shoes this morning, and the bootboy said it was me?”
    Surprise lifted Roberts’s scowl for an instant.
    “What?”
    “Or someone’s gone off wi’ his lordship’s sealing wax?” He reached into the pocket of his breeches and drew out the stub of black wax. “He gave it to me; ye can ask him.”
    Fresh blood crimsoned Roberts’s cheeks; the household staff objected very much to Jamie being allowed to write letters and did as much as they dared to obstruct him. To Roberts’s credit, though, he swallowed his choler and, after breathing heavily for a moment, said, “Betty. That name ring a bell?”
    It rang a whole carillon. What had the gagging wee bitch been saying?
    “I ken the woman, aye.” He spoke warily, keeping an eye on Roberts’s feet and a hand on Augustus’s bridle.
    Roberts’s lip curled. He was good-looking, in a heavy-featured way, but the sneer didn’t flatter him.
    “You
ken
the woman, do you, cully? You’ve bloody interfered with her!”
    “I’ll tell,”
she’d said, thrusting out her chin at him. She hadn’t said
who
she’d tell—nor that she’d tell the truth.
    “No,” he said calmly, and, wrapping Augustus’s rein neatly round the fence rail, he stepped away from the horses and turned to face Roberts squarely. “I haven’t. Did ye ask her where and when? For I’m reasonably sure I havena been out of sight o’ the stables in a month, save for takin’ the horses out.” He nodded toward the waiting string, not taking his eyes off the footman. “And she canna have left the house to meet me on the fells.”
    Roberts hesitated, and Jamie took the chance to press back.
    “Ye might ask yourself, man, why she’d say such a thing to
you.
”
    “What? Why shouldn’t she say it to me?” The footman drew his chin into his heavy neck, the better