A fresh shock went through Roger with the thought: Was Jamie here? In the house? And if he was, how old might he be? How old had he been when Brian Fraser die—
Fraser was shaking his head, his face troubled.
“I have not, sir. What’s the name of the man who’s taken your lad?”
“Rob—Robert Cameron, he’s called. I dinna ken his people,” he added, falling naturally into Fraser’s stronger accent.
“Cameron . . .” Fraser murmured, tapping his fingers on the desk as he searched his memory. The motion flicked something in Roger’s memory; it was the ghost of one of Jamie’s characteristic gestures when thinking—but Jamie, with his frozen finger, did it with the fingers flat, where his father’s came down in a smooth ripple.
He picked up the glass again and took another sip, glancing as casually as he might at Fraser’s face, searching for resemblance. It was there but subtle, mostly in the c**k of the head, the set of the shoulders—and the eyes. The face was quite different, square in the jaw, broader of brow, and Brian Fraser’s eyes were a dark hazel, not blue, but the slanted shape of them, the wide mouth—that was Jamie.
“There’re nay many Camerons nearer than Lochaber.” Fraser was shaking his head. “And I’ve heard nothing of a wanderer in the district.” He gave Roger a direct look, not accusing but definitely questioning. “Why is it ye think the man came this way?”
“I—he was seen,” Roger blurted. “Near Craigh na Dun.”
That startled Fraser.
“Craigh na Dun,” he repeated, leaning back a little, his eyes gone wary. “Ah . . . and where might ye have come from yourself, sir?”
“From Inverness,” Roger replied promptly. “I followed him from there.” Close enough. He was trying hard not to recall that he’d left on his quest to find Cameron and Jem from the very spot in which he was now sitting. “I—a friend—a kinsman—came with me. I sent him toward Cranesmuir to search.”
The news that he apparently wasn’t a solitary nutter seemed to reassure Fraser, who pushed back from the desk and stood up, glancing at the window, where a big rose brier curved up gaunt and black against the fading sky.
“Mmphm. Well, bide for a bit, sir, and ye will. It’s late in the day, and ye’ll make no great distance before dark falls. Sup with us, and we’ll gie ye a bed for the night. Mayhap your friend will catch ye up with good news, or one of my tenants may ha’ seen something. I’ll send round in the morning, to ask.”
Roger’s legs were quivering with the urge to leap up, rush out, do something. But Fraser was right: it would be pointless—and dangerous—to blunder round the Highland mountains in the dark, losing his way, perhaps be caught in a killing storm this time of year. He could hear the wind picking up; the rose brier beat at the glass of the window. It was going to rain soon. And is Jem out in it?
“I—yes. I thank you, sir,” he said. “It’s most kind of ye.”
Fraser patted him on the shoulder, went out into the hallway, and called, “Janet! Janet, we’ve a guest for supper!”
Janet?
He’d risen to his feet without thinking and came out of the office as the kitchen door swung open—and a small, slender shape was momentarily silhouetted against the glow of the kitchen, rubbing her hands on her apron.
“My daughter, Janet, sir,” Fraser said, drawing his daughter into the fading light. He smiled fondly at her. “This is Mr. Roger MacKenzie, Jenny. He’s lost his wee lad somewhere.”
“He has?” The girl paused, halfway through a curtsy, and her eyes went wide. “What’s happened, sir?”
Roger explained again briefly about Rob Cameron and Craigh na Dun, but all the time was consumed by the desire to ask the young woman how old she was. Fifteen? Seventeen? Twenty-one? She was remarkably beautiful, with clear white skin that bloomed from the heat of cooking, soft curly black hair tied back from her face, and a trim figure that he tried hard not to stare at—but what was most disturbing was that, despite her obvious femininity, she bore a startling resemblance to Jamie Fraser. She might be his daughter, he thought, and then brought himself up short, realizing afresh—and remembering, with a stab of the heart that nearly dropped him to his knees—who Jamie Fraser’s daughter really was.
Oh, God. Bree. Oh, Jesus, help me. Will I ever see her again?
He realized that he’d fallen silent and was staring at Janet Fraser with his mouth open. Apparently she was used to this sort of response from men, though; she gave him a demure, slant-eyed smile, said that supper would be on the table in a few moments and maybe Da should show Mr. MacKenzie the way to the necessary? Then she was walking back down the hallway, the big door swung to behind her, and he found he could breathe again.
THE SUPPER WAS plain but plentiful and well cooked, and Roger found that food restored him amazingly. No wonder—he couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten.
They ate in the kitchen, with a pair of housemaids called Annie and Senga and a man-of-all-work named Tom McTaggart sharing the table with the family. All of them were interested in Roger and, while giving him great sympathy in the matter of his missing son, were even more interested in where he might come from and what news he might bear.
Here he was at something of a loss, as he had no firm notion what year it was (Brian died—God, will die—when Jamie was nineteen, and if Jamie was born in May of 1721—or was it 1722?—and he was two years younger than Jenny . . .) and thus no idea what might have been happening in the world of late, but he delayed a bit, explaining his antecedents in some detail—that was good manners, for one thing, and for another, his birthplace in Kyle of Lochalsh was far enough away from Lallybroch that the Frasers were unlikely to have met any of his people.