“That’s all right, Magnus,” I said, struggling upright and swinging my feet over the side of the bed. “I’ll come down.”

I looked forward to the visitors. We had stopped entertaining during the last month, and I rather missed the bustle and conversation, silly as much of it was. Louise came frequently to sit with me and regale me with the latest doings of the Court, but I hadn’t seen Marie d’Arbanville in some time. I wondered what brought her here today.

I was ungainly enough to take the stairs slowly, my increased weight jarring upward from the soles of my feet on each step. The paneled door of the drawing room was closed, but I heard the voice inside clearly.

“Do you think she knows?”

The question, asked in the lowered tones that portended the juiciest of gossip, reached me just as I was about to enter the drawing room. Instead, I paused at the threshold, just out of sight.

It was Marie d’Arbanville who had spoken. Welcome everywhere because of her elderly husband’s position, and gregarious even by French standards, Marie heard everything worth hearing within the environs of Paris.

“Does she know what?” The reply was Louise’s; her high, carrying voice had the perfect self-confidence of the born aristocrat, who doesn’t care who hears what.

“Oh, you haven’t heard!” Marie pounced on the opening like a kitten, delighted to find a new mouse to play with. “Goodness! Of course, I only heard myself an hour ago.”

And raced directly over here to tell me about it, I thought. Whatever “it” was. I thought I stood a better chance of hearing the unexpurgated version from my position in the hallway.

“It is my lord Broch Tuarach,” Marie said, and I didn’t need to see her, to imagine her leaning forward, green eyes darting back and forth, snapping with enjoyment of her news. “Only this morning, he challenged an Englishman to a duel – over a whore!”

“What!” Louise’s cry of astonishment drowned out my own gasp. I grabbed hold of a small table and held on, black spots whirling before my eyes as the world came apart at the seams.

“Oh, yes!” Marie was saying. “Jacques Vincennes was there; he told my husband all about it! It was in that brothel down near the fish market – imagine going to a brothel at that hour of the morning! Men are so odd. Anyway, Jacques was having a drink with Madame Elise, who runs the place, when all of a sudden there was the most frightful outcry upstairs, and all kinds of thumping and shouting.”

She paused for breath – and dramatic effect – and I heard the sound of liquid being poured.

“So, Jacques of course raced to the stairs – well, that’s what he says, anyway; I expect he actually hid behind the sofa, he’s such a coward – and after more shouting and thumping, there was a terrible crash, and an English officer came hurtling down the stairs, half-undressed, with his wig off, staggering and smashing into the walls. And who should appear at the top of the stairs, looking like the vengeance of God, but our own petit James!”

“No! And I would have sworn he was the last… but go on! What happened then?”

A teacup chimed softly against its saucer, followed by Marie’s voice, released by excitement from the modulations of secrecy.

“Well – the man reached the foot of the stairs still on his feet, by some miracle, and he turned at once, and looked up at Lord Tuarach. Jacques says the man was very self-possessed, for someone who’d just been kicked downstairs with his breeches undone. He smiled – not a real smile, you know, the nasty sort – and said, ‘There’s no need for violence, Fraser; you could have waited for your turn, surely? I should have thought you get enough at home. But then, some men derive pleasure from paying for it.’ ”

Louise made shocked noises. “How awful! The canaille! But of course, it is no reproach to milord Tuarach-” I could hear the strain in her voice as friendship warred with the urge to gossip. Not surprisingly, gossip won.

“Milord Tuarach cannot enjoy his wife’s favors at the moment; she carries a child, and the pregnancy is dangerous. So of course he would relieve his needs at a brothel; what gentleman would do otherwise? But go on, Marie! What happened then?”

“Well.” Marie drew breath as she approached the high point of the story. “Milord Tuarach rushed down the stairs, seized the Englishman by the throat, and shook him like a rat!”

“Non! Ce n’est pas vrai!”

“Oh, yes! It took three of Madame’s servants to restrain him – such a wonderful big man, isn’t he? So fierce-looking!”

“Yes, but then what?”

“Oh – well, Jacques said the Englishman gasped for a bit, then straightened up and said to milord Tuarach, ‘That’s twice you’ve come near killing me, Fraser. Someday you may succeed.’ And then milord Tuarach cursed in that terrible Scottish tongue – I don’t understand a word, do you? – and then he wrenched himself free from the men holding him, struck the Englishman across the face with his bare hand” – Louise gasped at the insult – “and said, ‘Tomorrow’s dawn will see you dead!’ Then he turned about and ran up the stairs, and the Englishman left. John said he looked quite white – and no wonder! Just imagine!”

I imagined, all right.

“Are you well, Madame?” Magnus’s anxious voice drowned out Louise’s further exclamations. I put out a hand, groping, and he took it at once, putting his other hand under my elbow in support.

“No. I’m not well. Please… tell the ladies?” I waved weakly toward the drawing room.

“Of course, Madame. In a moment; but now let me see you to your chamber. This way, chere Madame…” He led me up the stairs, murmuring consolingly as he supported me. He escorted me to the bedroom chaise, where he left me, promising to send up a maid at once to attend me.

I didn’t wait for assistance; the first shock passing, I could navigate well enough, and I stood and made my way across the room to where my small medicine box sat on the dressing table. I didn’t think I was going to faint now, but there was a bottle of spirits of ammonia in there that I wanted handy, just in case.

I turned back the lid and stood still, staring into the box. For a moment, my mind refused to register what my eyes saw; the folded white square of paper, carefully wedged upright between the multicolored bottles. I noted rather abstractedly that my fingers shook as I took the paper out; it took several tries to unfold it.

I am sorry. The words were bold and black, the letters carefully formed in the center of the sheet, the single letter “J” written with equal care below. And below that, two more words, these scrawled hastily, done as a postscript of desperation: I must!

“You must,” I murmured to myself, and then my knees buckled. Lying on the floor, with the carved panels of the ceiling flickering dimly above, I found myself thinking that I had always heretofore assumed that the tendency of eighteenth-century ladies to swoon was due to tight stays; now I rather thought it might be due to the idiocy of eighteenth-century men.

There was a cry of dismay from somewhere nearby, and then helpful hands were lifting me, and I felt the yielding softness of the wool-stuffed mattress under me, and cool cloths on my brow and wrists, smelling of vinegar.

I was soon restored to what senses I had, but strongly disinclined to talk. I reassured the maids that I was in fact all right, shooed them out of the room, and lay back on the pillows, trying to think.

It was Jack Randall, of course, and Jamie had gone to kill him. That was the only clear thought in the morass of whirling horror and speculation that filled my mind. Why, though? What could have made him break the promise he had made me?

Trying to consider carefully the events Marie had related – third-hand as they were – I thought there had to have been something more than just the shock of an unexpected encounter. I knew the Captain, knew him a great deal better than I wanted to. And if there was one thing of which I was reasonably sure, it was that he would not have been purchasing the usual services of a brothel – the simple enjoyment of a woman was not in his nature. What he enjoyed – needed – was pain, fear, humiliation.