An echo in the bone - Gabaldon Diana (читать книги TXT) 📗

Denny let go of the woman and stood back, though from the look on his glowing face, he could hardly bear not to touch her.

“Dorothea,” he said. “Whatever does thee—”

But he was forestalled; the young woman—she was very pretty, Rachel saw now—stepped back and dropped her elegant ermine cloak on the floor with a soft thud. Rachel blinked. The young woman was wearing a sack. No other word for it, though now that she looked, she perceived that it had sleeves. It was made of some coarse gray fabric, though, and hung from the young woman’s shoulders, barely touching her body elsewhere.

“I will be a Quaker, Denny,” she said, lifting her chin a little. “I have made up my mind.”

Denny’s face twitched, and Rachel thought he could not make up his own mind whether to laugh, cry, or cover his beloved with her cloak again. Not liking to see the lovely thing lie disregarded on the floor, Rachel bent and picked it up herself.

“Thee—Dorothea,” he said again, helpless. “Is thee sure of this? I think thee knows nothing of Friends.”

“Certainly I do. You—thee, I mean—see God in all men, seek peace in God, abjure violence, and wear dull clothes so as not to distract your minds with the vain things of the world. Is that not right?” Dorothea inquired anxiously. Lady Dorothea, Rachel corrected herself. William had said his uncle was a duke.

“Well… more or less, yes,” Denny said, his lips twitching as he looked her up and down. “Did thee… make that garment?”

“Yes, of course. Is something wrong with it?”

“Oh, no,” he said, sounding somewhat strangled. Dorothea looked sharply at him, then at Rachel, suddenly seeming to notice her.

“What’s wrong with it?” she appealed to Rachel, and Rachel saw the pulse beating in her round white throat.

“Nothing,” she said, fighting her own urge to laugh. “Friends are allowed to wear clothes that fit, though. Thee need not purposefully uglify thyself, I mean.”

“Oh, I see.” Lady Dorothea gazed thoughtfully at Rachel’s tidy skirt and jacket, which might be of butternut homespun but most assuredly fit well, and became her, too, if she did say so.

“Well, that’s good, then,” Lady Dorothea said. “I’ll just take it in a bit here and there.” Dismissing this, she stepped forward again and took Denny’s hands in her own.

“Denny,” she said softly. “Oh, Denny. I thought I should never see you again.”

“I thought so, too,” he said, and Rachel saw a new struggle taking place in his face—one between duty and desire, and her heart ached for him. “Dorothea … thee cannot stay here. Thy uncle—”

“He doesn’t know I’ve gone out. I’ll go back,” Dorothea assured him. “Once we’ve settled things between us.”

“Settled things,” he repeated, and, with a noticeable effort, withdrew his hands from hers. “Thee means—”

“Will thee take a little wine?” Rachel broke in, reaching for the decanter the servant had left for them.

“Yes, thank you. He’ll have some, too,” Dorothea said, smiling at Rachel.

“I expect he will need it,” Rachel murmured, with a glance at her brother.

“Dorothea …” Denny said helplessly, running a hand through his hair. “I know what thee means. But it is not only a matter of thee becoming a Friend—always assuming that to be … to be… possible.”

She drew herself up, proud as a duchess.

“Do you doubt my conviction, Denzell Hunter?”

“Er… not exactly. I just think that perhaps thee has not given the matter sufficient thought.”

“That’s what you think!” A flush rose in Lady Dorothea’s cheeks, and she glared at Denny. “I’ll have you—thee, I mean—know that I’ve done nothing but think, ever since you left London. How the devil do you—thee—think I bloody got here?”

“Thee conspired to have thy brother shot in the abdomen?” Denny inquired. “That seems somewhat ruthless, and perhaps not certain of success.”

Lady Dorothea drew two or three long breaths in through her nose, eyeing him.

“Now, you see,” she said, in a reasonable tone of voice, “was I not quite the perfect Quaker, I would strike you. Thee. But I have not, have I? Thank you, my dear,” she said to Rachel, taking a glass of wine. “You are his sister, I collect?”

“Thee has not,” Denny admitted warily, ignoring Rachel. “But even allowing, for the sake of argument,” he added, with a glimmer of his usual self, “that God has indeed spoken to thee and said that thee must join us, that still leaves the small matter of thy family.”

“There is nothing in your principles of faith that requires me to have my father’s permission to marry,” she snapped. “I asked.”

Denny blinked.

“Who?”

“Priscilla Unwin. She’s a Quaker I know in London. You know her, too, I think; she said you’d—thee’d? That can’t be right—that you’d lanced a boil on her little brother’s bum.”

At this point, Denny became aware—perhaps because his eyes were sticking out of his head looking at Lady Dorothea, Rachel thought, not altogether amused—that his spectacles were missing. He put out a finger to push them up the bridge of his nose, then stopped and looked about, squinting. With a sigh, Rachel stepped forward and settled them onto his nose. Then she picked up the second glass of wine and handed it to him.

“She’s right,” she told him. “Thee needs it.”

“PLAINLY,” LADY DOROTHEA said, “we are getting nowhere.” She did not look like a woman accustomed to getting nowhere, Rachel thought, but was keeping a fair grip on her temper. On the other hand, she was not even close to giving in to Denny’s urging that she must go back to her uncle’s house.

“I’m not going back,” she said, in a reasonable tone of voice, “because if I do, you’ll sneak off to the Continental army in Valley Forge, where you think I won’t follow you.”

“Thee would not, surely?” Denny said, and Rachel thought she divined a thread of hope in the question, but she wasn’t sure what kind of hope it was.

Lady Dorothea fixed him with a wide blue stare.

“I have followed thee across an entire bloody ocean. You—thee—think a damned army can stop me?”

Denny rubbed a knuckle down the bridge of his nose.

“No,” he admitted. “I don’t. That is why I have not left. I do not wish thee to follow me.”

Lady Dorothea swallowed audibly but bravely kept her chin up.

“Why?” she said, and her voice shook only a little. “Why do you not wish me to follow you?”

“Dorothea,” he said, as gently as possible. “Putting aside the fact that thy going with me would put thee in rebellion and in conflict with thy family—it is an army. Moreover, it is a very poor army, and one lacking every conceivable comfort, including clothing, bedding, shoes, and food. Beyond that, it is an army on the verge of disaster and defeat. It is no fit place for you.”

“And it is a fit place for your sister?”

“Indeed it is not,” he said. “But—” He stopped short, obviously realizing that he was on the verge of stepping into a trap.

“But thee can’t stop me coming with thee.” Rachel sprang it for him, sweetly. She was not quite sure she should help this strange woman, but she did admire the Lady Dorothea’s spirit.

“And you can’t stop me, either,” Dorothea said firmly.

Denny rubbed three fingers hard between his brows, closing his eyes as though in pain.

“Dorothea,” he said, dropping his hand and drawing himself up. “I am called to do what I do, and it is the Lord’s business and mine. Rachel comes with me not only because she is pigheaded but also because she is my responsibility; she has no other place to go.”

“I do, too!” Rachel said hotly. “Thee said thee would find me a place of safety with Friends, if I wanted. I didn’t, and I don’t.”

Before Denny could come back with anything else, Lady Dorothea held out her hand in a dramatic gesture of command, stopping him dead.

“I have an idea,” she said.

“I greatly fear to ask what it is,” Denny said, sounding entirely sincere.