Roger gave a mild snort of amusement at hearing him call Brianna “my redhaired lass,” and I smiled into my whisky. It neatly carried the simultaneous implications that whatever she had in mind was likely reckless to an alarming degree—and that her propensity for such recklessness had likely come from her redheaded sire.
Bree picked that one up, too, raised her ruddy brows, and lifted her cup to him in toast.
“Well,” she said, having taken and savored her own first sip. “You need to get guns and horses.”
“I do,” Jamie said patiently. “The horses will be no great matter, though, so long as we do it carefully. I can get them from the Cherokee.”
She nodded and flipped a hand in acceptance of that.
“All right. The guns—you actually have two problems there, don’t you?”
“I’d be happy if it were only two,” he said, taking another sip. “Which problems d’ye mean, lass?”
“Buying the guns—oh, I see what you mean about more than two problems. But putting that aside for a minute: you need to buy the guns, and then you need to get them back here. Do you have an idea where you’re going to get them, by the way?”
“Fergus,” Jamie said promptly.
“How?” I asked, staring at him.
“He’s in Charles Town,” he said. “The Americans hold the city, under General Lincoln. And where there’s an army, there are guns.”
“You’re planning to steal guns from the Continental army?” I blurted. “Or make Fergus do it, which is even worse?”
“No,” he said patiently. “That would be treason, aye? I’m going to buy them from whoever is stealing them. Someone always is. Fergus will likely ken who the local smugglers are, already, but if not, I’ve considerable faith that he can find out.”
“It’ll cost a pretty price,” Roger said, lifting a brow.
Jamie grimaced, nodding. “Aye. I’ve kept that gold safe all these years for the time it should be needed for the cause of revolution—and … now it is.”
“Okay,” Bree said patiently. “Let’s say that Fergus can get hold of guns for you, one way or another. If he has to pay for them”—here Jamie smiled, despite the seriousness of the conversation—“then you need to get the gold to him, and someone then needs to bring the guns back. Sooo …” She took a deep breath and glanced at Roger, then stuck up a thumb.
“One. Now the harvest is in, we need to get Germain home to his family in Charleston as soon as we can; he’s dying to see his mother and his new baby brothers. Two”—the index finger rose—“Lord John wants me to come paint a portrait in Savannah, for which I’ll get paid in actual money, which we need for things like clothes and tools. And three …” She raised the middle finger, and without looking at Roger said, “Roger needs to be ordained. The sooner the better.”
Jamie turned his head to look at Roger, who had flushed deeply at this.
“Well, you do,” Bree said to him. Without waiting for an answer, she turned back to Jamie and laid both hands flat on the table.
“So I write back to Lord John right away, and tell him I’ll do it, and I don’t need guards, thank you, but Roger is traveling with me and we’re bringing the kids. Because if we don’t make it back before snowfall,” she explained, turning her face to me, “it could be five or six months before we saw them again. And,” she added, looking squarely at Jamie, “I think they’ll be safer going with us than staying here. What if Captain Cunningham’s friends decide to come back and bring a militia through the Ridge, and loot and burn this house while they’re at it?”
The blunt question gave me a shock, and clearly unsettled both Jamie and Roger, too. Jamie cleared his throat carefully.
“Ye think I’d be taken unawares?” he asked mildly.
“No, I think you’d clean their clocks,” she said, half-smiling. “But that doesn’t mean I want the kids in the middle of that kind of fight, especially without me and Roger here to keep them out of the line of fire.”
Her hands were still flat on the table, and so were Jamie’s, and I saw the echo in their flesh—his hands large and battered, the knuckles enlarged by work and by age, one finger missing and the others scarred but still holding a long-fingered, powerful grace—the same grace, unmarred and smooth-skinned, but likewise powerful, in Brianna’s.
“So,” she said, taking a breath, “I tell Lord John I’ll do it but that we’ll come through Charleston first so that Roger can check into whatever else he needs to do for ordination and to get Germain back to his family.
“Lord John likes Germain,” she continued, smiling despite the seriousness of the situation. “He’ll want to help. So I ask him to send me a passport or whatever you call it these days, signed by his brother. An official letter that gives us free passage, without interference, through roads and cities held by the British army. We’ll be an innocent minister’s family with three kids and traveling under the protection of the Duke of Pardloe, who’s the colonel of whatever his regiment is. What are the odds of anybody strip-searching us?”
Jamie’s brows drew together and I could see that he was reckoning those odds and, while still not liking them, was obliged to admit that it was a plan.
“Aye, well,” he said reluctantly. “That might work, for getting the gold to Fergus—and I can maybe arrange something for the whisky. There’s always sauerkraut. But I’m no having ye come back with a load of contraband muskets in your wagon. Ordained minister or no,” he added, raising an eyebrow at Roger. “I’ve called on God for a good deal of help in my life, and got it, but I’m no asking Him to save me—or you—from my own foolishness.”
“I’m with ye on that one,” Roger assured him. “How long would it take, d’ye think, to get a reply from his lordship, with the clearance papers?”
“Maybe two or three weeks, if the weather holds.”
“Then we’ll have time to think what to do with the guns, always assuming we get them.” Roger lifted his hitherto untasted cup and clinked it against mine. “Here’s to crime and insurrection.”
“Did you say sauerkraut?” Brianna asked.
43
The Men Ye Gang Oot With
OVER THE NEXT FEW weeks, the different approaches to God on offer at the Meeting House collected their own adherents. Many people attended more than one service, whether from an eclectic approach to ritual, indecision, a desire for society if not instruction—or simply because it was more interesting to go to church than it was to sit at home piously reading the Bible out loud to their families.
Still, each service had its own core of worshippers who came every Sunday, plus a varying number of floaters and droppers-in. When the weather was fine, many people remained for the day, picnicking under the trees, comparing notes on the Methodist service versus the Presbyterian one. And—being largely Highland Scots possessed of strong personal opinions—arguing about everything from the message of the sermon to the state of the minister’s shoes.