She got clumsily to her feet, and Cinnamon rose too, much more gracefully, and seized her by the arm to stop her falling.
“I—just—I’m going outside for a moment.”
“Oh.” He let go her arm, hesitant, and half-turned toward the upside-down chamber pot as though to right it.
“No, it’s all right. The rain’s stopped.” The door of the shed was stuck, swollen with the wet; he reached past her and freed it with a jolt of his palm. Fresh cold air rushed into the shed, and she heard a rustle as William stirred.
“I’ll go first.” Cinnamon whispered in her ear as he somehow slid past her. “You wait ’til I call.”
“But—” But he was gone, leaving the door slightly ajar. She cast a quick glance at William, but he had sunk back into slumber; she could hear a faint snore from the darkness and smiled at the sound.
As quietly as she could, she pushed the ramshackle door open and stuck her head out. The night spread overhead in a silent rush, bright-edged clouds racing past a bright half-moon.
She could hear the drip of water more clearly out here, falling from the leaves of a big tree that stood by the chicken shed. She could hear a steadier splash of water, too, and smiled again. John Cinnamon had taken the opportunity for discreet relief of his own.
She turned in the other direction and retired under the shadow of the big tree, in spite of the drips, where she accomplished her own business without ceremony.
“I’m just here,” she said, emerging in time to forestall Cinnamon’s calling her. He turned from the shed door sharply, then nodded, seeing her.
He made a slight inquisitive motion toward the shed, but she shook her head.
“Not yet. I need a little air.” She tilted back her head and breathed, grateful for the freshness of the night and for the stars appearing and vanishing overhead, vivid in the patches of black night scoured by the passing clouds.
John Cinnamon kept her company, though he didn’t speak. She could feel his presence, large and reassuring.
“Have you known my—my brother long?” she asked at last.
He lifted a shoulder in equivocation.
“Yes and no,” he said. “We spent a winter together in Quebec, when? Maybe three years ago. I was a guide for him, a scout. Then we met again by accident … three months ago? About that.”
“Where did you meet this time?” she asked, curious. “In Canada?”
“Oh. No. In Virginia.” He turned his head at a sudden cracking noise, but then dismissed it. “A broken branch falling. It was a place called Mount Josiah. Do you know it?”
“I’ve heard of it. What brought you there?”
He made a small humming sound, but nodded, deciding to tell her.
“Lord John Grey. Do you know his lordship?”
“Yes, very well,” she said, smiling at the memory. “Was he in Virginia, then?”
“No,” Cinnamon said thoughtfully, “but your brother was.”
“Oh. Was he looking for Lord John as well?”
“I don’t think so.” He stood silent for a moment, then added, “He was looking for other things. Maybe he’ll tell you; I can’t.”
“I see,” she said, wondering. Shocked—and moved—by meeting William, she hadn’t had time to wonder, let alone ask, what had led him to Savannah, why he had resigned his army commission, what he thought about his two fathers … what he thought about her. Who he was.
Her father had said almost nothing about William, and she hadn’t asked. Time enough, she’d felt. But the time had evidently come.
Still, she didn’t want to pry or discomfit John Cinnamon by asking whether—or what—he knew about Jamie Fraser.
“William said that he—or rather you—wanted a portrait made,” she said, changing to what seemed safer ground. “I’d be very happy to do that. Er … is it meant for some lucky lady?”
That surprised him, and he laughed, a low, warm sound.
“No, I don’t have a woman. I mean to send it to my father,” he said.
“Your father? Where is he?” The clouds had shredded and the light of a setting moon showed her his broad face, soft-eyed now, and thoughtful. He would be wonderful to paint.
“London,” he said, surprising her. He saw that he had surprised her and ducked his head, abashed.
“I am a bastard, of course,” he said, with a tone of apology. “My father was a British soldier; he got me on an Indian woman in Canada.”
“I … see.” There didn’t seem anything else she could say, and he gave her a small, shy smile.
“Yes. I thought—for many years, I thought that Lord John was my father. It was him who took me when my mother died—I was an infant—and gave me to the holy fathers at the mission in Gareon. He sent money for my keeping, you see.”
“That … seems very like him,” she said, though in fact she would never have thought of him doing such a thing.
“He is a kind man. Very kind,” he added firmly. “William brought me to Savannah to talk to him—William thought Lord John to be my father, too—and it was his lordship who told me the truth. My real father abandoned me; such things are common.”
His voice was matter-of-fact; probably such things were common.
“That doesn’t mean it’s right,” she said, angry at the unknown father.
He shrugged.
“But Lord John told me his name, and a direction. I know how to—to send the picture to him.”
“You want a portrait for a man who abandoned you? But—why?” She spoke cautiously. This young man was patently a realist; did he really think that a portrait of his half-breed child, now grown, would move the sort of selfish, coldhearted oaf who—
“I don’t think he will acknowledge me,” he assured her. “I don’t want him to. I don’t want money or anything he might value. But he has one thing that I want, and I hope that if he sees my face, he will give it to me.”
“What on earth is that?”
Even the dripping from the trees had ceased by now. The night was so still that she could hear him swallow.
“I want to know my name,” he said, so low she scarcely heard him. “I want to know the name my mother called me. He’s the only one who knows that.”
Her throat was too tight to speak. She stepped toward him and put her arms around him, holding him as his mother might have, had she lived to see him grown.
“I promise you,” she whispered when she could speak. “Your face will break his heart.”
He patted her back, very gently, and stepped back.
“You’re very kind,” he said. “You should sleep now.”
97
An Excellent Question
JOHN CINNAMON TACTFULLY LEFT William and Brianna soon after they had made their way back through the debris of the abatis line into the city, saying that he had business at the riverfront and would see William later at Lord John’s house.
“I like your friend a lot,” Brianna said, watching Cinnamon’s broad back disappear into the dappled sunlight of a square whose name she didn’t know.
“So do I. I only hope—” William checked himself, but his sister turned to him, a sympathetic expression on her face.