“I want to tell you something,” she said. “I would have waited for Mrs. Fraser to come back, but Lieutenant Esterhazy will be with her.”

“Speak, then,” he said, matching her formality. “Sit, if ye like.” He waved a hand toward the nearby stool and drew in his breath sharply at the resultant sensation. Frances looked at him in concern, but after a moment decided that he wouldn’t die, and sat down.

“It’s Agnes,” she said, without preamble. “She thinks she’s with child.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ!”

“Just so,” she said, nodding. “She thinks it’s Gilbert’s—Lieutenant Bembridge, I mean.”

“She thinks it’s him? Who else might it be?”

“Well, Oliver,” she said. “But she only did it once with him.”

“Sasannaich clann na galladh!”

“What does that mean?”

“English sons of the devil,” he told her briefly. He was struggling to get his elbows bent enough to sit up; this wasn’t news he could deal with lying flat. “Did either of the gobshites … er … try to … with you?”

Surprise wiped the frown off her face.

“I’m never going to lie with a man,” she said with complete certainty, then looked at him, with a little less. “You said I didn’t have to.”

“Ye don’t and ye never will,” he assured her. “If anyone tries, I’ll kill him. How long have ye kent this—about Agnes?”

“She told me just before I came up here,” Frances said, with a slightly guilty look over her shoulder. “I wath—wasn’t sure I should tell you but … she’th—she is afraid that Oliver killed Gilbert last night because he found out she was …”

“Does she ken for sure he found out?”

Frances nodded soberly.

“She told him. Yesterday. He asked her to marry him and she said she couldn’t, because …”

He wanted very badly to go downstairs and shake Agnes until her silly head rattled, but something much worse was dawning on him, and he pushed himself upright, disregarding pain and dizziness.

“Go down and get Kenny Lindsay for me,” he said urgently. “Now, Frances.”

“YOU DON’T THINK so?” I said, staring at Oliver Esterhazy.

“I mean—he’s dead, Mrs. Fraser! Come away, don’t touch him!” Oliver grabbed my arm, but I shook him off.

“He’s not dead,” I said, “but he may well be in the next few minutes, if we don’t get him out. Get down here and help me!”

He looked at me, mouth half open, then looked wildly at Gilbert—who did indeed look dead, but …

“Help me!” I said, and began scrabbling at the wet, heavy earth. I dug madly, trying to free enough of Gilbert’s chest for him to draw breath. He was lying mostly on his side, and luckily there wasn’t a lot of earth over his upper body, though his legs seemed to be buried more deeply. If only I could get him free enough to do chest compression and his bones weren’t shattered …