The rest of the time, he was not only confined to his cabin but attached to it by means of a shackle round his ankle, this equipped with a long chain, this in turn attached to a ring set into the bulkhead. He felt like a limpet.

Reasonably adequate meals were provided, as was a chamber pot and a small pile of books, including several treatises on the evils of slavery. If these were intended to reconcile him to his presumably eventual fate, they had missed their mark by several miles, and he had pushed them out of the small port before settling down with a translation of Don Quixote.

He’d been held captive before, but not often, thank God—and never for very long, though the night he’d spent—at sixteen—tied to a tree on a dark Scottish mountain with a broken arm had seemed endless. Why think of that now? He’d largely forgotten it in the confusion of circumstance that had attended his acquaintance with a man he’d thought he’d never see again, and good riddance. But Jamie Fraser was not a man to be easily forgotten, damn him.

He wondered briefly what Jamie would think of his present circumstance—or worse, of the circumstances of his eventual death—but pushed that out of his mind as pointless. He didn’t bloody mean to die, so why waste time envisioning it?

The one thing he was reasonably certain of, regarding Richardson and that gentleman’s singular motives, was that he, Grey, wouldn’t be killed until Richardson managed to locate Hal, as his life had value—to Richardson—only as a lever to affect Hal’s actions.

As to those … He scratched absently at his jaw. Richardson didn’t trust him with a razor; his beard was growing out and itched considerably.

Hal had, now and then, made intemperate remarks about the conduct of the war, and had, more than once, threatened to go to England and denounce Lord North to his face about the waste of lives and money. “There are things that need to be said, by God—and I’m one of the few who can say them” was the last such remark Grey had heard from his brother … when was it? Six weeks, at least, perhaps longer.

But John was morally sure that Hal had gone north to find Ben—a conviction supported by the fact that Richardson had so far apparently failed to find him in any of the southern ports. He knew as much from the comings and goings of Richardson’s shore agents; his cabin was directly below the big stern cabin, and while he couldn’t make out many words, the tone of frustration—with the occasional stamp of a boot overhead—couldn’t be mistaken.

How long might it take Hal to find Ben? he wondered. And what the devil would happen when he did? Knowing Hal, the only circumstance in which he would not find his errant son was if the damned boy actually was dead now, whether in battle or from illness—he remembered William’s description of Dr. Hunter’s vaccinating the populace of New Jersey for smallpox.