6
FOR AULD LANG SYNE
ROGER WAITED AT THE EDGE of the clearing, watching Brianna as she stood by Claire’s side, pounding herbs, measuring off liquids into small bottles, and tearing bandages. She had rolled up her sleeves, in spite of the chill, and the effort of ripping the tough linen made the muscles of her bare arms flex and swell beneath the freckled skin.
Strong in the wrists, he thought, with a faintly disturbing memory of Estella in Dickens’s Great Expectations. Noticeably strong all over; the wind flattened her skirt against the solid slope of hips and a long thigh pressed briefly against the fabric as she turned, smooth and round as an alder trunk.
He wasn’t the only one noticing. Half the people waiting for the attention of the two physicians were watching Brianna; some—mostly women—with faint and puzzled frowns, some—all men—with a covert admiration tinged with earthy speculation that gave Roger an urge to step into the clearing and assert his rights to her on the spot.
Well, let them look, he thought, quelling the urge. It only matters if she’s looking back, aye?
He moved out of the trees, just a little, and her head turned at once as she caught sight of him. The slight frown on her face melted at once, her face lighting. He smiled back, then jerked his head in invitation, and turned away down the path, not waiting.
Was he sufficiently petty to want to demonstrate to that gang of gawpers that his woman would drop everything and come at his beck? Well . . . yes, he was. Embarrassment at that realization was tempered by a pleasantly fierce sense of possession at the sound of her step on the path above; yes, she would come to him.
She had left her work behind, but carried something in her hand; a small packet, wrapped in paper and tied with thread. He put out a hand and led her off the path, down toward a small copse where a scrim of tattered red and yellow maple leaves offered a decent semblance of privacy.
“Sorry to take you from your work,” he said, though he wasn’t.
“It’s okay. I was glad to get away. I’m afraid I’m not all that good at blood and guts.” She made a rueful face at the admission.
“That’s all right,” he assured her. “It’s not one of the things I was looking for in a wife.”
“Maybe you should have been,” she said, shooting him a brooding sort of glance. “Here in this place, you might need a wife who can pull your teeth when they go bad, and sew your fingers back on when you cut them off chopping wood.”
The grayness of the day seemed to have affected her spirits—or perhaps it was the job she had been doing. A brief glance at the run of Claire’s patients was enough to depress anyone—anyone but Claire—with their parade of deformities, mutilations, wounds, and ghastly illnesses.
At least what he meant to tell Brianna might take her mind off the more gruesome details of eighteenth-century life for a bit. He cupped her cheek, and smoothed one thick red brow with a chilly thumb. Her face was cold, too, but the flesh behind her ear, beneath her hair, was warm—like her other hidden places.
“I’ve got what I wanted,” he said firmly. “What about you, though? You’re sure ye don’t want a man who can scalp Indians and put dinner on the table with his gun? Blood’s not my main thing, either, aye?”
A spark of humor reappeared in her eyes, and her air of preoccupation lightened.
“No, I don’t think I want a bloody man,” she said. “That’s what Mama calls Da—but only when she’s mad at him.”
He laughed.
“And what will you call me, when you’re mad at me?” he teased. She looked at him speculatively, and the spark grew brighter.
“Oh, don’t worry; Da won’t teach me any bad words in Gaelic, but Marsali taught me a lot of really evil things to say in French. Do you know what un soulard is? Un grande gueule?”
“Oui, ma petite chou—not that I’ve ever seen a cabbage with quite such a red nose.” He flicked a finger at her nose, and she ducked, laughing.
“Maudit chien!”
“Save something for after the wedding,” he advised. “Ye might need it.” He took her hand, to draw her toward a convenient boulder, then noticed again the small package she held.
“What’s that?”
“A wedding present,” she said, and held it out to him with two fingers, distasteful as though it had been a dead mouse.
He took it gingerly, but felt no sinister shapes through the paper. He bounced it on his palm; it was light, almost weightless.
“Embroidery silk,” she said, in answer to his questioning look. “From Mrs. Buchanan.” The frown was back between her brows, and that look of . . . worry? No, something else, but damned if he could put a name to it.
“What’s wrong with embroidery silk?”
“Nothing. It’s what it’s for.” She took the package from him, and tucked it into the pocket she wore tied under her petticoat. She was looking down, rearranging her skirts, but he could see the tightness of her lips. “She said it’s for our winding claes.”
Spoken in Brianna’s odd version of a Bostonian Scots accent, it took a moment for Roger to decipher this.
“Winding cl—oh, you mean shrouds?”
“Yes. Evidently, it’s my wifely duty to sit down the morning after the wedding and start spinning cloth for my shroud.” She bit the words off through clenched teeth. “That way, I’ll have it woven and embroidered by the time I die in childbirth. And if I’m a fast worker, I’ll have time to make one for you, too—otherwise, your next wife will have to finish it!”
He would have laughed, had it not been clear that she was really upset.
“Mrs. Buchanan is a great fool,” he said, taking her hands. “You should not be letting her worry you with her nonsense.” Brianna glanced at him under lowered brows.
“Mrs. Buchanan,” she said precisely, “is ignorant, stupid, and tactless. The one thing she isn’t is wrong.”
“Of course she is,” he said, with assumed certainty, feeling nonetheless a stab of apprehension.
“How many wives has Farquard Campbell buried?” she demanded. “Gideon Oliver? Andrew MacNeill?”
Nine, among the three of them. MacNeill would take a fourth wife this evening—an eighteen-year-old girl from Weaver’s Gorge. The stab came again, deeper, but he ignored it.
“And Jenny ban Campbell’s borne eight children and deviled two husbands into the ground,” he countered firmly. “For that matter, Mrs. Buchanan herself has five bairns, and she’s certainly still kicking. I’ve seen them; turnip-headed to a man, but all healthy.”
That got him a reluctant twitch of the mouth, and he pressed on, encouraged.
“You’ve no need to fear, hen. You had no trouble with Jemmy, aye?”
“Yeah? Well, if you think it’s no trouble, next time you can do it!” she snapped, but the corner of her mouth curled slightly up. She tugged at his hand, but he held on, and she didn’t resist.
“So you’re willing there should be a next time, are you? Mrs. Buchanan notwithstanding?” His tone was deliberately light, but he drew her close and held her, his face hidden in her hair, for fear she should see how much the question meant to him.
She wasn’t fooled. She drew back a little, and her eyes, blue as water, searched his.
“You’d marry me, but live celibate?” she asked. “That’s the only sure way. The tansy oil doesn’t always work—look at Marsali!” The existence of baby Joan was eloquent testimony to the ineffectiveness of that particular method of birth control. Still . . .
“There are other ways, I expect,” he said. “But if you want celibacy—then yes, you’ll have it.”
She laughed, because his hand had tightened possessively on her arse, even as his lips renounced it. Then the laughter faded, and the blue of her eyes grew darker, clouded.
“You mean it, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said, and did, though the thought of it lay heavy in his chest, like a swallowed stone.
She sighed, and drew her hand down the side of his face, tracing the line of his neck, the hollow of his throat. Her thumb pressed against his hammering pulse, so he felt the beat of it, magnified in his blood.
He meant it, but he bent his head to hers and took her mouth, so short of breath he must have hers, needing so urgently to join with her that he would do it in whatever way he might—hands, breath, mouth, arms; his thigh pressed between hers, opening her legs. Her hand lay flat against his chest, as though to push him off—then tightened convulsively, grasping shirt and flesh together. Her fingers dug deep in the muscle of his breast, and then they were glued together, openmouthed and gasping, front teeth scraping painfully in the flurry of their wanting.
“I don’t . . . we’re not . . .” He broke free for a moment, his mind grasping dimly for the fragments of words. Then her hand found its way under his kilt, a cold, sure touch on his heated flesh, and he lost all power of speech.
“Once more before we quit,” she said, and her breath wreathed him in heat and mist. “For old times’ sake.” She sank to her knees in the wet yellow leaves, pulling him down to her.
IT HAD STARTED raining again; her hair lay tumbled round her, streaked with damp. Her eyes were closed, her face upturned to the drizzling heavens, and raindrops struck her face, rolling down like tears. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, in fact.
Roger lay with her, half on her, his weight a warm and solid comfort, his kilt spread over their tangled bare legs, protection from the rain. Her hand cupped the back of his head and stroked his hair, wet and sleek as a black seal’s fur.
He stirred then, with a groan like a wounded bear, and lifted himself. A draft of cold air struck her newly exposed body, damp and heated where they had touched.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” She opened one eye to a slit; he rose to his knees above her, swaying, and bent to pull her crumpled skirt down into decency. He’d lost his stock, and the cut under his jaw had reopened. She’d torn his shirt, and his waistcoat hung open, half its buttons gone. He was streaked with mud and blood and there were dead leaves and acorn fragments in the waves of his loose black hair.
“It’s all right,” she said, and sat up. She was in no better case; her breasts were heavy with milk, and huge wet spots had soaked through the fabric of shift and bodice, chilling her skin. Roger saw, and picked up her fallen cloak, draping it gently around her shoulders.
“Sorry,” he said again, and reached to brush the tangled hair from her face; his hand was cold against her cheek.
“It’s okay,” she said, trying to gather all the stray fragments of herself that seemed to be rolling round the tiny clearing like beads of mercury. “It’s only six months, and I’m still nursing Jemmy. It’s—I mean, I think it’s still safe.” But for how much longer? she wondered. Little jolts of desire still shot through her, mingled with spurts of dread.
She had to touch him. She picked up one corner of her cloak and pressed it to the seeping wound beneath his jaw. Celibacy? When the feel of him, the smell of him, the memory of the last few minutes, made her want to knock him flat in the leaves and do it all again? When tenderness for him welled up in her like the milk that rushed unbidden to her breasts?
Her breasts ached with unsatisfied desire, and she felt dribbles of milk run tickling down her ribs beneath the cloth. She touched one breast, heavy and swollen, her guarantee of safety—for a while.
Roger put away her hand, reaching up to touch the cut.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s stopped bleeding.” He wore the oddest expression—or expressions. Normally his face was pleasantly reserved, even a little stern. Now his features seemed unable to settle themselves, shifting from moment to moment between a look of undeniable satisfaction and one of just as undeniable dismay.
“What’s the matter, Roger?”
He shot her a quick glance, then looked away, a slight flush rising in his cheeks.
“Oh,” he said. “Well. It’s only that we . . . er . . . we aren’t actually married at the moment.”
“Well, of course not. The wedding’s not ’til tonight. Speaking of which . . .” She looked at Roger, and a bubble of laughter rose from the pit of her stomach. “Oh, dear,” she said, fighting back a fit of giggles. “You look like somebody’s had their will of you in the woods, Mr. MacKenzie.”
“Very funny, Mrs. Mac,” he said, eyeing her own bedraggled state. “Ye’ve been in a rare fight, too, by the looks of you. But what I meant was that we’ve been handfast for the last year—and that’s legally binding, in Scotland at least. But the year and a day have been up for a bit—and we’re not formally married ’til this evening.”
She squinted at him, wiping rain out of her eyes with the back of one hand, and once more gave way to the urge to laugh.
“My God, you think it matters?”
He grinned back, a little reluctantly.
“Well, no. It’s only I’m a preacher’s lad; I know it’s fine—but somewhere inside is an old Scotch Calvinist, muttering that it’s just a wee bit wicked, to be carrying on so with a woman not really my wife.”
“Ha,” she said, and settled her arms comfortably on her drawn-up knees. She leaned to one side and nudged him gently.
“Old Scotch Calvinist, my ass. What is it, really?”
He wouldn’t look directly at her, but kept his eyes down, looking at the ground. Droplets glittered on his strongly marked dark brows and lashes, gilding the skin of his cheekbones with silver. He drew a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
“I can’t say you’re not right to be afraid,” he said quietly. “I hadn’t realized—not really thought about it before today—just how dangerous marriage is for a woman.” He looked up and smiled at her, though the look of worry stayed in his moss-green eyes.
“I want you, Bree—more than I can say. It’s only that I was thinking of what we just did and how fine it was—and realizing that I’ll maybe—no, I will—be risking your life if I keep on doing it. But damned if I want to stop!”
The small strands of dread had coalesced into a cold snake that ran down her backbone and coiled deep in her belly, twisting around her womb. She knew what he wanted, and it wasn’t only the thing they’d just shared—powerful as that was. Knowing what he wanted, though—and why—how could she hesitate to give it to him?
“Yeah.” She took a breath to match his, and blew it out in a plume of white. “Well, it’s too late to worry about that, I think.” She looked at him and touched his arm. “I want you, Roger.” She pulled down his head and kissed him, taking comfort from her fears in the strength of his arm around her, the warmth of his body beside her.
“Oh, God, Bree,” he murmured into her hair. “I want to tell you that I’ll keep you safe, save you and Jemmy from anything that might threaten you—ever. It’s a terrible thing, to think it might be me that would be the threat, that I could kill you with my love—but it’s true.”
His heart was beating under her ear, solid and steady. She felt the warmth return to her hands, clasped tight on the bones of his back, and the thaw reached deeper, uncoiling some of the frozen strands of fear inside her.
“It’s all right,” she said at last, wanting to offer him the comfort he could not quite give her. “I’m sure it’ll be okay. I’ve got the hips for it, everybody says so. Jugbutt, that’s me.” She ran a hand ruefully down the lush swell of one hip, and he smiled, following her hand with his own.
“You know what Ronnie Sinclair said to me last night? He was watching you bend down to pick up a stick of wood for the fire, and he sighed and said, ‘Ye ken how to pick a good lass, MacKenzie? Start at the bottom and work your way up!’ Oof!” He recoiled, laughing, as she slugged him.
Then he bent and kissed her, very gently. The rain was still falling, pattering on the layer of dead leaves. Her fingers were sticky with the blood from his wound.
“You want a baby, don’t you?” she asked softly. “One you know is yours?”
He kept his head bent for a moment, but at last looked up at her, letting her see the answer in his face; a great yearning, mingled with anxious concern.
“I don’t mean—” he began, but she put a hand across his mouth to stop him.
“I know,” she said. “I understand.” She did—almost. She was an only child, as he was; she knew the yearning for connection and closeness—but hers had been gratified. She had had not one loving father but two. A mother who had loved her beyond the bounds of space and time. The Murrays of Lallybroch, that unexpected gift of family. And most of all, her son, her flesh, her blood, a small and trusting weight that anchored her firmly to the universe.
But Roger was an orphan, alone in the world for such a long time. His parents gone before he knew them, his old uncle dead—he had no one to claim him, no one to love him for the sake only of his flesh and bone—no one save her. Little wonder if he hungered for the certainty she held in her arms when she nursed her child.
He cleared his throat suddenly.
“I—ah—I was going to give ye this tonight. But maybe . . . well.” He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and handed her a soft bundle, wrapped in cloth.
“Sort of a wedding present, aye?” He was smiling, but she could see the uncertainty in his eyes.
She opened the cloth, and a pair of black button eyes looked up at her. The doll wore a shapeless smock of green calico, and red-yarn hair exploded from its head. Her heart beat heavily in her chest, and her throat tightened.
“I thought the wean might like it—to chew on, perhaps.”
She moved, and the pressure of the sodden fabric on her breasts made them tingle. She was afraid, all right; but there were things stronger than fear.
“There’ll be a next time,” she said, and laid a hand on his arm. “I can’t say when—but there will.”
He laid his hand on hers and squeezed it tight, not looking at her.
“Thanks, Jugbutt,” he said at last, very softly.