IT TOOK NO little time to get organized for the journey back to the Ridge. It was a two-day ride; on foot, with goats, it would likely take four. But we had food and blankets, and the weather was fine. No one was in a hurry—certainly not the goats, who were inclined to pause for a quick mouthful of anything in reach.
The peace of the road and the company of my companions did a great deal to settle my disturbed feelings. Rachel’s imitation over supper of Ian’s expressions on suddenly meeting Mrs. Sylvie and the Wurms did even more, and I fell asleep by the fire within moments of lying down, and slept without dreaming.
WOMAN, WILT THOU LIE WITH ME?
IAN COULDN’T TELL whether Rachel was amused, appalled, angry, or all three. This discomfited him. He usually did know what she thought of things, because she told him; she wasn’t the sort of woman—he’d known a few—who expected a man to read her mind and got fashed when he didn’t.
She’d kept her own counsel on the matter of Mrs. Sylvie and the Wurms, though. They’d done their wee bit of business, trading two bottles of whisky for salt, sugar, nails, needles, thread, a hoe blade, and a bolt of pink gingham, and he’d bought her a dilled cucumber that was as long as the span of his outstretched fingers. She’d thanked him for this but hadn’t said much else on the way home. She was presently licking the vegetable in a meditative sort of way as she rocked along on Clarence.
It fascinated him to watch her do that, and he nearly walked straight off a steep rocky outcrop doing so. She turned round at his exclamation as he scrabbled for footing, though, and smiled at him, so she maybe wasn’t that bothered about Sylvie.
“D’ye no mean to eat that?” he inquired, coming up beside her stirrup.
“I do,” she said calmly, “but all in good time.” She licked the substantial length of the warty green thing with a long, slow swipe of her tongue and then—holding his eyes—sucked deliberately on the end of it. He walked straight into a springy pine branch, which swiped him across the face with its needles.
He swore, rubbing at his watering eyes. She was laughing!
“Ye did that on purpose, Rachel Murray!”
“Is thee accusing me of propelling thee into a tree?” she inquired, arching one brow. “Thee is an experienced Indian scout, or so I was led to believe. Surely one of those should look where he’s going.”
She had pulled Clarence to a stop—Clarence was always agreeable to stopping, particularly if there was anything edible in sight—and sat there smiling at Ian, cheeky as a monkey.
“Give me that, aye?” She handed him the pickle willingly, wiping her damp hand on her thigh. He took a large bite, his mouth flooded with garlic and dill and vinegar. Then he jammed the cucumber into one of the saddlebags and extended a hand to her. “Come down here.”
“Why?” she asked. She was still smiling, but her body had shifted, leaning toward him but making no effort to get off. He understood that sort of conversation and reached up, took her by what was left of her waist, and pulled her off in a flurry of skirts. He paused for an instant to swallow the bite of pickle, then kissed her thoroughly, a hand on her bottom. Her hair smelled of pinecones, chicken feathers, and the soft soap Auntie Claire called shampoo, and he could taste the German sausage they’d had for lunch, under the veil of pickling spice.
Her arms were round his neck, her belly pressed against him, and quite suddenly he felt a small hard shove in his own belly. He looked down in astonishment, and Rachel giggled. He hadn’t realized that she wasn’t wearing stays; her breasts were bound with a simple band under her shift, but her belly was just there, round and firm as a pumpkin under her gown.
“He—or she—is wakeful,” she said, putting a hand on her bulge, which was moving slightly as tiny limbs poked experimentally here and there inside her. This was always fascinating in its own way, but Ian was still under the influence of her pickle-sucking.
“I’ll rock him back to sleep for ye,” he whispered in her ear, and, bending, lifted her in his arms. Nearly eight months gone, she was noticeably heavy, but he managed with no more than a slight grunt and, with a care to low-hanging branches and loose stones, carried her off into the forest, leaving Clarence to graze on a succulent clump of muhly grass.
“I RATHER HOPE that it wasn’t the meeting with thy former paramour that caused this outbreak of passion,” Rachel remarked a short time later, flicking a wandering wood louse off her husband’s forearm, which was just by her face. They were lying on their sides on Ian’s plaid, naked and cupped together like spoons in a box. It was cool under the trees, but she seemed never to grow cold these days; the child was like a small furnace—doubtless taking after its father, she thought. Ian’s skin was usually warm, but for him the heat of passion was no mere metaphor; he blazed when they lay together.
“She’s no my paramour,” Ian murmured into her hair, and kissed the back of her ear. “It was only a commercial transaction.”
She didn’t like hearing that and stiffened a little.
“I did tell ye I’d gone wi’ whores.” Ian’s voice was quiet, but she could hear the slight reproach in it. “Would ye rather I had discarded lovers strewn about the countryside?”
She took a breath, relaxed, and stretched her neck to kiss the back of his long, sun-browned hand.
“No, it’s true—thee did tell me,” she admitted. “And while there is some small part of me that could wish thee came to me virgin, chaste and untouched . . . honesty obliges me to acknowledge some gratitude for the lessons learned from the likes of Mrs. Sylvie.” She wanted to ask whether he’d learned the things he’d just been doing to her from Mrs. Sylvie or perhaps from his Indian wife—but she had no wish to bring any thought of Works With Her Hands between them.
His hand lifted and cupped her breast, playing very gently with her nipple, and she squirmed involuntarily—a slow, insinuating squirm that thrust her buttocks back against him. Her nipples were very large these days and so sensitive that they couldn’t bear the rubbing of stays. She squirmed again, and he laughed under his breath and rolled her over to face him so he could take her nipple in his mouth.
“Dinna make noises like that,” he murmured against her skin. “The others will be comin’ along the trail any time now.”
“What—will they think when they see Clarence alone?”
“If anyone asks later, we’ll say we were gatherin’ mushrooms.”
THEY MUSTN’T STAY much longer, she knew that. But she longed to stay like this forever—or at least for five minutes more. Ian lay once more behind her, warm and strong. But his hand was now on her stomach, tenderly stroking the rounded mystery of the child within.
He might have thought she was asleep. Perhaps he didn’t mind if she heard him. He spoke in the Gàidhlig, though, and while she didn’t yet know enough of the tongue to make out all he said, she knew it was a prayer. “A Dhia” meant “O God.” And of course she knew what it was he prayed for.
“It’s all right,” she said to him softly, when he had stopped, and put her hand over his.
“What is?”
“That thee should think of thy first child—children. I know thee does. And I know how much thee fears for this one,” she added, still more softly.
He sighed deeply, his breath, still scented with dill and garlic, warm on her neck.
“Ye turn my heart to water, lass—and should anything happen to you or to wee Oggy, it would punch a hole in me that would let my life run out.”
She wanted to tell him that nothing would happen to them, that she wouldn’t let it. But that was taking things upon herself that weren’t hers to promise.
“Our lives are in God’s hand,” she said, squeezing his. “And whatever happens, we will be with thee forever.”
DRESSED AGAIN, and as seemly as fingers combed through hair could make them, they reached the trail just as Claire and Jenny made their way around the bend, carrying packs and each leading two milch goats, friendly creatures who set up a loud mehh of greeting as they spotted the two strangers.
Rachel saw Ian’s mother glance sharply at her son, and then her dark-blue gaze lifted at once to Rachel, perched on Clarence’s back. She gave Rachel a smile that said, as plain as words, that she knew exactly what they’d been doing and found it funny. Warm blood rose in Rachel’s cheeks, but she kept her composure and inclined her head graciously to Jenny—in spite of the fact that Friends did not bow their heads save in worship.
Still blushing, she’d paid no attention to Claire, but after they had gone far enough ahead of the older women and the goats so as not to be overheard, Ian lifted his chin and gestured over his shoulder with it.
“Does aught seem amiss wi’ Auntie Claire, d’ye think?”
“I didn’t notice. What does thee mean?”
Ian lifted a shoulder, frowning slightly.
“I canna say, quite. She was herself on the way to the trading post and when we first got there, but when she came back from hagglin’ for the goats, she looked . . . different.” He struggled to find words to explain what he meant.
“No quite what ye’d say someone looks like if they’ve seen a ghost—not scairt, I mean. But . . . stunned, maybe? Surprised, or maybe shocked. But then when she saw me, she tried to act as though it was all as usual, and I was busy takin’ the bundles out and forgot about it.”
He turned his head again, looking over his shoulder, but the trail behind was empty. A faint mehhhh filtered down through the trees behind them, and he smiled—but his eyes were troubled.
“Ken—Auntie Claire canna hide things verra well. Uncle Jamie always says she’s got a glass face, and it’s true. Whatever it is she saw back there . . . I think it’s with her, still.”
THE DEEPEST FEELING ALWAYS SHOWS ITSELF IN SILENCE
IT WAS SOMETIME in the midafternoon of the third day that Jenny cleared her throat in a significant manner. We had paused by a creek where the wild grass grew long and thick and were dabbling our tired feet in the water, watching the hobbled goats disport themselves. One seldom goes to the trouble of hobbling a goat, since they can, if they want to, chew their way free in a matter of seconds. In the present instance, though, there was too much food available for them to want to waste time in eating rope, and the hobbles would keep them within our sight.
“Got something caught in your throat?” I inquired pleasantly. “Luckily there’s plenty of water.”
She made a Scottish noise indicating polite appreciation of this feeble attempt at wit and, reaching into her pocket, withdrew a very battered silver flask and uncorked it. I could smell the liquor from where I sat—a local forerunner of bourbon, I thought.
“Did you bring that with you from Scotland?” I asked, accepting the flask, which had a crude fleur-de-lis on the side.
“Aye, it was Ian’s. He had it from when he and Jamie were soldiering in France; brought it back wi’ him when he lost his leg. We’d sit on the wall by his da’s house and share a dram, while he was mending; he’d need it, poor lad, after I made him walk up and down the road ten times every day, to learn the use of his peg.” She smiled, slanted eyes creasing, but with a wistful turn to her lips.
“I said I wouldna marry him, aye? Unless he could stand up beside me at the altar on two legs and walk me up the aisle after the vows.”
I laughed.
“That’s not quite the way he told it.” I took a cautious sip, but the liquid inside was amazingly good, fiery but smooth. “Where did you get this?”
“A man named Gibbs, from Aberdeenshire. Ye wouldna think they ken anything about whisky-making there, but doubtless he learnt it somewhere else. He lives in a place called Hogue Corners; d’ye ken it?”
“No, but it can’t be that far away. It’s his own make, is it? Jamie would be interested.” I took a second mouthful and handed back the flask, holding the whisky in my mouth to savor.
“Aye, I thought so, too. I have a wee bottle for him in my sack.” She sipped and nodded approvingly. “Who was the dirty fat lumpkin that scairt ye at Beardsley’s?”
I choked on the whisky, swallowed it the wrong way, and nearly coughed my lungs out in consequence. Jenny put down the flask, kirtled up her skirts, and waded into the creek, sousing her hankie in the cold water; she handed it to me, then cupped water in her hand and poured a little into my mouth.
“Lucky there’s plenty of water, as ye said,” she remarked. “Here, have a bit more.” I nodded, eyes streaming, but pulled up my skirts, got down on my knees, and drank for myself, pausing to breathe between mouthfuls, until I stopped wheezing.
“I wasna in any doubt, mind,” Jenny said, watching this performance. “But if I had been, I wouldn’t be now. Who is he?”
“I don’t bloody know,” I said crossly, climbing back on my rock. Jenny wasn’t one to be daunted by tones of voice, though, and merely raised one gull-wing-shaped brow.
“I don’t,” I repeated, a little more calmly. “I—had just seen him somewhere else. I have no idea who he is, though.”
She was examining me with the interested air of a scientist with a new microorganism trapped under her microscope.
“Aye, aye. And where was it ye saw the fellow before? Because ye certainly kent him this time. Ye were fair gobsmacked.”
“If I thought it would make the slightest bit of difference, I’d tell you it’s none of your business,” I said, giving her a look. “Give me that flask, will you?”
She gave it to me, watching patiently while I took several tiny sips and made up my mind what to say. At last I drew a deep, whisky-scented breath and gave her back the flask.
“Thank you. I don’t know whether Jamie told you that about five years ago a gang of bandits who were terrorizing the countryside came through the Ridge. They burnt our malting shed—or tried to—and hurt Marsali. And they—they took me. Hostage.”
Jenny handed back the flask, not speaking, but with a look of deep sympathy in her dark-blue eyes.
“Jamie . . . got me back. He brought men with him, and there was a terrible fight. Most of the gang was killed, but—obviously a few got away in the darkness. That—that man was one of them. No, it’s all right, I don’t need any more.” I’d held the flask like a talisman of courage while I told her but now handed it back. She took a long, meditative swallow.
“But ye didna try to find out his name? Folk there kent him, I could see; they’d have told ye.”
“I don’t want to know!” I spoke loudly enough that one of the goats nearby emitted a startled meh-eh-eh! and bounded over a tussock of grass, evidently not discommoded at all by its hobbles.
“I—it doesn’t matter,” I said, less loudly but no less firmly. “The—ringleaders—are all dead; so are most of the others. This fellow . . . he . . . well, you can tell by looking at him, can’t you? What did you call him—‘a dirty fat lumpkin’? That’s just what he is. He’s no danger to us. I just—want to forget about him,” I ended, rather lamely.
She nodded, stifled a small belch, looked startled at the sound, and, shaking her head, corked the flask and put it away.
We sat for a bit in silence, listening to the rush of water and the birds in the trees behind us. There was a mockingbird somewhere nearby, running through its lengthy repertoire in a voice like brass.
After ten minutes or so, Jenny stretched, arching her back and sighing.
“Ye’ll remember my daughter Maggie?” she asked.
“I do,” I said, smiling a little. “I delivered her. Or, rather, I caught her. You did the work.”
“So ye did,” she said, splashing one foot in the water. “I’d forgotten.”
I gave her a sharp look. If she had, it would be the first thing she ever had forgotten, at least to my knowledge, and I didn’t think she was old enough to have begun forgetting things now.
“She was raped,” she said, eyes on the water and her voice very steady. “Not badly—the man didna beat her—but she got wi’ child by him.”
“How terrible,” I said quietly, after a pause. “It—not a government soldier, though, surely?” That had been my first thought—but Maggie would have been no more than a child during the years of the Rising and Cumberland’s clearing of the Highlands, when the British army had burned, plundered, and, yes, indeed, raped their way through any number of villages and crofts.
“No, it wasn’t,” Jenny said thoughtfully. “It was her husband’s brother.”
“Oh, God!”
“Aye, that’s what I said about it, when she told me.” She grimaced. “That was the one good thing about it, though; Geordie—that was the brother—had the same color hair and eyes as her husband, Paul, so the bairn could be passed off easy enough.”
“And—did she?” I couldn’t help asking. “Pass it off?”
Jenny let out a long sigh and nodded, taking her feet out of the water and tucking them up beneath her petticoat.
“She asked me what to do, poor lassie. I prayed about it—God, I prayed!” she said, with sudden violence, then snorted a little. “And I told her not to tell him—tell Paul, I mean. For if she did, what would be the end of it? One of them dead—for a Hieland man canna live wi’ a man who’s raped his wife nearby, nor should he—and it might be Paul, as like as not. And even if he only beat Geordie and drove him off, everyone would get to know what was behind it, and the poor wee lad—that was Wally, though of course we didna ken that yet, whilst we were talking it over—but the bairn branded as a bastard and the child of rape—what would become of it?”
She leaned down and, scooping up a handful of water, threw it over her face. She put her head back, eyes closed and the water running off her high, sharp cheekbones, and shook her head.
“And the family—Paul and Geordie’s? A thing like that would tear them to pieces—and put them at loggerheads wi’ us, nay doubt, for they’d be insisting up and down that Maggie was lying, rather than believe such a thing. Fat-heided creatures, the Carmichaels,” she said judiciously. “Loyal enough, but stubborn as rocks.”
“Thus sayeth a Fraser,” I remarked. “The Carmichaels must be something special in that line.”
Jenny snorted but didn’t reply for a moment or two.
“So,” she said at last, turning to look at me, “I said to Maggie that I’d prayed about it, and it seemed to me that if she could bear it for the sake of her man and her bairns, she should say nothing. Try to forgive Geordie if she could, and if she couldn’t, keep away from him—but say nothing. And that’s what she did.”
“What—did Geordie do?” I asked curiously. “Did he—does he know that Wally is his son?”
She shook her head.
“I dinna ken. He left, a month after the bairn was born—emigrated to Canada. No one was surprised at that; everyone kent he was mad in love wi’ Maggie and beside himself when she chose Paul. I expect that made it easier.”
“Out of sight, out of mind? Yes, I’d suppose so,” I said dryly. I thought I shouldn’t ask but couldn’t help myself. “Did Maggie ever tell Paul—after Geordie left, I mean?”
She shook her head and stood up, a little stiffly, shaking down her skirts.
“I dinna ken for sure, but I dinna think so. For her to tell him, after so long of keeping silent . . . how would he take that? And he’d still hate his brother, even if he couldna kill him right away.” Her blue eyes, so like Jamie’s, looked at me with rueful amusement. “Ye canna have been marrit to a Hieland man all these years and not ken how deep they can hate. Come on—we’d best gather these creatures before they burst.” And she waded off into the grass, shoes in her hand, calling out a Gàidhlig charm for gathering livestock:
“The Three who are above in the City of glory,
Be shepherding my flock and my kine,
Tending them duly in heat, in storm, and in cold,
With the blessing of power driving them down
From yonder height to the sheiling fold.”