A Breath of Snow and Ashes (128 page)

80

THE WORLD TURNED
UPSIDE DOWN

C
OLONEL ASHE’S MAN HAD also brought word of a congress to be held in Mecklenberg County, to take place in mid-May, with the intent to declare the county’s official independence from the King of England.

Aware of the fact that he was still viewed with skepticism by not a few leaders of what had now suddenly become “the rebellion,” despite the stout personal support of John Ashe and a few other friends, Jamie made up his mind to attend this congress and speak openly in support of the measure.

Roger, absolutely blazing with suppressed excitement at this, his first chance to witness recorded history in the making, was to go with him.

A few days before their scheduled departure, though, everyone’s attention was distracted from the prospect of history by the more immediate present: the entire Christie family arrived suddenly at the front door, soon after breakfast.

Something had happened; Allan Christie was flushed with agitation, Tom grim and gray as an old wolf. Malva had clearly been crying, and her face went red and white by turns. I greeted her, but she looked away from me, lips trembling, as Jamie invited them into his study, gesturing them to sit.

“What is it, Tom?” He glanced briefly at Malva—plainly she was the focus of this family emergency—but gave his attention to Tom, as patriarch.

Tom Christie’s mouth was pressed so tight that it was barely visible in the depths of his neatly clipped beard.

“My daughter finds herself with child,” he said abruptly.

“Oh?” Jamie cast another brief glance at Malva—who stood with capped head bowed, looking down at her clasped hands—then looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Ah. Well . . . there’s a good bit of it going about, to be sure,” he said, and smiled kindly, in an effort to ease the Christies, all of whom were quivering like beads on a tight-pulled wire.

I was myself less than startled to hear the news, though naturally concerned. Malva had always attracted a great deal of attention from young men, and while both her brother and father had been vigilant in preventing any open courting, the only way of keeping young men away altogether would have been to lock her in a dungeon.

Who had the successful suitor been? I wondered. Obadiah Henderson? Bobby, perhaps? One of the McMurchie brothers? Not—please God—both of them, I hoped. All of these—and not a few others—had been obvious in their admiration.

Tom Christie received Jamie’s attempt at pleasantry with stony silence, though Allan made a poor attempt at a smile. He was nearly as pale as his sister.

Jamie coughed.

“Well, so. Is there some way in which I might help, then, Tom?”

“She says,” Christie began gruffly, with a piercing look at his daughter, “that she will not name the man, save in your presence.” He turned the look on Jamie, thick with dislike.

“In my presence?” Jamie coughed again, clearly embarrassed at the obvious implication—that Malva thought her male relatives would either beat her or proceed to do violence upon her lover, unless the presence of the landlord constrained them. Personally, I thought that particular fear was probably well founded, and gave Tom Christie a narrow look of my own. Had he already tried, and failed, to beat the truth out of her?

Malva was not making any attempt at divulging the name of the father of her child, Jamie’s presence notwithstanding. She merely pleated her apron between her fingers, over and over, eyes fixed on her hands.

I cleared my throat delicately.

“How—um—how far gone are you, my dear?”

She didn’t answer directly, but pressed both hands, shaking, against her apron front, smoothing down the cloth so that the round bulge of her pregnancy was suddenly visible, smooth and melonlike, surprisingly large. Six months, perhaps; I was startled. Clearly, she’d delayed telling her father for as long as she possibly could—and hidden it well.

The silence was well beyond awkward. Allan shifted uncomfortably on his stool, and leaned forward to murmur reassuringly to his sister.

“It’ll be all right, Mallie,” he whispered. “Ye’ve got to say, though.”

She took a huge gulp of air at that, and raised her head. Her eyes were reddened, but still very beautiful, and wide with apprehension.

“Oh, sir,” she said, but then stopped dead.

Jamie was by now looking nearly as uncomfortable as the Christies, but did his best to keep his air of kindness.

“Will ye not tell me, then, lass?” he said, as gently as possible. “I promise ye’ll not suffer for it.”

Tom Christie made an irritable noise, like some beast of prey disturbed at its meal, and Malva went very pale indeed, but her eyes stayed fixed on Jamie.

“Oh, sir,” she said, and her voice was small but clear as a bell, ringing with reproach. “Oh, sir, how can ye say that to me, when ye ken the truth as well as I do?” Before anyone could react to that, she turned to her father, and lifting a hand, pointed directly at Jamie.

“It was him,” she said.

I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO grateful for anything in life as for the fact that I was looking at Jamie’s face when she said it. He had no warning, no chance to control his features—and he didn’t. His face showed neither anger nor fear, denial or surprise; nothing save the open-mouthed blankness of absolute incomprehension.

“What?” he said, and blinked, once. Then realization flooded into his face.

“WHAT?” he said, in a tone that should have knocked the little trollop flat on her lying little bottom.

She
blinked then, and cast down her eyes, the very picture of virtue shamed. She turned, as though unable to bear his gaze, and stretched out a tremulous hand toward me.

“I’m
so
sorry, Mrs. Fraser,” she whispered, tears trembling becomingly on her lashes. “He—we—we didna mean to hurt ye.”

I watched with interest from somewhere outside my body, as my arm lifted and drew back, and felt a sense of vague approval as my hand struck her cheek with enough force that she stumbled backward, tripped over a stool, and fell, her petticoats tumbled up to her waist in a froth of linen, wool-stockinged legs sticking absurdly up in the air.

“Can’t say the same, I’m afraid.” I hadn’t even thought of saying anything, and was surprised to feel the words in my mouth, cool and round as river stones.

Suddenly, I was back in my body. I felt as though my stays had tightened during my temporary absence; my ribs ached with the effort to breathe. Liquid surged in every direction; blood and lymph, sweat and tears—if I did draw breath, my skin would give way and let it all spurt out, like the contents of a ripe tomato, thrown against a wall.

I had no bones. But I had will. That alone held me upright and saw me out the door. I didn’t see the corridor or realize that I had pushed open the front door of the house; all I saw was a sudden blaze of light and a blur of green in the dooryard and then I was running, running as though all the demons of hell coursed at my heels.

In fact, no one pursued me. And yet I ran, plunging off the trail and into the wood, feet sliding in the layers of slippery needles down the runnels between stones, half-falling down the slope of the hill, caroming painfully off fallen logs, wrenching free of thorns and brush.

I arrived breathless at the bottom of a hill and found myself in a dark, small hollow walled by the towering black-green of rhododendrons. I paused, gasping for breath, then sat down abruptly. I felt myself wobble, and let go, ending on my back among the dusty layers of leathery mountain laurel leaves.

A faint thought echoed in my mind, under the sound of my gasping breath.
The guilty flee, where no man pursues.
But
I
surely wasn’t guilty. Nor was Jamie; I knew that. Knew it.

But Malva was certainly pregnant. Someone was guilty.

My eyes were blurred from running and the sunlight starred into fractured slabs and streaks of color—dark blue, light blue, white and gray, pinwheels of green and gold as the cloudy sky and the mountainside spun round and round above me.

I blinked hard, unshed tears sliding down my temples.

“Bloody, bloody, fucking hell,” I said very softly. “Now what?”

JAMIE STOOPED WITHOUT thought, seized the girl by the elbows, and hauled her unceremoniously to her feet. Her one cheek bore a crimson patch where Claire had struck her, and for an instant, he had a strong urge to give her one to match on the other side.

He hadn’t the chance either to quell that desire or to execute it; a hand seized his shoulder to yank him round, and it was reflex alone that made him dodge aside as Allan Christie’s fist glanced off the side of his head, catching him painfully on the tip of the ear. He pushed the young man hard in the chest with both hands, then hooked a heel behind his calf as he staggered, and Allan dropped on his backside with a thud that shook the room.

Jamie stepped back, a hand to his throbbing ear, and glared at Tom Christie, who was standing staring at him like Lot’s wife.

Jamie’s free left hand was clenched in a fist, and he raised it a little, in invitation. Christie’s eyes narrowed further, but he made no move toward Jamie.

“Get up,” Christie said to his son. “And keep your fists to yourself. There’s nay need for that now.”

“Isn’t there?” cried the lad, scrambling to his feet. “He’s made a whore of your daughter, and you’ll let him stand? Well, and ye’ll play coward, auld man, I’ll not!”

He lunged at Jamie, wild-eyed, hands grabbing for his throat. Jamie stepped to the side, shifted weight back on one leg, and hooked the lad in the liver with a vicious left that drove his wame into his backbone and doubled him over with a
whoof.
Allan stared up at him, open-mouthed and the whites of his eyes showing all round, then subsided onto his knees with a thud, mouth opening and closing like a fish’s.

It might have been comical under other circumstances, but Jamie felt no disposition to laugh. He wasted no more time on either of the men, but swung round on Malva.

“So, what mischief is this ye’re about,
nighean na galladh
?” he said to her. It was a serious insult, and Tom Christie knew what it meant, Gaelic or not; Jamie could see Christie stiffen, in the corner of his eye.

The girl herself was already in tears, and burst into sobs at this.

“How can ye speak to me so?” she wailed, and clutched her apron to her face. “How can ye be so cruel?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said crossly. He shoved a stool in her direction. “Sit, ye wee loon, and we’ll hear the truth of whatever ye think ye’re up to. Mr. Christie?” He glanced at Tom, nodded toward another stool, and went to take his own chair, ignoring Allan, who had collapsed onto the floor and was curled up on his side like a kitten, holding his belly.

“Sir?”

Mrs. Bug, hearing the racket, had come out from her kitchen, and was standing in the doorway, eyes wide under her cap.

“Will ye . . . be needin’ anything, sir?” she asked, making no pretense of not staring from Malva, red-faced and sobbing on her stool, to Allan, white and gasping on the floor.

Jamie thought that he needed a strong dram—or maybe two—but that would have to wait.