Voyager (72 page)

I had; one panel of the glowing oak that lined the hall below had been smashed in, perhaps by a heavy boot, and the crisscross scars of saber slashes marred the paneling from door to stairs.

“We keep it so to remember,” he said. “To show to the weans, and tell them when they ask—this is what the English are.”

The suppressed hate in his voice struck me low in the pit of the stomach. Knowing what I knew of what the English army had done in the Highlands, there was bloody little I could say in argument. I said nothing, and he continued after a moment.

“I wouldna expose the folk near Ardsmuir to that kind of attention, Sassenach.” At the word “Sassenach,” his hand squeezed mine and a small smile curved the corner of his mouth. Sassenach I might be to him, but not English.

“For that matter,” he went on, “were I not taken, the hunt would likely come here again—to Lallybroch. If I would risk the folk near Ardsmuir, I would not risk my own. And even without that—” He stopped, seeming to struggle to find words.

“I had to go back,” he said slowly. “For the sake of the men there, if for nothing else.”

“The men in the prison?” I said, surprised. “Were some of the Lallybroch men arrested with you?”

He shook his head. The small vertical line that appeared between his brows when he thought hard was visible, even by starlight.

“No. There were men there from all over the Highlands—from every clan, almost. Only a few men from each clan—remnants and ragtag. But the more in need of a chief, for all that.”

“And that’s what you were to them?” I spoke gently, restraining the urge to smooth the line away with my fingers.

“For lack of any better,” he said, with the flicker of a smile.

He had come from the bosom of family and tenants, from a strength that had sustained him for seven years, to find a lack of hope and a loneliness that would kill a man faster than the damp and the filth and the quaking ague of the prison.

And so, quite simply, he had taken the ragtag and remnants, the castoff survivors of the field of Culloden, and made them his own, that they and he might survive the stones of Ardsmuir as well. Reasoning, charming, and cajoling where he could, fighting where he must, he had forced them to band together, to face their captors as one, to put aside ancient clan rivalries and allegiances, and take him as their chieftain.

“They were mine,” he said softly. “And the having of them kept me alive.” But then they had been taken from him and from each other—wrenched apart and sent into indenture in a foreign land. And he had not been able to save them.

“You did your best for them. But it’s over now,” I said softly.

We lay in each other’s arms in silence for a long time, letting the small noises of the house wash over us. Different from the comfortable commercial bustle of the brothel, the tiny creaks and sighing spoke of quiet, and home, and safety. For the first time, we were truly alone together, removed from danger and distraction.

There was time, now. Time to hear the rest of the story of the gold, to hear what he had done with it, to find out what had happened to the men of Ardsmuir, to speculate about the burning of the printshop, Young Ian’s one-eyed seaman, the encounter with His Majesty’s Customs on the shore by Arbroath, to decide what to do next. And since there was time, there was no need to speak of any of that, now.

The last peat broke and fell apart on the hearth, its glowing interior hissing red in the cold. I snuggled closer to Jamie, burying my face in the side of his neck. He tasted faintly of grass and sweat, with a whiff of brandy.

He shifted his body in response, bringing us together all down our naked lengths.

“What, again?” I murmured, amused. “Men your age aren’t supposed to do it again so soon.”

His teeth nibbled gently on my earlobe. “Well, you’re doing it too, Sassenach,” he pointed out. “And you’re older than I am.”

“That’s different,” I said, gasping a little as he moved suddenly over me, his shoulders blotting out the starlit window. “I’m a woman.”

“And if ye weren’t a woman, Sassenach,” he assured me, settling to his work, “I wouldna be doing it either. Hush, now.”

I woke just past dawn to the scratching of the rose brier against the window, and the muffled thump and clang of breakfast fixing in the kitchen below. Peering over Jamie’s sleeping form, I saw that the fire was dead out. I slid out of bed, quietly so as not to wake him. The floorboards were icy under my feet and I reached, shivering, for the first available garment.

Swathed in the folds of Jamie’s shirt, I knelt on the hearth and went about the laborious business of rekindling the fire, thinking rather wistfully that I might have included a box of safety matches in the short list of items I had thought worthwhile to bring. Striking sparks from a flint to catch kindling does work, but not usually on the first try. Or the second. Or…

Somewhere around the dozenth attempt, I was rewarded by a tiny black spot on the twist of tow I was using for kindling. It grew at once and blossomed into a tiny flame. I thrust it hastily but carefully beneath the little tent of twigs I had prepared, to shelter the blooming flame from the cold breeze.

I had left the window ajar the night before, to insure not being suffocated by the smoke—peat fires burned hot, but dully, with a lot of smoke, as the blackened beams overhead attested. Just now, though, I thought we could dispense with fresh air—at least until I got the fire thoroughly under way.

The pane was rimed at the bottom with a light frost; winter was not far off. The air was so crisp and fresh that I paused before shutting the window, breathing in great gulps of dead leaf, dried apples, cold earth, and damp, sweet grass. The scene outside was perfect in its still clarity, stone walls and dark pines drawn sharp as black quillstrokes against the gray overcast of the morning.

A movement drew my eye to the top of the hill, where the rough track led to the village of Broch Mordha, ten miles distant. One by one, three small Highland ponies came up over the rise, and started down the hill toward the farmhouse.

They were too far away for me to make out the faces, but I could see by the billowing skirts that all three riders were women. Perhaps it was the girls—Maggie, Kitty, and Janet—coming back from Young Jamie’s house. My own Jamie would be glad to see them.

I pulled the shirt, redolent of Jamie, around me against the chill, deciding to take advantage of what privacy might remain to us this morning by thawing out in bed. I shut the window, and paused to lift several of the light peat bricks from the basket by the hearth and feed them carefully to my fledgling fire, before shedding the shirt and crawling under the covers, numb toes tingling with delight at the luxurious warmth.

Jamie felt the chill of my return, and rolled instinctively toward me, gathering me neatly in and curling round me spoon-fashion. He sleepily rubbed his face against my shoulder.

“Sleep well, Sassenach?” he muttered.

“Never better,” I assured him, snuggling my cold bottom into the warm hollow of his thighs. “You?”

“Mmmmm.” He responded with a blissful groan, wrapping his arms about me. “Dreamed like a fiend.”

“What about?”

“Naked women, mostly,” he said, and set his teeth gently in the flesh of my shoulder. “That, and food.” His stomach rumbled softly. The scent of biscuits and fried bacon in the air was faint but unmistakable.

“So long as you don’t confuse the two,” I said, twitching my shoulder out of his reach.

“I can tell a hawk from a handsaw, when the wind sets north by nor’west,” he assured me, “and a sweet, plump lassie from a salt-cured ham, too, appearances notwithstanding.” He grabbed my buttocks with both hands and squeezed, making me yelp and kick him in the shins.

“Beast!”

“Oh, a beast, is it?” he said, laughing. “Well, then…” Growling deep in his throat, he dived under the quilt and proceeded to nip and nibble his way up the insides of my thighs, blithely ignoring my squeaks and the hail of kicks on his back and shoulders. Dislodged by our struggles, the quilt slid off onto the floor, revealing the tousled mass of his hair, flying wild over my thighs.

“Perhaps there’s less difference than I thought,” he said, his head popping up between my legs as he paused for breath. He pressed my thighs flat against the mattress and grinned up at me, spikes of red hair standing on end like a porcupine’s quills. “Ye do taste a bit salty, come to try it. What do ye—”

He was interrupted by a sudden bang as the door flew open and rebounded from the wall. Startled, we turned to look. In the doorway stood a young girl I had never seen before. She was perhaps fifteen or sixteen, with long flaxen hair and big blue eyes. The eyes were somewhat bigger than normal, and filled with an expression of horrified shock as she stared at me. Her gaze moved slowly from my tangled hair to my bare breasts, and down the slopes of my naked body, until it encountered Jamie, lying prone between my thighs, white-faced with a shock equal to hers.

“Daddy!” she said, in tones of total outrage. “Who is that woman?”

“Daddy?” I said blankly. “Daddy?”

Jamie had turned to stone when the door opened. Now he shot bolt upright, snatching at the fallen quilt. He shoved the disheveled hair out of his face, and glared at the girl.

“What in the name of bloody hell are you doing here?” he demanded. Red-bearded, naked, and hoarse with fury, he was a formidable sight, and the girl took a step backward, looking uncertain. Then her chin firmed and she glared back at him.

“I came with Mother!”

The effect on Jamie could not have been greater had she shot him through the heart. He jerked violently, and all the color went out of his face.

It came flooding back, as the sound of rapid footsteps sounded on the wooden staircase. He leapt out of bed, tossing the quilt hastily in my direction, and grabbed his breeks.

He had barely pulled them on when another female figure burst into the room, skidded to a halt, and stood staring, bug-eyed, at the bed.

“It’s true!” She whirled toward Jamie, fists clenched against the cloak she still wore. “It’s true! It’s the Sassenach witch! How could ye do such a thing to me, Jamie Fraser?”

“Be still, Laoghaire!” he snapped. “I’ve done nothing to ye!”

I sat up against the wall, clutching the quilt to my bosom and staring. It was only when he spoke her name that I recognized her. Twenty-odd years ago, Laoghaire MacKenzie had been a slender sixteen-year-old, with rose-petal skin, moonbeam hair, and a violent—and unrequited—passion for Jamie Fraser. Evidently, a few things had changed.

She was nearing forty and no longer slender, having thickened considerably. The skin was still fair, but weathered, and stretched plumply over cheeks flushed with anger. Strands of ashy hair straggled out from under her respectable white kertch. The pale blue eyes were the same, though—they turned on me again, with the same expression of hatred I had seen in them long ago.

“He’s mine!” she hissed. She stamped her foot. “Get ye back to the hell that ye came from, and leave him to me! Go, I say!”

As I made no move to obey, she glanced wildly about in search of a weapon. Catching sight of the blue-banded ewer, she seized it and drew back her arm to fling it at me. Jamie plucked it neatly from her hand, set it back on the bureau, and grasped her by the upper arm, hard enough to make her squeal.

He turned her and shoved her roughly toward the door. “Get ye downstairs,” he ordered. “I’ll speak wi’ ye presently, Laoghaire.”

“You’ll speak wi’ me? Speak wi’ me, is it!” she cried. Face contorted, she swung her free hand at him, raking his face from eye to chin with her nails.

He grunted, grabbed her other wrist, and dragging her to the door, pushed her out into the passage and slammed the door to and turned the key.

By the time he turned around again, I was sitting on the edge of the bed, fumbling with shaking hands as I tried to pull my stockings on.

“I can explain it to ye, Claire,” he said.

“I d-don’t think so,” I said. My lips were numb, along with the rest of me, and it was hard to form words. I kept my eyes fixed on my feet as I tried—and failed—to tie my garters.

“Listen to me!” he said violently, bringing his fist down on the table with a crash that made me jump. I jerked my head up, and caught a glimpse of him towering over me. With his red hair tumbled loose about his shoulders, his face unshaven, bare-chested, and the raw marks of Laoghaire’s nails down his cheek, he looked like a Viking raider, bent on mayhem. I turned away to look for my shift.

It was lost in the bedclothes; I scrabbled about among the sheets. A considerable pounding had started up on the other side of the door, accompanied by shouts and shrieks, as the commotion attracted the other inhabitants of the house.

“You’d best go and explain things to your daughter,” I said, pulling the crumpled cotton over my head.

“She’s not my daughter!”

“No?” My head popped out of the neck of the shift, and I lifted my chin to stare up at him. “And I suppose you aren’t married to Laoghaire, either?”

“I’m married to you, damn it!” he bellowed, striking his fist on the table again.

“I don’t think so.” I felt very cold. My stiff fingers couldn’t manage the lacing of the stays; I threw them aside, and stood up to look for my gown, which was somewhere on the other side of the room—behind Jamie.

“I need my dress.”

“You’re no going anywhere, Sassenach. Not until—”

“Don’t call me that!” I shrieked it, surprising both of us. He stared at me for a moment, then nodded.

“All right,” he said quietly. He glanced at the door, now reverberating under the force of the pounding. He drew a deep breath and straightened, squaring his shoulders.

“I’ll go and settle things. Then we’ll talk, the two of us. Stay here, Sass—Claire.” He picked up his shirt and yanked it over his head. Unlocking the door, he stepped out into the suddenly silent corridor and closed it behind him.

I managed to pick up the dress, then collapsed on the bed and sat shaking all over, the green wool crumpled across my knees.