A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [285]
I waited until she was safely out of sight, then made my own way slowly down the slope. I didn’t stop at the Christie cabin, thirsty as I was, and had quite lost interest in errant bees.
I MET JAMIE AT a stiled fence, some little distance from home, in conversation with Hiram Crombie. I nodded in greeting, and waited in some impatience for Crombie to finish his business, so I could tell Jamie what I had just witnessed.
Luckily, Hiram showed no inclination to linger; I made him nervous.
I told Jamie at once what I had seen, and was annoyed to find that he didn’t share my concern. If Tom Christie thought it necessary to whip his daughter, that was his affair.
“But he might be . . . it might be—perhaps it doesn’t stop with a switching. Perhaps he does . . . other things to her.”
He shot me a look of surprise.
“Tom? D’ye have any reason to think so?”
“No,” I admitted reluctantly. The Christie ménage gave me an uncomfortable feeling, but that was likely only because I didn’t get on with Tom. I wasn’t so foolish as to think that a tendency toward Bible-thumping meant a person wouldn’t engage in wickedness—but in all fairness, it didn’t mean he did, either. “But surely he shouldn’t be whipping her like that—at her age?”
He glanced at me in mild exasperation.
“Ye dinna understand a thing, do ye?” he said, echoing my thought exactly.
“I was about to say just that, to you,” I said, giving him look for look. He didn’t look away, but held my gaze, his own slowly taking on a wry amusement.
“So it will be different?” he said. “In your world?” There was just enough edge in his voice to remind me forcibly that we were not in my world—nor ever would be. Sudden gooseflesh ran up my arm, lifting the fine blond hairs.
“A man wouldna beat a woman, then, in your time? Not even for good cause?”
And what was I to say to that? I couldn’t lie, even if I wanted to; he knew my face much too well.
“Some do,” I admitted. “But it’s not the same. There—then, I mean—a man who beat his wife would be a criminal. But,” I added in fairness, “a man who beat his wife then would most often be using his fists.”
A look of astonished disgust crossed his face.
“What sort of man would do that?” he asked incredulously.
“A bad one.”
“So I should think, Sassenach. And ye dinna think there’s a difference?” he asked. “Ye’d see it the same, if I were to smash your face, rather than only take a tawse to your bum?”
Blood flared abruptly in my cheeks. He once had taken a strap to me, and I hadn’t forgotten it. I had wanted to kill him at the time—and didn’t feel kindly toward him at the memory. At the same time, I wasn’t stupid enough to equate his actions with those of a modern-day wife-beater.
He glanced at me, raised one eyebrow, then understood what I was recalling. He grinned.
“Oh,” he said.
“Oh, indeed,” I said very cross. I had succeeded in putting that extremely humiliating episode out of mind, and didn’t at all like having it recalled.
He, on the other hand, was plainly enjoying the recollection. He eyed me in a manner I found grossly insufferable, still grinning.
“God, ye screamed like a ban-sidhe.”
I began to feel a distinct throbbing of blood in my temples.
“I bloody well had cause to!”
“Oh, aye,” he said, and the grin widened. “Ye did. Your own fault, mind,” he added.
“My f—”
“It was,” he said firmly.
“You apologized!” I said completely outraged. “You know you did!”
“No, I didn’t. And it was still your fault to begin with,” he said, with complete lack of logic. “Ye wouldna have got nearly such a wicked tanning, if ye’d only minded me in the first place, when I told ye to kneel and—”
“Minded you! You think I would have just meekly given in and let you—”
“I’ve never seen ye do anything meek, Sassenach.” He took my arm to help me over the stile, but I jerked free, puffing with indignation.
“You beastly Scot!” I dropped the hive on the ground at his feet, picked up my skirts, and scrambled over the stile.
“Well, I havena done