A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [307]
“Aye, he can do everything better than I can, I know that fine,” Roger replied caustically. “But it’s me that promised Malva she’d come to no harm. I’m going.” He yanked at his sleeve, hard enough that she felt the underarm seam give way.
“Fine!” She let go, and slapped him hard on the arm. “Go! Take care of everybody in the world but your own family. Go! Bloody go!”
“What?” He stopped, scowling, caught between anger and puzzlement.
“You heard me! Go!” She stamped her foot, and the jar of dauco seeds, left too near the edge of the shelf, fell off and smashed on the floor, scattering tiny black seeds like pepper grains. “Now look what you’ve done!”
“What I’ve—”
“Never mind! Just never mind. Get out of here.” She was puffing like a grampus with the effort not to cry. Her cheeks were hot with blood and her eyeballs felt red, bloodshot, so hot that she felt she might sear him with a look—certainly she wished she could.
He hovered, clearly trying to decide whether to stay and conciliate his disgruntled wife, or rush off in chivalrous protection of Malva Christie. He took a hesitant step toward the door, and she dived for the broom, making stupid, high-pitched squeaks of incoherent rage as she swung it at his head.
He ducked, but she got him on the second swing, catching him across the ribs with a thwack. He jerked in surprise at the impact, but recovered fast enough to catch the broom on the next swing. He yanked it out of her hand, and with a grunt of effort, broke it over his knee with a splintering crack.
He threw the pieces clattering at her feet and glared at her, angry but self-possessed.
“What in the name of God is the matter with you?”
She drew up tall and glared back.
“What I said. If you’re spending so much time with Amy McCallum that it’s common talk you’re having an affair with her—”
“I’m what?” His voice broke with outrage, but there was a shifty look in his eyes that gave him away.
“So you’ve heard it, too—haven’t you?” She didn’t feel triumphant at having caught him out; more a sense of sick fury.
“You can’t possibly think that’s true, Bree,” he said, his voice pitched uncertainly between angry repudiation and pleading.
“I know it isn’t true,” she said, and was furious to hear her own voice as shaky and cracked as his was. “That’s not the effing point, Roger!”
“The point,” he repeated. His black brows were drawn down, his eyes sharp and dark beneath them.
“The point,” she said, gulping air, “is that you’re always gone. Malva Christie, Amy McCallum, Marsali, Lizzie—you even go help Ute McGillivray, for God’s sake!”
“Who else is to do it?” he asked sharply. “Your father or your cousin might, aye—but they’ve to be gone to the Indians. I’m here. And I’m not always gone,” he added, as an afterthought. “I’m home every night, am I not?”
She closed her eyes and clenched her fists, feeling the nails dig into her palms.
“You’ll help any woman but me,” she said, opening her eyes. “Why is that?”
He gave her a long, hard look, and she wondered for an instant whether there was such a thing as a black emerald.
“Maybe I didn’t think ye needed me,” he said. And turning on his heel, he left.
51
THE CALLING
THE WATER LAY CALM as melted silver, the only movement on it the shadows of the evening clouds. But the hatch was about to rise; you could feel it. Or perhaps, Roger thought, what he felt was the expectation in his father-in-law, crouched like a leopard on the bank of the trout pool, pole and fly at the ready for the first sign of a ripple.
“Like the pool at Bethesda,” he said, amused.
“Oh, aye?” Jamie answered, but didn’t look at him, his attention fixed on the water.
“The one where an angel would go down into the pool and trouble the water now and then. So everyone sat about waiting, so as to plunge in the minute the water began to stir.”
Jamie smiled, but still didn’t turn. Fishing was serious business.
That was good; he’d rather not have Jamie look at him. But he’d have to hurry if he meant to say something;