A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [311]
“I sort of wasn’t expecting that, anyway,” she assured him gravely. “Don’t worry; I didn’t marry you for your money. If we need more, I’ll make it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Not selling my body, probably. Not after what happened to Manfred.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” he said. His hand came down over hers, large and warm.
Aidan McCallum’s high, piercing voice floated through the air, and a sudden thought struck her.
“Your—your, um, flock . . .” The word struck her funny bone, and she giggled, despite the seriousness of the question. “Will they mind that I’m a Catholic?” She turned to him suddenly, another thought coming rapidly in its wake. “You don’t—you aren’t asking me to convert?”
“No, I’m not,” he said quickly, firmly. “Not in a million years. As for what they might think—or say—” His face twitched, caught between dismay and determination. “If they’re not willing to accept it, well . . . they can just go to hell, that’s all.”
She burst out laughing, and he followed her, his laugh cracked, but without restraint.
“The Minister’s Cat is an irreverent cat,” she teased. “And how do you say that in Gaelic?”
“I’ve no idea. But the Minister’s Cat is a relieved cat,” he added, still smiling. “I didn’t know what ye might think about it.”
“I’m not totally sure what I do think about it,” she admitted. She squeezed his hand lightly. “But I see that you’re happy.”
“It shows?” He smiled, and the last of the evening light glowed briefly in his eyes, a deep and lambent green.
“It shows. You’re sort of . . . lighted up inside.” Her throat felt tight. “Roger—you won’t forget about me and Jem, will you? I don’t know that I can compete with God.”
He looked thunderstruck at that.
“No,” he said, his hand tightening on hers, hard enough to make her ring cut into her flesh. “Not ever.”
They sat silent for a little, the fireflies drifting down like slow green rain, their silent mating song lighting the darkening grass and trees. Roger’s face was fading as the light failed, though she still saw the line of his jaw, set in determination.
“I swear to ye, Bree,” he said. “Whatever I’m called to now—and God knows what that is—I was called to be your husband first. Your husband and the father of your bairns above all things—and that I always shall be. Whatever I may do, it will not ever be at the price of my family, I promise you.”
“All I want,” she said softly to the dark, “is for you to love me. Not because of what I can do or what I look like, or because I love you—just because I am.”
“Perfect, unconditional love?” he said just as softly. “Some would tell ye only God can love that way—but I can try.”
“Oh, I have faith in you,” she said, and felt the glow of him reach her own heart.
“I hope ye always will,” he said. He raised her hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles in formal salutation, his breath warm on her skin.
As though to test the resolution of his earlier declaration, Jem’s voice rose and fell on the evening breeze, a small, urgent siren. “DadddeeeDaaaddeeeDAAADDDEEE . . .”
Roger sighed deeply, leaned over, and kissed her, a moment’s soft, deep connection, then rose to deal with the emergency of the moment.
She sat for a bit, listening. The sound of male voices came from the far end of the clearing, high and low, demand and question, reassurance and excitement. No emergency; Jem wanted to be lifted into a tree too high for him to climb alone. Then laughter, mad rustling of leaves—oh, good grief, Roger was in the tree, too. They were all up there, hooting like owls.
“What are ye laughing at, a nighean?” Her father loomed out of the night, smelling of horses.
“Everything,” she said, scooching over to make room for him to sit beside her. It was true. Everything seemed suddenly bright, the candlelight from the windows of the Big House, the fireflies in the grass, the glow of