A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [325]
“Oh, well, then.” Jamie dismissed him with a wave of the hand. “Major MacDonald’s in rare form, no? He told me he’s arranged for Mrs. MacDonald to give such speeches here and there about the colony.”
“With himself as impresario, I take it.” I could just catch the gleam of MacDonald’s red coat among the press of well-wishers on the terrace.
“I daresay.” Jamie didn’t seem pleased at the prospect. In fact, he seemed rather sober, his face shadowed by dark thoughts. His mood would not be improved by hearing about my conversation with Neil Forbes, but I told him anyway.
“Well, it couldna be helped,” he said with a small shrug. “I’d hoped to keep the matter quiet, but wi’ things as they are wi’ Robin McGillivray, I’ve no real choice save to ask where I may, though that lets the matter be known. And talked about.” He moved again, restless.
“Are ye well, Sassenach?” he asked suddenly, looking at me.
“Yes. But you aren’t. What is it?”
He smiled faintly.
“Och, it’s nothing. Nothing I didna ken already. But it’s different, no? Ye think ye’re ready, and then ye meet it face to face, and would give anything to have it otherwise.”
He looked out at the lawn, lifting his chin to point at the crowd. A sea of tartan flowed across the grass, the ladies’ parasols raised against the sun, a field of brightly colored flowers. In the shade of the terrace, a piper played on, the sound of his piobreachd a thin, piercing descant to the hum of conversation.
“I kent I should have to stand one day against a good many of them, aye? To fight friends and kin. But then I found myself standing there, wi’ Fionnaghal’s hand upon my head like a blessing, face to face wi’ them all, and watching her words fall upon them, see the resolve growing in them . . . and all of a sudden, it was as though a great blade had come down from heaven between them and me, to cleave us forever apart. The day is coming—and I can not stop it.”
He swallowed, and looked down, away from me. I reached out to him, wanting to help, wanting to ease him—and knowing that I couldn’t. It was, after all, by my doing that he found himself here, in this small Gethsemane.
Nonetheless, he took my hand, not looking at me, and squeezed it hard, so the bones pressed together.
“Lord, that this cup might pass from me?” I whispered.
He nodded, his gaze still resting on the ground, the fallen petals of the yellow roses. Then he looked at me, with a small smile but such pain in his eyes that I caught my breath, stricken to the heart.
Still, he smiled, and wiping his hand across his forehead, examined his wet fingers.
“Aye, well,” he said. “It’s only water, not blood. I’ll live.”
Perhaps you won’t, I thought suddenly, appalled. To fight on the winning side was one thing; to survive, quite another.
He saw the look on my face, and released the pressure on my hand, thinking he was hurting me. He was, but not physically.
“But not my will be done, but Thine,” he said very softly. “I chose my way when I wed ye, though I kent it not at the time. But I chose, and cannot now turn back, even if I would.”
“Would you?” I looked into his eyes as I asked, and read the answer there. He shook his head.
“Would you? For you have chosen, as much as I.”
I shook my head, as well, and felt the small relaxation of his body as his eyes met mine, clear now as the brilliant sky. For the space of a heartbeat, we stood alone together in the universe. Then a knot of chattering girls drifted within earshot, and I changed the subject to something safer.
“Have you heard anything about poor Manfred?”
“Poor Manfred, is it?” he gave me a cynical look.
“Well, he may be an immoral young hound, and have caused any amount of trouble—but that doesn’t mean he ought to die for it.”
He looked as though he might not be in complete agreement with this sentiment, but let the matter lie, saying merely that he’d asked, but so far without result.
“He’ll turn up, though,” he assured me. “Likely in the most inconvenient place.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh! That I should live to see such a day! I thank ye, sir, thank ye indeed!” It was