A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [445]
I blew out a cloud of smoky breath, uncertain.
“I just can’t see why—I mean, she couldn’t possibly expect that I’d help her to get rid of a child. And for anything else . . . why me? There are midwives and healers much closer. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“What if—” Brianna said, and stopped. She pursed her lips in speculation, looking from me to Jamie and back. “What if,” she said carefully, “she was pregnant, but the father was . . . someone it shouldn’t be?”
A wary but humorous speculation sprang up in Jamie’s eyes, increasing the resemblance between him and Brianna.
“Who, lass?” he said. “Farquard Campbell?”
I laughed out loud at the thought, and Brianna snorted with mirth, white wisps of breath floating round her head. The notion of the very upright—and quite elderly—Farquard Campbell seducing a house slave was . . .
“Well, no,” Brianna said. “Though he does have all those children. But I just thought suddenly—what if it was Duncan?”
Jamie cleared his throat, and avoided catching my eye. I bit my lip, feeling my face start to go red. Duncan had confessed his chronic impotence to Jamie before Duncan’s wedding to Jocasta—but Brianna didn’t know.
“Oh, I shouldna think it likely,” Jamie said, sounding a trifle choked. He coughed, and fanned smoke from the brazier away from his face. “What gives ye that notion, lass?”
“Nothing about Duncan,” she assured him. “But Aunt Jocasta is—well, old. And you know what men can be like.”
“No, what?” asked Roger blandly, making me cough with the effort to suppress a laugh.
Jamie eyed her with a certain amount of cynicism.
“A good deal better than you do, a nighean. And while I wouldna wager much on some men, I think I should feel safe in laying odds that Duncan Innes isna the man to be breaking his marriage vows with his wife’s black slave.”
I made a small noise, and Roger lifted one eyebrow at me.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine,” I said, sounding strangled. “Just—fine.” I put a corner of the shawl over my no-doubt purple face and coughed ostentatiously. “It’s . . . smoky in here, isn’t it?”
“Maybe so,” Brianna conceded, addressing Jamie. “It might not be that at all. It’s just that Phaedre sent the note to ‘the healer,’ probably because she didn’t want to use Mama’s name, in case anybody saw the note before it got here. I just thought, maybe it wasn’t really Mama she wants—maybe it’s you.”
That sobered both Jamie and me, and we glanced at each other. It was a definite possibility, and one that hadn’t occurred to either of us.
“She couldn’t send a note direct to you without rousing all kinds of curiosity,” Bree went on, frowning at the note. “But she could say ‘the healer’ without putting a name on it. And she’d know that if Mama came, you’d probably come with her, at this time of year. Or if you didn’t, Mama could send for you openly.”
“It’s a thought,” Jamie said slowly. “But why in God’s name might she want me?”
“Only one way to find out,” said Roger, practical. He looked at Jamie. “Most of the outside work is done; the crops and the hay are in, the slaughtering’s finished. We can manage here, if you want to go.”
Jamie stood still for a moment, frowning in thought, then crossed to the window and raised the sash. A cold wind blew into the room, and Bree pinned the fluttering note to the table to keep it from taking wing. The coals in the small brazier smoked and flamed higher, and the bunches of dried herbs rustled uneasily overhead.
Jamie thrust his head out the window and breathed in deeply, eyes closed like one savoring the bouquet of fine wine.
“Cold and clear,