A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [470]
“Aye, but—two bodies!” Mrs. Bug said. “Do ye think—both at once?”
“I don’t know,” I said, giving up. “But I imagine—” I glanced at the window, where the snow whispered at the closed shutter. It had begun to snow heavily the night before, a thick, wet snow; by now, there was nearly a foot of it on the ground, and I was reasonably sure that everyone at the table was imagining exactly what I was: a vision of Lizzie and the Beardsley twins, tucked up cozily in a warm bed of furs by a blazing fire, enjoying their honeymoon.
“Well, I don’t suppose there’s actually much anybody can do about it,” Bree said practically. “If we say anything in public, the Presbyterians will probably stone Lizzie as a Papist whore, and—”
Mr. Wemyss made a sound like a stepped-on pig’s bladder.
“Certainly no one will say anything.” Roger fixed Mrs. Bug with a hard look. “Will they?”
“Well, I’ll have to tell Arch, mind, or I’ll burst,” she said frankly. “But no one else. Silent as the grave, I swear it, de’il take me if I lie.” She put both hands over her mouth in illustration, and Roger nodded.
“I suppose,” he said dubiously, “that the marriage I performed isna actually valid as such. But then—”
“It’s certainly as valid as the handfasting Jamie did,” I said. “And besides, I think it’s too late to force her to choose. Once Kezzie’s thumb heals, no one will be able to tell . . .”
“Except Lizzie, probably,” Bree said. She licked a smear of honey from the corner of her mouth, regarding Roger thoughtfully. “I wonder what it would be like if there were two of you?”
“We’d both of us be thoroughly bamboozled,” he assured her. “Mrs. Bug—is there any more coffee?”
“Who’s bamboozled?” The kitchen door opened in a swirl of snow and frigid air, and Jamie came in with Jem, both fresh from a visit to the privy, ruddy-faced, their hair and lashes thick with melting snowflakes.
“You, for one. You’ve just been done in the eye by a nineteen-year-old bigamist,” I informed him.
“What’s a bigamiss?” Jem inquired.
“A very large young lady,” Roger said, taking a piece of buttered toast and thrusting it into Jem’s mouth. “Here. Why don’t ye take that, and . . .” His voice died away as he realized that he couldn’t send Jem outside.
“Lizzie and the twins came round to Roger’s last night, and he married her to Jo,” I told Jamie. He blinked, water from the melting snow on his lashes running down his face.
“I will be damned,” he said. He took a long breath, then realized he was still covered with snow, and went to shake himself at the hearth, bits of snow falling into the fire with a sputter and hiss.
“Well,” he said, coming back to the table and sitting down beside me, “at least your grandson will have a name, Joseph. It’s Beardsley, either way.”
This ridiculous observation seemed actually to comfort Mr. Wemyss a bit; a small bit of color came back to his cheeks, and he allowed Mrs. Bug to put a fresh bannock on his plate.
“Aye, I suppose that’s something,” he said. “And I really cannot see—”
“Come look,” Jemmy was saying, tugging impatiently on Bree’s arm. “Come see, Mama!”
“See what?”
“I wrote my name! Grandda showed me!”
“Oh, you did? Well, good for you!” Brianna beamed at him, then her brow furrowed. “What—just now?”
“Yes! Come see afore it’s covered up!”
She looked at Jamie under lowered brows.
“Da, you didn’t.”
He took a piece of fresh toast from the platter, and spread it neatly with butter.
“Aye, well,” he said, “there’s got to be some advantage still to being a man, even if no one pays a bit of heed to what ye say. Will ye pass the marmalade, Roger Mac?”
75
LICE
JEM PUT HIS ELBOWS on the table, chin on his fists, following the path of the spoon through the batter with the intent expression of a lion watching an appetizing wildebeest on its way to the water hole.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said, with a glance at his grubby