A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [492]
“Then she’s lied a dozen times or more,” Jamie said, keeping his own voice under as much control as Christie’s.
“Ye know I have not! Your wife believes me,” Malva said, and a steely note had entered her voice. She lifted a hand to her cheek, where the flaming color had subsided but where the print of Claire’s fingers was still clear, livid in outline.
“My wife has better sense,” he said coldly, but was conscious all the same of a sinking sensation at the mention of Claire. Any woman might find such an accusation shock enough to make her flee—but he did wish that she’d stayed. Her presence, stoutly denying any misbehavior by him and personally rebuking Malva’s lies, would have helped.
“Does she?” The vivid color had faded from the girl’s face altogether, but she had stopped weeping. She was white-faced, her eyes huge and brilliant. “Well, I’ve sense, as well, sir. Sense enough to prove what I say.”
“Oh, aye?” he said skeptically. “How?”
“I’ve seen the scars on your naked body; I can describe them.”
That declaration brought everyone up short. There was silence for a moment, broken by Allan Christie’s grunt of satisfaction. He rose to his feet, one hand still pressed to his middle, but an unpleasant smile upon his face.
“So, then?” he said. “Nay answer to that one, have ye?”
Irritation had long since given way to a monstrous anger. Under that, though, was the barest thread of something he would not—not yet—call fear.
“I dinna put my scars on display,” he said mildly, “but there are a number of folk who’ve seen them, nonetheless. I havena lain with any of them, either.”
“Aye, folk speak sometimes of the scars on your back,” Malva shot back. “And everyone kens the great ugly one up your leg, that ye took at Culloden. But what of the crescent-shaped one across your ribs? Or the wee one on your left hurdie?” She reached a hand behind her, cupping her own buttock in illustration.
“Not in the center, quite—a bit down, on the outer side. About the size of a farthing.” She didn’t smile, but something like triumph blazed in her eyes.
“I havena got—” he began, but then stopped, appalled. Christ, he did. A spider’s bite, taken in the Indies, that festered for a week, made an abscess, then burst, to his great relief. Once healed, he’d never thought of it again—but it was there.
Too late. They’d seen the realization cross his face.
Tom Christie closed his eyes, jaw working under his beard. Allan grunted again with satisfaction, and crossed his arms.
“Want to show us she’s wrong?” the young man inquired sarcastically. “Take down your breeks, and gie us a look at your backside, then!”
With a good deal of effort, he kept himself from telling Allan Christie what he could do with his own backside. He took a long, slow breath, hoping that by the time he let it out again, some useful thought would have come to him.
It didn’t. Tom Christie opened his eyes with a sigh.
“So,” he said flatly. “I suppose ye’ll not intend to put aside your wife and marry her?”
“I should never do such a thing!” The suggestion filled him with fury—and something like panic at the mere notion of being without Claire.
“Then we’ll draw a contract.” Christie rubbed a hand over his face, shoulders slumped with exhaustion and distaste. “Maintenance for her and the bairn. Formal acknowledgment of the child’s rights as one of your heirs. Ye can decide, I suppose, if ye wish to take it for your wife to rear, but that—”
“Get out.” He rose, very slowly, and leaned forward, hands on the table, eyes fixed on Christie’s. “Take your daughter and leave my house.”
Christie stopped speaking and looked at him, black-browed. The girl had started grieving again, making whimpering noises into her apron. He’d the odd feeling that time had stopped, somehow; they would all just be trapped here forever, himself and Christie staring each other down like dogs, unable to look down but knowing that the floor of the room had vanished beneath their feet and they hung suspended over some dreadful abyss, in