A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [496]
“Claire?” Jamie said softly.
“Hm?”
“I’ve got to tell ye something.”
I froze. After a moment, I carefully detached myself from him and sat upright.
“Don’t do that,” I said. “It makes me feel as though I’ve been punched in the stomach.”
“I’m sorry.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to swallow the sudden feeling of nausea.
“You said you wouldn’t start off by saying you were sorry, because it felt as though there must be something to be sorry for.”
“I did,” he said, and sighed.
I felt the movement between us as the two stiff fingers of his right hand thrummed against his leg.
“There isna any good way,” he said finally, “of telling your wife ye’ve lain wi’ someone else. No matter what the circumstances. There’s just not.”
I felt suddenly dizzy, and short of breath. I closed my eyes momentarily. He didn’t mean Malva; he’d made that clear.
“Who?” I said as evenly as possible. “And when?”
He stirred uneasily.
“Oh. Well . . . when ye . . . when ye were . . . gone, to be sure.”
I managed to take a short breath.
“Who?” I said.
“Just the once,” he said. “I mean—I hadna the slightest intention of—”
“Who?”
He sighed, and rubbed hard at the back of his neck.
“Christ. The last thing I want is to upset ye, Sassenach, by sounding as though it—but I dinna want to malign the puir woman by makin’ it seem that she was—”
“WHO?” I roared, seizing him by the arm.
“Jesus!” he said, thoroughly startled. “Mary MacNab.”
“Who?” I said again, blankly this time.
“Mary MacNab,” he repeated, and sighed. “Can ye let go, Sassenach? I think ye’ve drawn blood.”
I had, my fingernails digging hard enough into his wrist as to pierce the skin. I flung his hand away, and folded my own into fists, wrapping my arms around my body by way of stopping myself from strangling him.
“Who. The. Hell. Is. Mary. MacNab?” I said, through my teeth. My face was hot, but cold sweat prickled along my jaw and rolled down my ribs.
“Ye ken her, Sassenach. She was wife to Rab—him that died when his house was burnt. They had the one bairn, Rabbie; he was stable-lad at Lallybroch when—”
“Mary MacNab. Her?” I could hear the astonishment in my own voice. I did recall Mary MacNab—barely. She’d come to be a maid at Lallybroch after the death of her nasty husband; a small, wiry woman, worn with work and hardship, who seldom spoke, but went about her business like a shadow, never more than half-noticed in the rowdy chaos of life at Lallybroch.
“I scarcely noticed her,” I said, trying—and failing—to remember whether she had been there on my last visit. “But I gather you did?”
“No,” he said, and sighed. “Not like ye mean, Sassenach.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said, my voice sounding low and venomous to my own ears.
He made a Scottish noise in his throat, of frustrated resignation, rubbing his wrist.
“Aye. Well, see, ’twas the night before I gave myself up to the English—”
“You never told me that!”
“Never told ye what?” He sounded confused.
“That you gave yourself up to the English. We thought you’d been captured.”
“I was,” he said briefly. “But by arrangement, for the price on my head.” He flipped a hand, dismissing the matter. “It wasna important.”
“They might have hanged you!” And a good thing, too, said the small, furiously hurt voice inside.
“No, they wouldn’t.” A faint tinge of amusement showed in his voice. “Ye’d told me so, Sass—mmphm. I didna really care, though, if they did.”
I had no idea what he meant by saying I’d told him so, but I certainly didn’t care at the moment.
“Forget that,” I said tersely. “I want to know—”
“About Mary. Aye, I ken.” He rubbed a hand slowly through his hair. “Aye, well. She came to me, the night before I—I went. I was in the cave, ken, near Lallybroch, and she brought me supper. And then she . . . stayed.”
I bit my tongue, not to interrupt. I could feel him gathering his thoughts, searching for words.
“I tried to send her away,” he said at last. “She . . . well, what she said to me . . .” He glanced at me; I saw the movement of his head. “She said she’d seen me