A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [498]
“No. Are you?”
He shook his head, silent, and dropped his hand from the dish. Looking round for something else to do, he took up the poker and stirred the coals, breaking up the blackened embers and sending a swirl of sparks and soot up the chimney and out onto the hearth. It would ruin the fire, which would need to be rebuilt before bed, but I said nothing—he knew that.
“It feels like a death in the family,” I said at last. “As though something terrible has happened, and this is the shocked bit, before you begin to send round and tell all the neighbors.”
He gave a small, rueful laugh, and put the poker down.
“We’ll not need to. They’ll all ken well enough by daybreak what’s happened.”
Rousing at last from my immobility, I shook out my damp skirts and came to stand beside him by the fire. The heat of it seared at once through the wet cloth; it should have been comforting, but there was an icy weight in my abdomen that wouldn’t melt. I put a hand on his arm, needing the touch of him.
“No one will believe it,” I said. He put a hand over mine, and smiled a little, his eyes closed, but shook his head.
“They’ll all believe it, Claire,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”
81
BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT
IT ISN’T FREAKING TRUE!”
“No, of course not.” Roger watched his wife warily; she was exhibiting the general symptoms of a large explosive device with an unstable timing mechanism, and he had the distinct feeling that it was dangerous to be in her vicinity.
“That little bitch! I want to just grab her and choke the truth out of her!” Her hand closed convulsively on the neck of the syrup bottle, and he reached to take it from her before she should break it.
“I understand the impulse,” he said, “but on the whole—better not.”
She glared at him, but relinquished the bottle.
“Can’t you do something?” she said.
He’d been asking himself that since he’d heard the news of Malva’s accusation.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I thought I’d go and talk to the Christies, at least. And if I can get Malva alone, I will.” Thinking of his last tête-à-tête with Malva Christie, though, he had an uneasy feeling that she wouldn’t be easily shaken from her story.
Brianna sat down, scowling at her plate of buckwheat cakes, and began slathering them with butter. Her fury was beginning to give way to rational thought; he could see ideas darting behind her eyes.
“If you can get her to admit that it’s not true,” she said slowly, “that’s good. If not, though—the next best thing is to find out who’s been with her. If some guy will admit in public that he could be the father—that would cast a lot of doubt on her story, at least.”
“True.” Roger poured syrup sparingly over his own cakes, even in the midst of uncertainty and anxiety enjoying the thick dark smell of it and the anticipation of rare sweetness. “Though there would still be those who’d be convinced Jamie’s guilty. Here.”
“I saw her kissing Obadiah Henderson in the woods,” Bree said, accepting the bottle. “Late last fall.” She shuddered fastidiously. “If it was him, no wonder she doesn’t want to say.”
Roger eyed her curiously. He knew Obadiah, who was large and uncouth, but not at all bad looking and not stupid. Some women would consider him a decent match; he had fifteen acres, which he farmed competently, and was a good hunter. He’d never seen Bree so much as speak to the man, though.
“Can you think of anybody else?” she asked, still frowning.
“Well . . . Bobby Higgins,” he replied, still wary. “The Beardsley twins used to eye her now and then, but of course . . .” He had a nasty feeling that this line of inquiry was going to culminate in her adjuring him to go and ask awkward questions of any putative fathers—a process that struck him as likely being both pointless and dangerous.
“Why?” she demanded, cutting viciously into her stack of pancakes. “Why would she do it? Mama’s always been so kind to her!”
“One of two reasons,” Roger replied,