A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [575]
And he of me; his arm was round me, his fingers unconsciously exploring the length of my back, lightly reading the shapes of me like braille as he talked.
“So, then, Tom. He kent about L’Onion, of course, and so went there, when he found ye’d disappeared from the gaol. By then, of course, ye’d gone from the palace, as well—it had taken him some time to part company wi’ Richard Brown, without rousing their suspicions.
“But he found us there, and he told me what he meant to do.” His fingers stroked the back of my neck, and I felt the tightness there begin to relax. “I told him to bide; I should have a go at getting ye back on my own—but if I could not . . .”
“So you know he didn’t do it.” I spoke with certainty. “Did he tell you he had?”
“He only said that he had kept silent while there was any chance of ye being tried and acquitted—but that had ye ever seemed in urgent danger, then he’d meant to speak up at once; that’s why he insisted upon coming with us. I, ah, didna wish to ask him questions,” he said delicately.
“But he didn’t do it.” I prodded, insistent. “Jamie, you know he didn’t!”
I felt the rise of his chest under my cheek as he breathed.
“I know,” he said softly.
We were silent for a bit. There was a sudden, muffled rapping outside, and I jerked—but it was only a woodpecker, hunting insects in the wormy timbers of the inn.
“Will they hang him, do you think?” I asked at last, staring up at the splintered beams above.
“I expect they will, aye.” His fingers had resumed their half-unconscious motion, smoothing strands of my hair behind my ear. I lay still, listening to the slow thump of his heart, not wanting to ask what came next. But I had to.
“Jamie—tell me that he didn’t do it—that he didn’t make that confession—for me. Please.” I didn’t think I could bear that, not on top of everything else.
His fingers stilled, just touching my ear.
“He loves you. Ye ken that, aye?” He spoke very quietly; I heard the reverberation of the words in his chest, as much as the words themselves.
“He said he did.” I felt a tightness in the throat, recalling that very direct gray look. Tom Christie was a man who said what he meant, and meant what he said—a man like Jamie, in that regard at least.
Jamie was quiet for what seemed a long time. Then he sighed, and turned his head so his cheek rested against my hair; I heard the faint rasp of his whiskers.
“Sassenach—I would have done the same, and counted my life well lost, if it saved ye. If he feels the same, then ye’ve done nay wrong to him, to take your life from his hand.”
“Oh, dear,” I said. “Oh, dear.” I didn’t want to think of any of it—not Tom’s clear gray look and the calling of gulls, not the lines of affliction that carved his face into pieces, not the thought of what he had suffered, in loss, in guilt, in suspicion—in fear. Nor did I want to think of Malva, going unwitting to that death among the lettuces, her son heavy and peaceful in her womb. Nor the dark rusty blood drying in gouts and splashes among the leaves of the grapevines.
Above all, I didn’t want to think that I had had any part in this tragedy—but that was inescapable.
I swallowed, hard.
“Jamie—can it ever be made right?”
He held my hand now, in his other hand, stroking his thumb gently back and forth under my fingers.
“The lass is dead, mo chridhe.”
I closed my hand on his thumb, stilling it.
“Yes, and someone killed her—and it wasn’t Tom. Oh, God, Jamie—who? Who was it?”
“I dinna ken,” he said, and his eyes grew deep with sadness. “She was a lass who craved love, I think—and took it. But she didna ken how to give it back again.”
I took a deep breath and asked the question that had lain unspoken between us since the murder.
“You don’t think it was Ian?”
He nearly smiled at that.
“If it had been, a nighean, we’d know. Ian could kill; he couldna let you or me suffer for it.”
I sighed, shifting my shoulders to ease the knot between them. He was right, and I felt comforted, on Ian’s account—and still more guilty, on Tom Christie’s.
“The man who fathered