A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [653]
What startled him was not the question, but the realization that it had never once occurred to him to ask it—certainly not of Jamie, but not even of himself. Why not? he wondered. He had no right to jealousy, and if he was fool enough to suffer it, it would have been considerably ex post facto in the case of Geneva Dunsany; he had had no inkling of William’s origins until several years after the girl’s death.
“I have no idea,” he said shortly.
Brianna’s fingers drummed restlessly on his arm; she would have pulled free, but he put a hand on hers to still her.
“Damn,” she muttered, but ceased fidgeting, and walked on, matching the length of his shorter stride. Weeds had sprung up in the oval, were sprouting through the sand of the track. She kicked at a clump of wild rye grass, sending a spray of dry seeds flying.
“If they were in love, why didn’t he marry her?” she asked at last.
He laughed, in sheer incredulity at the notion.
“Marry her! My dear girl, he was the family groom!”
A look of puzzlement flashed in her eye—he would have sworn that if she had spoken, the word would have been “So?”
“Where in the name of God were you raised?” he demanded, stopping dead.
He could see things moving in her eyes; she had Jamie’s trick of keeping her face a mask, but her mother’s transparency still shone from within. He saw the decision in her eyes, a moment before the slow smile touched her lips.
“Boston,” she said. “I’m an American. But you knew I was a barbarian already, didn’t you?”
He grunted in response.
“That does go some distance toward explaining your remarkably republican attitudes,” he replied very dryly. “Though I would strongly suggest that you disguise these dangerous sentiments, for the sake of your family. Your father is in sufficient trouble on his own account. However, you may accept my assurance that it would not be possible for the daughter of a baronet to marry a groom, no matter how exigent the nature of their emotions.”
Her turn to grunt at that; a highly expressive, if totally unfeminine sound. He sighed, and took her hand again, tucking it in the curve of his elbow for safekeeping.
“He was a paroled prisoner, too—a Jacobite, a traitor. Believe me, marriage would not have occurred to either of them.”
The damp air was misting on her skin, clinging to the down hairs on her cheeks.
“But that was in another country,” she quoted softly. “And besides, the wench is dead.”
“Very true,” he said quietly.
They scuffed silently through the damp sand for a few moments, each alone in thought. At last Brianna heaved a sigh, deep enough that he felt as well as heard it.
“Well, she’s dead, anyway, and the earl—do you know why Da killed him? Did he tell you that?”
“Your father has never spoken of the matter—of Geneva, of the earl, or even directly of William’s parentage—to me.” He spoke precisely, eyes fixed on a pair of gulls probing the sand near a clump of saw grass. “But I know, yes.”
He glanced at her.
“William is my son, after all. In the sense of common usage, at least.” In a great deal more than that, but that was not a matter he chose to discuss with Jamie’s daughter.
Her eyebrows rose.
“Yes. How did that happen?”
“As I told you, both of William’s parents—his putative parents—died on the day of his birth. His father—the earl, I mean—had no close kin, so the boy was left to the guardianship of his grandfather, Lord Dunsany. Geneva’s sister, Isobel, became William’s mother in all but fact. And I—” He shrugged, nonchalant. “I married Isobel. I became William’s guardian, with Dunsany’s consent, and he has regarded me as his stepfather since he was six years old—he is my son.”
“You? You married?” She was goggling down at him, with an air of incredulity that he found offensive.
“You have the most peculiar notions concerning marriage,” he said crossly. “It was an eminently suitable match.”
One red eyebrow went up in a gesture that was Jamie to the life.
“Did your wife think so?” she asked, in an uncanny echo