Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [370]
“What on earth does neo-geimnidh meala mean?” I said, jerking on his sleeve to slow him. He glanced down, as though I had just been recalled to his wandering attention.
“Ah? Oh, it means honeylips, all right. More or less.”
“But—”
“It’s no your mouth he was referring to, Sassenach,” Jamie said dryly.
“Why, that—” I made as if to turn back to the study, but Jamie tightened his grip on my arm.
“Cluck, cluck, cluck,” he murmured in my ear. “Dinna worry, Sassenach. They’re only tryin’ me. It will be all right.”
I was left in the care of Lady Frances, Young Simon’s sister, while Jamie returned to the library, shoulders squared for battle. I hoped he wouldn’t hit any more of his relatives; while the Frasers were, on the whole, not as sizable as the MacKenzies, they had a sort of tough watchfulness that boded ill for anyone trying something on in their immediate vicinity.
Lady Frances was young, perhaps twenty-two, and inclined to view me with a sort of terrorized fascination, as though I might spring upon her if not incessantly placated with tea and sweetmeats. I exerted myself to be as pleasant and unthreatening as possible, and after a time, she relaxed sufficiently to confess that she had never met an Englishwoman before. “Englishwoman,” I gathered, was an exotic and dangerous species.
I was careful to make no sudden moves, and after a bit, she grew comfortable enough to introduce me shyly to her son, a sturdy little chap of three or so, maintained in a state of unnatural cleanliness by the constant watchfulness of a stern-faced maidservant.
I was telling Frances and her younger sister Aline about Jenny and her family, whom they had never met, when there was a sudden crash and a cry in the hallway outside. I sprang to my feet, and reached the sitting-room door in time to see a huddled bundle of cloth struggling to rise to its feet in the stone corridor. The heavy door to the library stood open, and the squat figure of Simon Fraser the elder stood framed in it, malevolent as a toad.
“Ye’ll get worse than that, my lass, and ye make no better job of it,” he said. His tone was not particularly menacing; only a statement of fact. The bundled figure raised its head, and I saw an odd, angularly pretty face, dark eyes wide over the red blotch deepening on her cheekbone. She saw me, but made no acknowledgment of my presence, only getting to her feet and hurrying away without a word. She was very tall and extremely thin, and moved with the strange, half-clumsy grace of a crane, her shadow following her down the stones.
I stood staring at Old Simon, silhouetted against the firelight from the library behind him. He felt my eyes upon him, and turned his head to look at me. The old blue eyes rested on me, cold as sapphires.
“Good evening, my dear,” he said, and closed the door.
I stood looking blankly at the dark wooden door.
“What was that all about?” I asked Frances, who had come up behind me.
“Nothing,” she said, licking her lips nervously. “Come away, Cousin.” I let her pull me away, but resolved to ask Jamie later what had happened in the library.
* * *
We had reached the chamber allotted us for the night, and Jamie graciously dismissed our small guide with a pat on the head.
I sank down on the bed, gazing around helplessly.
“Now what do we do?” I asked. Dinner had passed with little to remark, but I had felt the weight of Lovat’s eyes on me from time to time.
Jamie shrugged, pulling his shirt over his head.
“Damned if I know, Sassenach,” he said. “They asked me the state of the Highland army, the condition of the troops, what I knew of His Highness’s plans. I told them. And then they asked it all again. My grandfather’s no inclined to think anyone could be giving him a straight answer,” he added dryly. “He thinks everyone must be as twisted as himself, wi’ a dozen different motives; one for every occasion.”
He shook his