Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [299]
“Been sleeping in the heather, have ye?” he said, seeing the dirt and plant stains on her clothes. “You’ll have come some way to find us, niece.”
“She says she’s your niece,” Laoghaire said. Recovered from her shock, she peered over Ian’s shoulder, her round face pinched with dislike. “Belike she’s only come to see what she can get.”
“I shouldna be callin’ the kettle black, Laoghaire,” Ian said mildly. He twisted round to face her. “Or was it not you and Hobart a half-hour past, tryin’ to squeeze five hundred pounds from me?”
Her lips pressed tight together, deepening the lines that bracketed her mouth.
“That money’s mine,” she snapped, “and well ye know it! It was agreed to; you witnessed the paper.”
Ian sighed; evidently this wasn’t the first he had heard of the matter today.
“I did,” he said patiently. “And ye’ll have your money—so soon as Jamie’s able to send it. He’s promised, and he’s an honorable man. But—”
“Honorable, is it?” Laoghaire produced an unladylike snort. “Is it honorable to commit bigamy, then? Desert his wife and children? Steal away my daughter and ruin her? Honorable!” She looked at Brianna, eyes bright and hard as fresh-rolled steel.
“I’ll ask again, lass—what’s your mother’s name?”
Brianna simply stared at her, overwhelmed. The stock around her throat was choking her, and her hands felt icy, despite Ian’s grasp.
“Your mother,” Laoghaire repeated, impatient. “Who was she?”
“It doesna matter who—” Jenny began, but Laoghaire rounded on her, face flushed with fury.
“Oh, it matters! If he got her on some army whore, or some slut of a maidservant when he was in England—that’s one thing. But if she’s—”
“Laoghaire!”
“Sister!”
“Ye foul-tongued besom!”
Brianna put a stop to the outcry simply by standing up. She was as tall as any of the men, and towered over the women. Laoghaire took one quick step back. Every face in the room was turned to her, marked with hostility, sympathy, or merely curiosity.
With a coolness that she didn’t feel, Brianna reached for the inner pocket of her coat, the secret pocket she had sewed into the seam only a week before. It seemed like a century.
“My mother’s name is Claire,” she said, and dropped the necklace on the table.
There was utter silence in the room, save for the soft hissing of the peat fire, burning low on the hearth. The pearl necklace lay gleaming, the spring sun from the window picking out the gold pierced-work roundels like sparks.
It was Jenny who spoke first. Moving like a sleepwalker, she reached out a slender finger and touched one of the pearls. Freshwater pearls, the kind called baroque because of their singular, irregular, unmistakable shapes.
“Oh, my,” Jenny said softly. She lifted her head and looked Brianna in the face, the slanted blue eyes shimmering with what looked like tears. “I am so very glad to see ye—Niece.”
“Where is my mother? Do you know?” Brianna glanced from face to face, her heart beating heavily in her ears. Laoghaire was not looking at her; her gaze was fastened to the pearls, face gone cold and frozen.
Jenny and Ian exchanged a quick glance, then Ian stood up, moving awkwardly to bring his leg under him.
“She’s with your Da,” he said quietly, touching Brianna’s arm. “Dinna fash yourself, lassie; they’re both safe.”
Brianna resisted the impulse to collapse with relief. Instead, she let out her breath very carefully, feeling the knot of anxiety loosen slowly in her belly.
“Thank you,” she said. She tried to smile at Ian, but her face felt slack and rubbery. Safe. And together. Oh, thank you! she thought, in wordless gratitude.
“Those are mine, by rights.” Laoghaire nodded at the pearls. She wasn’t angry now, but coldly self-possessed. Without the distortions of fury, Brianna could see that she had once been very pretty, and was still a handsome woman—tall for a Scot, and graceful in her movements. She had the kind of delicate fair coloring that fades quickly, and had thickened through the middle, but her figure was still