Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [403]
He had got momentarily out of range. Gulping air, he rolled up onto his hands and knees. Blood gurgled through smashed cartilage with each breath; he could taste it in the back of his throat, a taste like sheared metal.
“Nuff,” he panted. “No. ’Nuff!”
A hand grabbed his hair and jerked back his head. Blue eyes glittered six inches away, and he felt the man’s breath hot on his face.
“Not nearly enough,” Fraser said, and kneed him in the mouth. He fell over and rolled once, then struggled to his feet. The clearing blurred in a throb of orange and yellow; only instinct got him up and moving.
He was fighting for his life, and knew it. He hurled himself blindly at the weaving figure, got a grip of Fraser’s shirt and drove a punch at the man’s belly, as hard as he could. Fabric tore and his fist struck bone. Fraser shifted like a snake and shot a hand down between them. He grabbed Roger’s testicles and squeezed with all his strength.
Roger stood stock-still, then dropped as though his spinal cord had been severed. There was a split second, before the pain hit, when Roger was conscious of one last thought, cold and clear as a shard of ice. My God, he thought, I’m going to die before I’ve been born.
47
A FATHER’S SONG
It was well after dark before Jamie came in, and my nerves were thoroughly on edge from the waiting; I could only imagine Brianna’s. We had eaten supper—or I should say, supper had been served. None of us had any appetite, either for food or conversation; even Lizzie’s normal voracity was noticeably impaired. I hoped the girl wasn’t ill; pale and silent, she had pled a headache and gone to bed in the herb shed. Still, it was fortunate in the circumstances; it saved me having to invent an excuse to get rid of her once Jamie did arrive.
The candles had been lit for over an hour when I finally heard the goats bleat in greeting at his step on the path. Brianna looked up at once at the sound, her face pale in the yellow light.
“It’ll be all right,” I said. She heard the confidence in my voice and nodded, slightly reassured. The confidence was authentic, but not unalloyed. I thought everything would be all right eventually—but God knew, it wasn’t going to be a jolly family evening. Well as I knew Jamie, there were still a good many circumstances in which I had no idea how he would react—and hearing that his daughter was pregnant by a rapist was certainly one of them.
In the hours since Brianna had made my suspicions a certainty, I had envisioned virtually every possible response he might make, several of them involving shouting or the putting of his fists through solid objects, behavior which I always found upsetting. So might Bree, and I knew rather better what she might do when upset.
She was under a tight control for the moment, but I knew how precarious her calm demeanor was. Let him say a bruising word to her, and she would flare like a striking match. Beyond red hair and arresting height, she had from Jamie both a passionate nature and a perfect readiness to speak her mind.
So unfamiliar and so anxious to please each other, they had both so far stepped delicately—but there seemed no delicate way of handling this. Unsure whether I should prepare myself to be advocate, interpreter, or referee, it was with rather a hollow feeling that I lifted the latch to let him in.
He had washed at the creek; his hair was damp at the temples, and he had wiped his face on his shirttail, judging by the moist patches on it.
“You’re very late; where were you?” I asked, standing on tiptoe to give him a kiss. “And where’s Ian?”
“Fergus came and asked could we give him a hand wi’ his chimney stones, as he couldna manage verra well by himself. Ian’s stayed ower, to help finish the job.” He dropped an absent kiss on top of my head, and patted my bottom. He’d been working hard, I thought; he was warm to my touch and smelled pungently