Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [431]
Jamie thrust the fork into the pile with a thump. He straightened up and eyed Brianna, rubbing his fist across his jaw.
“Aye, well. I seem to recall hearin’ a verra similar opinion expressed by your mother—the night before our wedding. I havena asked her lately does she regret bein’ forced to wed me or not, but I flatter myself she’s maybe not been miserable altogether. Perhaps ye should go and have a word wi’ her?”
“It’s not the same thing at all!” Brianna snapped.
“No, it’s not,” Jamie agreed, keeping a firm grip on his temper. The sun was low behind the hills, flooding the stable with a golden light in which the creeping tide of red in his skin was nonetheless quite visible. Still, he was making every attempt to be reasonable.
“Your mother wed me to save her life—and mine. It was a brave thing she did, and generous, too. I’ll grant it’s no a matter of life or death, but—have ye no idea what it is to live branded as a wanton—or as a fatherless bastard, come to that?”
Seeing her expression falter slightly at this, he pressed his advantage, stretching out a hand to her and speaking kindly.
“Come, lassie. Can ye not bring yourself to do it for the bairn’s sake?”
Her face tightened again and she stepped back.
“No,” she said, sounding strangled. “No. I can’t.”
He dropped his hand. I could see them both, despite the fading light, and saw the danger signs all too clearly, in the narrowing of his eyes and the set of his shoulders, squared for battle. “Is that how Frank Randall raised ye, lass, to have no regard for what’s right or wrong?”
Brianna was trembling all over, like a horse that’s run too far.
“My father always did what was right for me! And he would never have tried to pull something like this!” she said. “Never! He cared about me!”
At this, Jamie finally lost his temper, which went off with a bang.
“And I don’t?” he said. “I am not trying my best to do what’s right for ye? In spite of your being—”
“Jamie—” I turned toward him, saw his eyes gone black with anger, and turned toward her. “Bree—I know he didn’t—you have to understand—”
“Of all the reckless, thoughtless, selfish ways in which to behave!”
“You self-righteous, insensitive bastard!”
“Bastard! Ye’ll call me a bastard, and your belly swellin’ like a pumpkin with a child that ye mean to doom to finger-pointing and calumny for all its days, and—”
“Anybody points a finger at my child, and I’ll break it off and stuff it down their throat!”
“Ye senseless wee besom! Have ye no the faintest notion o’ how things are? Ye’ll be a scandal and a hissing! Folk will call ye whore to your face!”
“Let them try it!”
“Oh, let them try it? And ye mean me to stand by and listen, I suppose?”
“It’s not your job to defend me!”
He was so furious that his face went white as fresh-bleached muslin.
“Not my job to defend you? For Christ’s sake, woman, who else is meant to do it?”
Ian tugged gently on my arm, drawing me back.
“Ye’ve only the twa choices now, Auntie,” he murmured in my ear. “Douse them both wi’ a pan o’ cold water, or come away with me and leave them to it. I’ve seen Uncle Jamie and my Mam go at it before. Believe me, ye dinna want to step between two Frasers wi’ their dander up. My Da said he’s tried once or twice, and got the scars to prove it.”
I took a final glance at the situation and gave up. He was right; they were nose to nose, red hair bristling and eyes slitted like a couple of bobcats, circling, spitting and snarling. I could have set the hay on fire, and neither one would have spared an instant’s notice.
It seemed remarkably quiet and peaceful outside. A whippoorwill sang in the aspen grove, and the wind was in the east, carrying the faint sounds of the waterfall to us. By the time we reached the dooryard, we couldn’t hear the shouting anymore.
“Dinna be worrit, Auntie,” Ian said comfortingly. “They’ll get hungry, sooner or later.”
In the event, it was unnecessary to starve them out; Jamie stamped down the hill a few minutes later and without a word, fetched his horse from the paddock, bridled