Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [435]
“Och, now, Coz, it could have been worse.” Ian patted Brianna tentatively on the back. “We didna kill him, after all.”
Brianna made a small choking sound, and pulled her head up off her knees. Her face was white and damp as the inside of an oyster shell, her hair in a tangle round it. She hadn’t vomited or fainted, but looked as though she still might do either.
“We did mean to,” Ian went on, looking at her a little nervously. “I’d my pistol pressed behind his ear, but then I thought it was really Uncle Jamie’s right to blow his brains out, but then he—”
Brianna choked again, and I hastily placed an ashet on the table in front of her, just in case.
“Ian, I really think she doesn’t need to hear this just now,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Yes, I do.” Brianna pushed herself upright, hands gripping the edge of the table. “I have to hear it all, I have to.” She turned her head slowly, as though her neck was stiff, toward Jamie.
“Why?” she said. “WHY?”
He was as white and ill-looking as she was. He had pushed away from the table and gone to the chimney corner, as though trying to get as far away as possible from the drawing, with its damning likeness of Roger MacKenzie Wakefield.
He looked as though he would have done anything rather than answer, but answer he did, his eyes steady on hers.
“I meant to kill him. I stopped Ian because shooting the prick seemed too easy a death—too quick for what he’d done.” He took a deep breath, and I could see that the hand gripping his writing shelf was clenched so tight that the knuckles stood out white against his skin.
“I stopped to think, how it should be; what I must do. I left Ian with him, and I walked away.” He swallowed; I could see the muscles move in his throat, but he didn’t look away.
“I walked into the forest a wee way, and leaned my back against a tree to let my heart slow. It seemed best he should be awake, to know—but I didna think I could bear to hear him speak again. He’d said too much already. But then I began to hear it, over again, what he’d said.”
“What? What did he say?” Even her lips were white.
So were Jamie’s.
“He said … that ye’d asked him to your bed. That you—” He stopped and bit his lip, savagely.
“He said ye wanted him; that ye’d asked him to take your maidenheid,” Ian said. He spoke coolly, his eyes on Brianna.
She drew in breath with a ragged sound, like paper being torn.
“I did.”
I glanced involuntarily at Jamie. His eyes were closed, his teeth fixed in his lip.
Ian made a shocked sound, and Brianna drew back a hand like lightning and slapped him across the face.
He jerked back, lost his balance, and half fell off the bench. He grabbed the edge of the table and staggered to his feet.
“How?” he shouted, his face contorted in sudden anger. “How could ye do such a thing? I told Uncle Jamie that ye’d never play the whore, never! But it’s true, isn’t it?”
She was on her feet like a leopard, her cheeks gone from white to blazing fury in a second.
“Well, damn you for a self-righteous prig, Ian! Who gave you the right to call me a whore?”
“Right?” He sputtered for a moment, at a loss for words. “I—you—he—”
Before I could intervene, she drew back a fist and punched him hard in the pit of the stomach. With a look of intense surprise, he sat down hard on the floor, mouth open like a suckling pig.
I moved, but Jamie was faster. In less than a second he was beside her, gripping her arm. She whirled, meaning to hit him, too, I think, but then froze. Her mouth was working soundlessly, tears of shock and fury running down her cheeks.
“Be still,” he said, and his voice was very cold. I saw his fingers dig into her flesh, and I made a small sound of protest. He paid no attention, too intent on Brianna.
“I didna want to believe it,” he said, in a voice like ice. “I told myself he was only saying so to save himself, it wasna true. But if it was—” He seemed to become aware at last that he was hurting her. He let go of her arm.
“I couldna take the man’s life, without being sure,” he said, and paused,