Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [450]
“Auntie,” he said hesitantly. “Will ye not forgive him?”
“Forgive him?” I stared at him. “For what? For Roger?”
He grimaced.
“No. It was a grievous mistake, but we would do the same again, thinking matters as we did. No—for Bonnet.”
“For Stephen Bonnet? How can he possibly think I blame him for that? I’ve never said such a thing to him!” And I had been too busy thinking that he blamed me, to even consider it.
Ian scratched a hand through his hair.
“Well … do ye not see, Auntie? He blames himself for it. He has, ever since the man robbed us on the river; and now wi’ what he’s done to my cousin …” He shrugged, looking mildly embarrassed. “He’s fair eaten up with it, and knowing that you’re angry wi’ him—”
“But I’m not angry with him! I thought he was angry with me, because I didn’t tell him Bonnet’s name right away.”
“Och.” Ian looked as though he didn’t know whether to laugh or look distressed. “Well, I daresay it would ha’ saved us a bit of trouble if ye had, but no, I’m sure it’s not that, Auntie. After all, by the time Cousin Brianna told ye, we’d already met yon MacKenzie on the mountainside and done him a bit of no good.”
I took in a deep breath and blew it out again.
“But you think he thinks I’m angry at him?”
“Oh, anyone could see ye are, Auntie,” he assured me earnestly. “Ye dinna look at him or speak to him save for what ye must—and,” he said, clearing his throat delicately, “I havena seen ye go to his bed, anytime this month past.”
“Well, he hasn’t come to mine, either!” I said hotly, before reflecting that this was scarcely a suitable conversation to be having with a seventeen-year-old boy.
Ian hunched his shoulders and gave me an owlish look.
“Well, he’s his pride, hasn’t he?”
“God knows he has,” I said, rubbing a hand over my face. “I—look, Ian, thank you for saying something to me.”
He gave me one of the rare sweet smiles that transformed his long, homely face.
“Well, I do hate to see him suffer. I’m fond of Uncle Jamie, aye?”
“So am I,” I said, and swallowed the small lump in my throat. “Good night, Ian.”
I walked softly down the length of the house, past cubicles in which whole families slept together, the sound of their mingled breathing a peaceful descant to the anxious beating of my heart. It was raining outside; water dripped from the smokeholes, sizzling in the embers.
Why had I not seen what Ian had? That was easy to answer; it wasn’t anger, but my own sense of guilt that had blinded me. I had kept back my knowledge of Bonnet’s involvement as much because of the gold wedding ring as because Brianna had asked me to; I could have persuaded her to tell Jamie, had I tried.
She was right; he would undoubtedly go after Stephen Bonnet sooner or later. I had somewhat more confidence in Jamie’s success than she did, though. No, it had been the ring that had made me keep silence.
And why should I feel guilty over that? There was no sensible answer; it had been instinct, not conscious thought, to hide the ring. I had not wanted to show it to Jamie, to put it back on my finger in front of him. And yet I had wanted—needed—to keep it.
My heart squeezed small, thinking of the past few weeks, of Jamie, going grimly about the necessities of reparation in loneliness and guilt. That was why I had come with him, after all—because I was afraid that if he went alone, he might not come back. Spurred by guilt and courage, he might go to reckless lengths; with me to consider, I knew he would be careful. And all the time he had thought himself not only alone but bitterly reproached by the one person who could—and should—have offered him comfort.
“Eaten up with it” indeed.
I paused by the cubicle. The shelf was some eight feet wide, and he lay well back; I could see little more of him than a humped shape under a blanket made of rabbit skins. He lay very still, but I knew he wasn’t asleep.
I climbed onto the platform, and once safe within the shadows of the cubicle, slipped out of my clothes. It was fairly warm in the longhouse, but my bare skin prickled and my nipples tightened. My eyes