Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [483]
He took her firmly by the elbow and propelled her into motion, away from the house. The thought struck her that perhaps he meant to take her down to the river, out of sight, and try to drown her. She thought it unlikely, but still resisted the direction of his urging, and turned back into the square-laid paths of the kitchen garden instead.
He made no demur, but went with her, though it meant walking head-on into the wind. He didn’t speak until they had turned once more, and reached a sheltered corner by the onion bed.
“I am halfway tempted to submit to your outrageous proposal,” he said at last, the corner of his mouth twitching—whether with fury or amusement, she couldn’t tell.
“It would certainly please your aunt. It would outrage your mother. And it would teach you to play with fire, I do assure you.” She caught a gleam in his eye that gave her a sudden surge of doubt about her conclusions as to his preferences. She drew back from him a bit.
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that—that you might … men and women both, I mean.”
“I was married,” he pointed out, with some sarcasm.
“Yes, but I thought that was probably the same kind of thing I’m suggesting now—just a formal arrangement, I mean. That’s what made me think of it in the first place, once I realized that you—” She broke off with an impatient gesture. “Are you telling me that you do like to go to bed with women?”
He raised one eyebrow.
“Would that make a substantial difference to your plans?”
“Well …” she said uncertainly. “Yes. Yes, it would. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have suggested it.”
“ ‘Suggested,’ she says,” he muttered. “Public denunciation? The pillory? Suggested?”
The blood burned so hotly in her cheeks, she was surprised not to see the cold air turn to steam around her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wouldn’t have done it. You have to believe me, I really wouldn’t have said a word to anybody. It’s only when you laughed, I thought—anyway, it doesn’t matter. If you did want to sleep with me, I couldn’t marry you—it wouldn’t be right.”
He closed his eyes very tight and held them squinched shut for a minute. Then he opened one light blue eye and looked at her.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because of Roger,” she said, and was infuriated to hear her voice break on the name. Still more infuriated to feel a hot tear escape to run down her cheek.
“Damn it!” she said. “Damn it to hell! I wasn’t even going to think about him!”
She swiped the tear angrily away, and clenched her teeth.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe it is being pregnant. I cry all the time, over nothing.”
“I rather doubt it is nothing,” he said dryly.
She took a deep breath, the cold air hollowing her chest. There was one last card to play, then.
“If you do like women … I couldn’t—I mean, I don’t want to sleep with you regularly. And I wouldn’t mind your sleeping with anybody else—male or female—”
“Thank you for that,” he muttered, but she ignored him, bent only on the need to get it all out.
“But I can see that you might want a child of your own. It wouldn’t be right for me to keep you from having one. I can give you that, I think.” She glanced down at herself, arms clasped across the round of her belly. “Everyone says I’m made for childbearing,” she went on steadily, eyes on her feet. “I’d—just until I got pregnant again, though. You’d have to put that in the contract, too—Mr. Campbell could draw it up.”
Lord John massaged his forehead, evidently suffering the onslaught of a massive headache. Then he dropped his hand and took her by the arm.
“Come and sit down, child,” he said quietly. “You’d best tell me what the devil you’re up to.”
She took a deep, savage breath to steady her voice.
“I am not a child,” she said. He glanced up at her and seemed to change his mind about something.
“No, you’re not—God help us both. But before you startle Farquard Campbell into an apoplexy with your notion of a suitable marriage contract, I beg you to