Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [501]
Roger dug in the waistband of his ragged breeches and brought out a strand of thread, grimy and knotted. “Here,” he said, grasping a double knot. “It was eight days past the day that they took me. Eight days from Fraser’s Ridge.”
“And a week, at least, from River Run to the Ridge.” I let myself breathe again, not sure whether I felt disappointment or relief. “We’d never make it.”
“But the weather is turning,” Jamie said. He nodded toward a big blue spruce, its needles wet and dripping. “When we came, that tree was cased in ice.” He looked at me. “The traveling may be easier; we may make better time—or not.”
“Or not.” I shook my head reluctantly. “You know as well as I do that spring means mud. And mud is worse to travel in than snow.” I felt my heart begin to slow down, accepting it. “No, it’s too late, too risky. She’ll have to stay.”
Jamie was gazing at Roger, over the fire.
“He doesn’t,” he said.
Roger looked at him, startled.
“I—” he began, then firmed his jaw and started over. “I do. You don’t think I’d leave her? And my child?”
I opened my mouth, and felt Jamie stiffen beside me in warning.
“No,” I said sharply. “No. We have to tell him. Brianna will. Better he should know now. If it makes a difference to him, then it’s better he knows before he sees her.”
Jamie’s lips pressed tight together, but he nodded.
“Aye,” he said. “Tell him, then.”
“Tell me what?” Roger’s dark hair was loose, rising around his head in the evening wind. He looked more alive than he had since we had found him, alarmed and excited at once. I bit the bullet.
“It may not be your child,” I said.
His expression didn’t change for a moment; then the words fell into place. He grabbed me by the arms, so suddenly that I yelped with alarm.
“What do you mean? What’s happened?”
Jamie moved like a striking snake. He caught Roger a short, sharp blow under the chin that loosened his grip and sent him sprawling backward on the ground.
“She means that when ye left my daughter to her own devices, she was raped,” he said roughly. “Two days past the time ye lay with her. So maybe the wean’s yours, and maybe it’s not.”
He glared down at Roger.
“So. D’ye mean to stand by her, or no?”
Roger shook his head, trying to clear it, and got slowly back to his feet.
“Raped. Who? Where?”
“In Wilmington. A man named Stephen Bonnet. He—”
“Bonnet?” It was only too clear from Roger’s expression that the name was familiar. He stared wildly from me to Jamie and back. “Brianna was raped by Stephen Bonnet?”
“So I said.” Suddenly all the rage Jamie had been holding since our exit from the village broke loose. He seized Roger by the throat and slammed him into a tree trunk.
“And where were you when it was done, ye coward? She was angry with ye, and so ye ran away and left her! If ye thought ye must go, why did ye not see her safe into my keeping first?”
I grabbed Jamie’s arm and yanked.
“Let go of him!”
He did, and whirled away, breathing hard. Roger, shaken and almost as furious as Jamie, shook down his ruffled clothing.
“I didn’t leave because we argued! I left to find this!” He snatched a handful of his loose breeches, and ripped at the cloth. A spark of green brightness glowed in the palm of his hand.
“I risked my life to get that, to see her safe back through the stones! Do you know where I went to get it, who I got it from? Stephen Bonnet! That’s why it took me so long to come to Fraser’s Ridge; he wasn’t where I expected him to be; I had to ride up and down the coast to find him.”
Jamie was frozen, staring at the gemstone. So was I.
“I shipped with Stephen Bonnet, from Scotland.” Roger was growing a little calmer. “He is a—a—”
“I ken what he is.” Jamie stirred, breaking his trance. “But what he also may be, is the father of my daughter’s child.” He gave Roger a long, cold look. “So I’m askin’ ye, MacKenzie; can ye go back to her, and live with her, knowing that it’s likely Bonnet’s child she bears? For if ye canna do it—then say so now, for I swear, if ye come to her and treat her badly … I will kill ye without a second