Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [61]
“For my value as an ornamental setting, you mean?” I asked dryly, recalling the Wylies’ conversation.
“No,” he said, rather shortly. “For keeping Wylie and his friends occupied at dinner, while I talked wi’ the Governor. Ornamental setting … tcha! Stanhope nearly dropped his eyeballs into your bosom, the filthy lecher; I’d a mind to call him out for it, but—”
“Discretion is the better part of valor,” I said, standing up and kissing him back. “Not that I’ve ever met a Scot who seemed to think so.”
“Aye, well, there was my grandsire, Old Simon. I suppose ye could say it was discretion that did for him, in the end.” I could hear both the smile and the edge in his voice. If he seldom spoke of the Jacobites and the events of the Rising, it didn’t mean he had forgotten; his conversation with the Governor had obviously brought them close to the surface of his mind tonight.
“I’d say that discretion and deceit are not necessarily the same things. And your grandfather had been asking for it for fifty years, at least,” I replied tartly. Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, had died by beheading on Tower Hill—at the age of seventy-eight, after a lifetime of unparalleled chicanery, both personal and political. For all of that, I quite regretted the old rogue’s passing.
“Mmphm.” Jamie didn’t argue with me, but moved to stand beside me at the window. He breathed in deeply, as though smelling the thick perfume of the night.
I could see his face quite clearly in the dim glow of starlight. It was calm and smooth, but with an inward look, as though his eyes didn’t see what was before them, but something else entirely. The past? I wondered. Or the future?
“What did it say?” I asked suddenly. “The oath you swore.”
I felt rather than saw the movement of his shoulders, not quite a shrug.
“ ‘I, James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, do swear, and as I shall answer to God at the great day of judgment, I have not, nor shall have, in my possession any gun, sword, pistol, or arm whatsoever, and never use tartan, plaid, or any part of the Highland garb; and if I do so, may I be cursed in my undertakings, family, and property.’ ” He took a deep breath, and went on, speaking precisely.
“ ‘May I never see my wife and children, father, mother or relations. May I be killed in battle as a coward, and lie without Christian burial, in a strange land, far from the graves of my forefathers and kindred; may all this come across me if I break my oath.’ ”
“And did you mind a lot?” I said, after a moment.
“No,” he said softly, still looking out at the night. “Not then. There are things worth dying or starving for—but not words.”
“Maybe not those words.”
He turned to look at me, features dim in starlight, but the hint of a smile visible on his mouth.
“Ye know of words that are?”
The gravestone had his name, but no date. I could stop him going back to Scotland, I thought. If I would.
I turned to face him, leaning back against the window frame.
“What about—’I love you’?”
He reached out a hand and touched my face. A breath of air stirred past us, and I saw the small hairs rise along his arm.
“Aye,” he whispered. “That’ll do.”
There was a bird calling somewhere close at hand. A few clear notes, succeeded by an answer; a brief twitter, and then silence. The sky outside was still thick black, but the stars were less brilliant than before.
I turned over restlessly; I was naked, covered only by a linen sheet, but even in the small hours of the night, the air was warm and smothering, and the small depression in which I lay was damp.
I had tried to sleep, and could not. Even lovemaking, which normally could relax me into a bonelessly contented stupor, had this time left me only restless and sticky. At once excited and worried by the possibilities of the future—and unable to confide my disturbed feelings—I had felt separate from Jamie; estranged and detached, despite the closeness of our bodies.
I turned again, this time toward Jamie. He lay in his usual position, on his