Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [78]
He nodded slowly, and lifted a hand to touch my cheek. The soft glow of the small lantern overhead attracted clouds of tiny gnats; they swirled suddenly, disturbed by his movement.
“Aye, ye were,” he said softly. “But then—we thought we must change things. Or try, at the least. But here—” He turned, waving an arm at the vast land that lay unseen beyond the trees. “I shouldna think it my business,” he said simply. “Either to help or to hinder much.”
I waved the gnats away from my face.
“It might be our business, if we lived here.”
He rubbed a finger below his lower lip, thinking. His beard was sprouting, a glimmer of red stubble sparked with silver in the lantern light. He was a big man, handsome and strong in the prime of his life, but no longer a young one, and I realized that with sudden gratitude.
Highland men were bred to fight; Highland boys became men when they could lift their swords and go to battle. Jamie had never been reckless, but he had been a warrior and a soldier most of his life. As a young man in his twenties, nothing could have kept him from a fight, whether it was his own or not. Now, in his forties, sense might temper passion—or at least I hoped so.
And it was true; beyond this aunt whom he didn’t know, he had no family here, no ties that might compel involvement. Perhaps, knowing what was coming, we might contrive to stay clear of the worst?
“It’s a verra big place, Sassenach.” He looked out over the prow of the boat, into the vast black sweep of invisible land. “Only since we left Georgia, we have traveled farther than the whole length of Scotland and England both.”
“That’s true,” I admitted. In Scotland, even among the high crags of the Highlands, there had been no way to escape the ravages of war. Not so here; should we seek our place carefully, we might indeed escape the roving eye of Mars.
He tilted his head to one side, smiling up at me.
“I could see ye as a planter’s lady, Sassenach. If the Governor will find me a buyer for the other stones, then I shall have enough, I think, to send Laoghaire all the money I promised her, and still have enough over to buy a good place—one where we might prosper.”
He took my right hand in his, his thumb gently stroking my silver wedding ring.
“Perhaps one day I shall deck ye in laces and jewels,” he said softly. “I havena been able to give ye much, ever, save a wee silver ring, and my mother’s pearls.”
“You’ve given me a lot more than that,” I said. I wrapped my fingers around his thumb and squeezed. “Brianna, for one.”
He smiled faintly, looking down at the deck.
“Aye, that’s true. She’s maybe the real reason—for staying, I mean.”
I pulled him toward me, and he rested his head against my knee.
“This is her place, no?” he said quietly. He lifted a hand, gesturing toward the river, the trees and the sky. “She will be born here, she’ll live here.”
“That’s right,” I said softly. I stroked his hair, smoothing the thick strands that were so much like Brianna’s. “This will be her country.” Hers, in a way it could never be mine or his, no matter how long we might live here.
He nodded, beard rasping gently against my skirt.
“I dinna wish to fight, or have ye ever in danger, Sassenach, but if there is a bit I can do … to build, maybe, to make it safe, and a good land for her …” He shrugged. “It would please me,” he finished softly.
We sat silently for a bit, close together, watching the dull shine of the water and the slow progress of the sunken lantern.
“I left the pearls for her,” I said at last. “That seemed right; they were an heirloom, after all.” I drew my ringed hand, curved, across his lips. “And the ring is all I need.”
He took both my hands in his, then, and kissed them—the left, which still bore the gold ring of my marriage to Frank, and then the right, with his own silver ring.
“Da mi basia mille,” he whispered, smiling. Give me a thousand kisses. It was the inscription inside my ring, a brief quotation from