Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [120]
“I want to talk to him,” I said abruptly. Dougal’s eyebrows shot up.
“Jamie? Why?”
“Why? Because you’re forcing me to marry him, and so far as I can see, you haven’t even told him!”
Plainly this was an irrelevancy, as far as Dougal was concerned, but he eventually gave in and, accompanied by his minions, went to fetch Jamie from the taproom below.
Jamie appeared shortly, looking understandably bewildered.
“Did you know that Dougal wants us to marry?” I demanded bluntly.
His expression cleared. “Oh, aye. I knew that.”
“But surely,” I said, “a young man like yourself; I mean, isn’t there anyone else you’re, ah, interested in?” He looked blank for a moment, then understanding dawned.
“Oh, am I promised? Nay, I’m no much of a prospect for a girl.” He hurried on, as though feeling this might sound insulting. “I mean, I’ve no property to speak of, and nothing more than a soldier’s pay to live on.”
He rubbed his chin, eyeing me dubiously. “Then there’s the minor difficulty that I’ve a price on my head. No father much wants his daughter married to a man as may be arrested and hanged any time. Did ye think of that?”
I flapped my hand, dismissing the matter of outlawry as a minor consideration, compared to the whole monstrous idea. I had one last try.
“Does it bother you that I’m not a virgin?” He hesitated a moment before answering.
“Well, no,” he said slowly, “so long as it doesna bother you that I am.” He grinned at my drop-jawed expression, and backed toward the door.
“Reckon one of us should know what they’re doing,” he said. The door closed softly behind him; clearly the courtship was over.
* * *
The papers duly signed, I made my way cautiously down the inn’s steep stairs and over to the bar table in the taproom.
“Whisky,” I said to the rumpled old creature behind it. He glared rheumily, but a nod from Dougal made him oblige with a bottle and glass. The latter was thick and greenish, a bit smeared, with a chip out of the rim, but it had a hole in the top, and that was all that mattered at the moment.
Once the searing effect of swallowing the stuff had passed, it did induce a certain spurious calmness. I felt detached, noticing details of my surroundings with a peculiar intensity: the small stained-glass inset over the bar, casting colored shadows over the ruffianly proprietor and his wares, the curve of the handle on a copper-bottomed dipper that hung on the wall next to me, a greenbellied fly struggling on the edges of a sticky puddle on the table. With a certain amount of fellow-feeling, I nudged it out of danger with the edge of my glass.
I gradually became aware of raised voices behind the closed door on the far side of the room. Dougal had disappeared there after the conclusion of his business with me, presumably to firm up arrangements with the other contracting party. I was pleased to hear that, judging from the sound of it, my intended bridegroom was cutting up rough, despite his apparent lack of objection earlier. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to offend me.
“Stick to it, lad,” I murmured, and took another gulp.
Sometime later, I was dimly conscious of a hand prying my fingers open in order to remove the greenish glass. Another hand was steadyingly under my elbow.
“Christ, she’s drunk as an auld besom in a bothy,” said a voice in my ear. The voice rasped unpleasantly, I thought, as though its owner had been eating sandpaper. I giggled softly at the thought.
“Quiet yerself, woman!” said the unpleasant rasping voice. It grew fainter as the owner turned to talk to someone else. “Drunk as a laird and screechin’ like a parrot—what do ye expect—”
Another voice interrupted the first, but I couldn’t tell what it said; the words were blurred and indistinguishable. It was a pleasanter sound, though, deep and somehow reassuring. It came nearer, and I could make out a few words. I made an effort to focus, but my attention had begun to wander again.
The fly had found its way back to the puddle, and was floundering in the