Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [123]
The thick red-gold hair had been brushed to a smooth gleam that swept the collar of a fine lawn shirt with tucked front, belled sleeves, and lace-trimmed wrist frills that matched the cascade of the starched jabot at the throat, decorated with a ruby stickpin.
His tartan was a brilliant crimson and black that blazed among the more sedate MacKenzies in their green and white. The flaming wool, fastened by a circular silver brooch, fell from his right shoulder in a graceful drape, caught by a silver-studded sword belt before continuing its sweep past neat calves clothed in woolen hose and stopping just short of the silver-buckled black leather boots. Sword, dirk, and badger-skin sporran completed the ensemble.
Well over six feet tall, broad in proportion, and striking of feature, he was a far cry from the grubby horse-handler I was accustomed to—and he knew it. Making a leg in courtly fashion, he swept me a bow of impeccable grace, murmuring “Your servant, Ma’am,” eyes glinting with mischief.
“Oh,” I said faintly.
I had seldom seen the taciturn Dougal at a loss for words before. Thick brows knotted over a suffused face, he seemed in his way as taken aback by this apparition as I was.
“Are ye mad, man?” he said at last. “What if someone’s to see ye!”
Jamie cocked a sardonic eyebrow at the older man. “Why, uncle,” he said. “Insults? And on my wedding day too. You wouldna have me shame my wife, now, would ye? Besides,” he added, with a malicious gleam, “I hardly think it would be legal, did I not marry in my own name. And you do want it legal, now, don’t you?”
With an apparent effort, Dougal recovered his self-possession. “If ye’re quite finished, Jamie, we’ll get on wi’ it,” he said.
But Jamie was not quite finished, it seemed. Ignoring Dougal’s fuming, he drew a short string of white beads from his sporran. He stepped forward and fastened the necklace around my neck. Looking down, I could see it was a string of small baroque pearls, those irregularly shaped productions of freshwater mussels, interspersed with tiny pierced-work gold roundels. Smaller pearls dangled from the gold beads.
“They’re only Scotch pearls,” he said, apologetically, “but they look bonny on you.” His fingers lingered a moment on my neck.
“Those were your mother’s pearls!” said Dougal, glowering at the necklace.
“Aye,” said Jamie calmly, “and now they’re my wife’s. Shall we go?”
* * *
Wherever we were going, it was some distance from the village. We made a rather morose wedding party, the bridal pair encircled by the others like convicts being escorted toward some distant prison. The only conversation was a muted apology from Jamie for being late, explaining that there had been some difficulty in finding a clean shirt and coat large enough to fit him.
“I think this one belongs to the local squire’s son,” he said, flipping the lacy jabot. “Bit of a dandy, it looks like.”
We dismounted and left the horses at the foot of a small hill. A footpath led upward through the heather.
“Ye’ve made the arrangements?” I heard Dougal say in an undertone to Rupert, as they tethered the beasts.
“Och, aye.” There was a flash of teeth in the black beard. “Was a bit o’ trouble to, persuade the padre, but we showed him the special license.” He patted his sporran, which clinked musically, giving me some idea of the nature of the special license.
Through the drizzle and mist, I saw the chapel jutting out of the heather. With a sense of complete disbelief, I saw the round-shouldered roof and the odd little many-paned windows, which I had last seen on the bright sunny morning of my marriage to Frank Randall.
“No!” I exclaimed. “Not here! I can’t!”
“Hst, now, hst. Dinna worry, lass, dinna worry. It will be all right.” Dougal put a large paw on my shoulder, making soothing Scottish noises, as if I were a skittish horse. “ ’Tis natural to be a bit nervous,” he