Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [129]
Rather touched by this speech, I assured him that I had so far found his behavior both gallant and gentlemanly, and apologized for any doubt I might inadvertently have cast on his motives.
On this precariously diplomatic note, we paused while he refilled our empty glasses.
* * *
We sipped in silence for a time, both feeling a bit shy after the frankness of that last exchange. So, apparently there was something I could offer him. I couldn’t, in fairness, say the thought had not entered my mind, even before the absurd situation in which we found ourselves arose. He was a very engaging young man. And there had been that moment, right after my arrival at the castle, when he had held me on his lap, and—
I tilted my wineglass back and drained the contents. I patted the bed beside me again.
“Sit down here with me,” I said. “And”—I cast about for some neutral topic of conversation to ease us over the awkwardness of close proximity—“and tell me about your family. Where did you grow up?”
The bed sank noticeably under his weight, and I braced myself not to roll against him. He sat closely enough that the sleeve of his shirt brushed my arm. I let my hand lie open on my thigh, relaxed. He took it naturally as he sat, and we leaned against the wall, neither of us looking down, but as conscious of the link as though we had been welded together.
“Well, now, where shall I start?” He put his rather large feet up on the stool and crossed them at the ankles. With some amusement, I recognized the Highlander settling back for a leisurely dissection of that tangle of family and clan relationships which forms the background of almost any event of significance in the Scottish Highlands. Frank and I had spent one evening in the village pub, enthralled by a conversation between two old codgers, in which the responsibility for the recent destruction of an ancient barn was traced back through the intricacies of a local feud dating, so far as I could tell, from about 1790. With the sort of minor shock to which I was becoming accustomed, I realized that that particular feud, whose origins I had thought shrouded in the mists of time, had not yet begun. Suppressing the mental turmoil this realization caused, I forced my attention to what Jamie was saying.
“My father was a Fraser, of course; a younger half-brother to the present Master of Lovat. My mother was a MacKenzie, though. Ye’ll know that Dougal and Colum are my uncles?” I nodded. The resemblance was clear enough, despite the difference in coloring. The broad cheekbones and long, straight, knife edged nose were plainly a MacKenzie inheritance.
“Aye, well, my mother was their sister, and there were two more sisters, besides. My auntie Janet is dead, like my mother, but my auntie Jocasta married a cousin of Rupert’s, and lives up near the edge of Loch Eilean. Auntie Janet had six children, four boys and two girls, Auntie Jocasta has three, all girls, Dougal’s got the four girls, Colum has little Hamish only, and my parents had me and my sister, who’s named for my Auntie Janet, but we called her Jenny always.”
“Rupert’s a MacKenzie, too?” I asked, already struggling to keep everyone straight.
“Aye. He’s—” Jamie paused a moment considering, “he’s Dougal, Colum, and Jocasta’s first cousin, which makes him my second cousin. Rupert’s father and my grandfather Jacob were brothers, along with—”
“Wait a minute. Don’t let’s go back any farther than we have to, or I shall be getting hopelessly muddled. We haven’t even got to the Frasers yet, and I’ve already lost track of your cousins.”
He rubbed his chin, calculating. “Hmm. Well, on the Fraser side it’s a bit more complicated, because my grandfather Simon married three times, so my father had two sets of half-brothers and half-sisters. Let’s leave it for now that I’ve six Fraser uncles and three aunts still living, and we’ll leave out all the cousins from that lot.”
“Yes, let’s.” I leaned forward and poured another glass of wine for each of us.
The clan territories of MacKenzie and Fraser, it