Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [271]
He stood still, red-faced, breathing heavily through clenched teeth. “I’ll listen,” he said, “and then I’ll wring your wee neck, Janet! Let me go!”
No sooner did she oblige than he whirled on her.
“What in hell d’ye think you’re doing?” he demanded. “Tryin’ to shame me before my own wife?” Jenny was not fazed by his outrage. She rocked back on her heels, viewing her brother and me sardonically.
“Weel, and if she’s your wife, I expect she’s more familiar wi’ your balls than what I am. I havena seen them myself since ye got old enough to wash alone. Grown a bit, no?”
Jamie’s face went through several alarming transformations, as the dictates of civilized behavior struggled with the primitive impulse of a younger brother to clout his sister over the head. Civilization at length won out, and he said through his teeth, with what dignity he could summon, “Leave my balls out of it. And then, since you’ll not rest ’til ye make me hear it, tell me about Randall. Tell me why ye disobeyed my orders and chose to dishonor yourself and your family instead.”
Jenny put her hands on her hips and drew herself to her full height, ready for combat. Slower than he to lose her temper; still she had one, no doubt of that.
“Oh, disobey your orders, is it? That’s what eats at ye, Jamie, isn’t it? You know best, and we’ll all do as ye say, or we’ll come to rack and ruin, nae doubt.” She flounced angrily. “And if I’d done as you said, that day, you’d ha’ been dead in the dooryard, Faither hanged or in prison for killing Randall, and the lands gone forfeit to the Crown. To say nothing of me, wi’ my home and family gone, needing to beg in the byroads to live.”
Not pale at all now, Jamie was flushed with anger.
“Aye, so ye chose to sell yourself rather than beg! I’d sooner have died in my blood and seen Faither and the lands in hell along with me, and well ye know it!”
“Aye, I know it! You’re a ninny, Jamie, and always have been!” his sister returned in exasperation.
“Fine thing for you to say! You’re not content wi’ ruining your good name and my own, ye must go on with the scandal, and flaunt your shame to the whole neighborhood!”
“You’ll not speak to me in that way, James Fraser, brother or no! What d’ye mean, ‘my shame’? Ye great fool, you—”
“What I mean? When you’re goin’ about swelled out to here like a mad toad?” He mimicked her belly with a contemptuous swipe of the hand.
She took one step back, drew back her hand and slapped him with all the force she could muster. The impact jarred his head back and left a white outline of her fingers printed on his cheek. He slowly raised a hand to the mark, staring at his sister. Her eyes were glittering dangerously and her bosom heaved. The words spilled out in a torrent between clenched white teeth.
“Toad, is it? Stinking coward—ye’ve no more courage than to leave me here, thinking ye dead or imprisoned, wi’ no word from one day to the next, and then ye come strolling in one fine day—with a wife, no less—and sit in my drawing room calling me toad and harlot and—”
“I didna call ye harlot, but I should! How can ye—”
Despite the differences in their heights, brother and sister were almost nose to nose, hissing at one another in an effort to keep their carrying voices from ringing through the old manor house. The effort was largely wasted, judging from the glimpses I caught of various interested faces peeping discreetly from kitchen, hall, and window. The laird of Broch Tuarach was having an interesting homecoming, to be sure.
I thought it best to let them have it out without my presence, and so I stepped quietly into the hall, with an awkward nod to the elderly woman, and continued into the yard. There was a small arbor there with a bench, on which I seated myself, looking about with interest.
Besides the arbor, there was a small walled garden, blooming with the last of the summer roses. Beyond it was what Jamie referred to as “the doocot”; or so I assumed, from the assorted pigeons that were fluttering in and out of the pierced-work opening at the top of the