Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [297]
“It is wonderful isn’t it?” I agreed. “Look, where the sun’s bleached it on top, he’s got those lovely blond streaks.” The object of our admiration glowered up at us.
“If ye both dinna stop it, I shall shave my head.” He stretched out a threatening hand toward the dresser, where his razor rested. His sister, deft in spite of the enormous bulge of pregnancy, reached out and smacked his wrist with the hairbrush. He yelped, then yelped again as she yanked the hair back into a fistful.
“Keep still,” she ordered. She began to separate the hair into three thick strands. “I’ll make ye a proper cockernonny,” she declared with satisfaction. “I’ll no have ye goin’ down to your tenants looking like a savage.”
Jamie muttered something rebellious under his breath, but subsided under his sister’s ministrations. Dexterously tucking in stray bits here and there, she plaited the hair into a thick formal queue, tucking the ends under and binding them securely with thread. Then she reached into her pocket, pulled out a blue silk ribbon and triumphantly tied it in a bow.
“There!” she said. “Bonny, no?” She turned to me for confirmation, and I had to admit it. The closely bound hair set off the shape of his head and the bold modeling of his face. Clean and orderly, in snowy linen and grey breeches, he cut a wonderful figure.
“Especially the ribbon,” I said, suppressing an urge to laugh. “The same color as his eyes.”
Jamie glared at his sister.
“No,” he said shortly. “No ribbons. This isna France, nor yet King Geordie’s court! I dinna care if it’s the color of the Virgin’s cloak—no ribbons, Janet!”
“Oh, all right, then, fusspot. There.” She pulled the ribbon loose and stood back.
“Aye, ye’ll do,” she said, with satisfaction. Then she turned her penetrating blue eyes on me.
“Hm,” she said, tapping her foot thoughtfully.
As I had arrived more or less in rags, it had been necessary to make me two new gowns as quickly as possible; one of homespun for daily use, and one of silk for occasions of state such as this. Better at stitching wounds than cloth, I had helped with the cutting and pinning, but been obliged to leave the design and sewing to Jenny and Mrs. Crook.
They had done a beautiful job, and the primrose yellow silk fitted my torso like a glove, with deep folds rolling back over the shoulders and falling behind in panels that flowed into the luxuriant drape of the full skirt. Bowing reluctantly to my absolute refusal to wear corsets, they had instead ingeniously reinforced the upper bodice with whale-bone stays ruthlessly stripped from an old corset.
Jenny’s eyes traveled slowly upward from my feet to my head, where they lingered. With a sigh, she reached for the hairbrush.
“You, too,” she said.
I sat, face burning, avoiding Jamie’s eyes, as she carefully removed small twigs and bits of oak leaf from my curls, depositing them on the dresser next to those seined from her brother’s hair. Eventually my hair was combed out and pinned up, and she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small lace cap.
“There,” she said, pinning it firmly to the top of my pile of curls. “Kertch and all. Verra respectable ye look, Claire.”
I assumed this was meant as a compliment, and murmured something in reply.
“Have ye any jewelry, though?” Jenny asked.
I shook my head. “No, I’m afraid not. All I had were the pearls Jamie gave me for our wedding, and those—” Under the circumstances of our departure from Leoch, pearls had been the last thing on my mind.
“Oh!” Jamie exclaimed, suddenly reminded. He dug in the sporran resting on the dresser, and triumphantly pulled out the string of pearls.
“Where on earth did you get those?” I asked in amazement.
“Murtagh brought them, early this morning,” he answered. “He went back to Leoch during the trial and got everything he could carry—thinking that we’d need it if we got away. He looked for us on the road here, but of course we’d gone to…to the hill, first.”
“Is he still here?” I asked.
Jamie stood behind me to fasten the necklace.
“Oh, aye. He’s downstairs eating everything