The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [171]
He blotted his face with the towel, glancing covertly around in hopes of food. Both table and hearth were empty, though there was a strong vinegar scent in the air.
“Sauerkraut?” he guessed, sniffing audibly. “The Muellers?”
“They brought two big jars of it,” Brianna said, gesturing toward the corner where a stone crock stood in the shadows. “That one’s ours. Did you get anything to eat while you were out?”
“No.” His belly rumbled loudly, evidently willing to consider cold sauerkraut, if that was all that was on offer. Presumably there would be food at the big house, though. Cheered by this thought, he pulled off his breeches and began the awkward business of pleating up the tartan cloth to make a belted plaid.
Jemmy had quieted a little, now making no more than intermittent yips of discomfort as his mother rocked him to and fro.
“What was that about mythical Dutchmen?” Brianna asked, still rocking, but now with a moment’s attention to spare.
“Jamie sent me up to the northeast to look for a family of Dutchmen he’d heard had settled near Boiling Creek—to tell the men about the militia summons and have them come back with me, if they would.” He frowned at the cloth laid out on the bed. He’d worn a plaid like this only twice before, and both times, had had help to put the thing on. “Is it important for me to wear this, do you think?”
Brianna snorted behind him with brief amusement.
“I think you’d better wear something. You can’t go up to the big house in nothing but your shirt. You couldn’t find the Dutchmen, then?”
“Not so much as a wooden shoe.” He had found what he thought was Boiling Creek, and had ridden up the bank for miles, dodging—or not—overhanging branches, bramble patches, and thickets of witch hazel, but hadn’t found a sign of anything larger than a fox that had slipped across his path, disappearing into the brush like a flame suddenly extinguished.
“Maybe they moved on. Went up to Virginia, or Pennsylvania.” Brianna spoke with sympathy. It had been a long, exhausting day, with failure at the end of it. Not a terrible failure; Jamie had said only, “Find them if ye can”—and if he had found them, they might not have understood his rudimentary Dutch, gained on brief holidays to the Amsterdam of the 1960s. Or might not have come, in any case. Still, the small failure nagged at him, like a stone in his shoe.
He glanced at Brianna, who grinned widely at him in anticipation.
“All right,” he said with resignation. “Laugh if ye must.” Getting into a belted plaid wasn’t the most dignified thing a man could do, given that the most efficient method was to lie down on the pleated fabric and roll like a sausage on a girdle. Jamie could do it standing up, but then, the man had had practice.
His struggles—rather deliberately exaggerated—were rewarded by Brianna’s giggling, which in turn seemed to have a calming effect on the baby. By the time Roger made the final adjustments to his pleats and drapes, mother and child were both flushed, but happy.
Roger made a leg to them, flourishing, and Bree patted her own leg in one-handed applause.
“Terrific,” she said, her eyes traveling appreciatively over him. “See Daddy? Pretty Daddy!” She turned Jemmy, who stared openmouthed at the vision of male glory before him and blossomed into a wide, slow smile, a trickle of drool hanging from the pouting curve of his lip.
Roger was still hungry, sore, and tired, but it didn’t seem so important. He grinned, and held out his arms toward the baby.
“Do you need to change? If he’s full and dry, I’ll take him up to the house—give you a bit of time to fix up.”
“You think I need fixing up, do you?” Brianna gave him an austere look down her long, straight nose. Her hair had come down in wisps and straggles, her dress looked as though she’d been sleeping in it for weeks, and there was a dark smear of jam on the upper curve of one breast.
“You look great,” he said, bending and swinging Jemmy deftly up. “Hush, a bhalaich. You’ve had enough of