The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [283]
There the entry stopped. The dreams continued on the next page, but Roger didn’t read further. He closed the book very carefully and slid it back behind the others on the shelf. He rose to his feet and stood looking out the window for some time, unconsciously rubbing his sweating palms over the seams of his breeches.
PART FIVE
’Tis Better to Marry Than Burn
39
IN CUPID’S GROVE
DO YE THINK they’ll share a bed?”
Jamie didn’t raise his voice, but he’d made no effort to lower it, either. Luckily, we were standing at the far end of the terrace, too far away for the bridal couple to hear. A number of heads turned in our direction, though.
Ninian Bell Hamilton was openly staring at us. I smiled brightly and fluttered my closed fan at the elderly Scotsman in greeting, meanwhile giving Jamie a swift nudge in the ribs.
“A nice, respectable sort of thing for a nephew to be wondering about his aunt,” I said under my breath.
Jamie shifted out of elbow range and lifted an eyebrow at me.
“What’s respectable to do with it? They’ll be married. And well above the age of consent, both o’ them,” he added, with a grin at Ninian, who went bright pink with smothered mirth. I didn’t know how old Duncan Innes was, but my best guess put him in his mid-fifties. Jamie’s aunt Jocasta had to be at least a decade older.
I could just see Jocasta over the heads of the intervening crowd, graciously accepting the greetings of friends and neighbors at the far end of the terrace. A tall woman gowned in russet wool, she was flanked by huge stone vases holding sprays of dried goldenrod, and her black butler Ulysses stood at her shoulder, dignified in wig and green livery. With an elegant white lace cap crowning her bold MacKenzie bones, she was undeniably the queen of River Run Plantation. I stood on tiptoe, searching for her consort.
Duncan was slightly shorter than Jocasta, but he should still have been visible. I’d seen him earlier in the morning, dressed in an absolute blaze of Highland finery, in which he looked dashing, if terribly self-conscious. I craned my neck, putting a hand on Jamie’s arm to keep my balance. He grabbed my elbow to steady me.
“What are ye looking for, Sassenach?”
“Duncan. Shouldn’t he be with your aunt?”
No one could tell by looking that Jocasta was blind—that she stood between the big vases to keep her bearings, or that Ulysses was there to whisper in her ear the names of approaching guests. I saw her left hand drift outward from her side, touch empty air, and drift back. Her face didn’t change, though; she smiled and nodded, saying something to Judge Henderson.
“Run away before the wedding night?” suggested Ninian, lifting his chin and both eyebrows in an effort to see over the crowd without standing on his toes. “I’d maybe feel a bit nervous at the prospect myself. Your aunt’s a handsome woman, Fraser, but she could freeze the ballocks off the King o’ Japan, and she wanted to.”
Jamie’s mouth twitched.
“Duncan’s maybe caught short,” he said. “Whatever the reason. He’s been to the necessary house four times this morning.”
My own brows went up at this. Duncan suffered from chronic constipation; in fact, I had brought a packet of senna leaves and coffee-plant roots for him, in spite of Jamie’s rude remarks about what constituted a suitable wedding present. Duncan must be more nervous than I’d thought.
“Well, it’s no going to be any great surprise to my aunt, and her wi’ three husbands before him,” Jamie said, in reply to a murmured remark of Hamilton’s. “It’ll be the first time Duncan’s been married, though. That’s a shock to any man. I remember my own wedding night, aye?” He grinned at me, and I felt the heat rise in my cheeks. I remembered it, too—vividly.
“Don’t you think it’s rather warm out here?” I flicked my fan into an arc of ivory lace, and fluttered it over my cheeks.
“Really?” he said, still grinning at me. “I hadna taken notice of it.”
“Duncan has,” Ninian put in. His wrinkled lips pursed closed, holding in the laughter. “Sweating like a steamed pudding when I saw him last.