The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [309]
“Well, I shall wear the brilliants, then, but only to please you, a nighean.” Jocasta’s humorous voice pulled her out of the alluring vision of a dark, hay-lined stall, and Roger’s body, naked limbs half-seen in the gloom.
She glanced up from Jemmy’s blissful suckling, to where Jocasta sat upon the window seat, the spring light through the casement falling across her face. She looked abstracted, Bree thought, as though she were listening to something faint and far-off, that only she could hear. Maybe the hum of the wedding guests below.
The murmur in the house below reminded her of her mother’s summer hives; a thrum that you could hear if you put your ear against one of the bee gums, a distant sound of busy content. The product of this particular swarm was talk, rather than honey, though the intent was similar—the laying up of reserves to see them through bleak and nectarless days of deprivation.
“That will do, that will do.” Jocasta waved Phaedre away, getting to her feet. She shooed the maid out of the room, then stood tapping her fingers restlessly on the dressing table, clearly thinking of further details that should be attended to. Jocasta’s brows drew together, and she pressed two fingers against the skin above her eyes.
“Have you got a headache, Auntie?” Brianna kept her voice low, so as not to disturb Jemmy, who was nearly asleep. Jocasta dropped her hand and turned toward her niece with a small, wry smile.
“Och, it’s nothing. Whenever the weather turns, my poor head turns with it!”
In spite of the smile, Brianna could see small lines of pain tugging at the corners of Jocasta’s eyes.
“Jem’s nearly finished. I’ll go and fetch Mama, shall I? She could make you a tisane.”
Jocasta flapped a hand in dismissal, pushing away the pain with an obvious effort.
“No need, a muirninn. It’s none so bad as that.” She rubbed at her temple, careful of the hairdressing, the gesture belying her words.
Jemmy’s mouth released its hold with a small, milky pop! and his head lolled back. The crook of Brianna’s elbow was hot and sweaty, where his head had rested; his tiny ear was crumpled and crimson. She lifted his inert body and sighed with relief as the cool air struck her skin. A soft belch bubbled out of him with a dribble of excess milk, and he subsided against her shoulder like a half-filled water balloon.
“Full, is he?” Jocasta smiled, blind eyes turned toward them at the faint sound.
“As a drum,” Brianna assured her. She patted his small back, to be sure, but heard no more than the soft sigh of sleep-filled breathing. She rose, wiped the milk from his chin, and laid the baby on his stomach in his makeshift cradle, a drawer from Jocasta’s mahogany chiffonier, laid on the floor and thickly padded with pillows and quilts.
Brianna hung the shawl over the back of the chair, shivering slightly in a draft that leaked around the window frame. Not wanting to risk her new dress being stained with spit-up milk, she’d been nursing Jemmy in shift and stockings, and her bare forearms were pebbled with gooseflesh.
Jocasta turned her head in answer to the creak of wood and rustle of fabric, as Brianna opened the big armoire and took out two linen petticoats and her dress, smoothing the panels of soft, pale blue wool with satisfaction. She had woven the cloth and engineered the design of the gown herself—though Mrs. Bug had spun the thread, Claire had dyed it with indigo and saxifrage, and Marsali had helped with the sewing.
“Shall I call Phaedre back to dress ye, lass?”
“No, that’s all right, I can manage—if you’ll help me with the laces?” She didn’t like to call on the services of the slaves, any more than could be helped. The petticoats were no problem; she simply stepped into them, one at a time, and fastened the drawstrings round her waist. The stays needed to be laced up the back, though, and so did the gown itself.
Jocasta’s brows were still dark,