The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [333]
“I willna lose it,” Jamie said behind me. His hand rested on my shoulder, heavy through my shawl. “Or if I do—I shall redeem it. I know ye . . . value it.”
I twitched my shoulder out from under his hand, and moved a few steps away. My heart was pounding, and my face felt at once clammy and hot, as though I were about to faint.
He didn’t speak, or touch me; only stood there, waiting.
“The gold one,” I said at last, flatly. “Not the silver?” Not his ring; not his mark of ownership.
“The gold is worth more,” he said, and then, after the briefest hesitation, added, “in terms of money.”
“I know that.” I turned round to face him. The torch flames fluttered in the wind and cast a moving light across his features that made them hard to read.
“I meant—hadn’t you better take both of them?” My hands were cold and slippery with sweat; the gold ring came off easily; the silver was tighter, but I twisted it past my knuckle. I took his hand and dropped the two rings clinking into it.
Then I turned and walked away.
47
THE LISTS OF VENUS
ROGER MADE HIS WAY from the drawing room out onto the terrace, threading through the gathering crowd that clustered thick as lice round the supper tables. He was hot and sweating and the night air struck coldly refreshing on his face. He paused in the shadows at the end of the terrace, where he could unbutton his waistcoat inconspicuously and flap his shirtfront a bit, letting the cold air inside.
The pine torches that lined the edge of the terrace and the brick paths were flickering in the wind, casting wildly shifting shadows over the mass of celebrants, from which limbs and faces emerged and disappeared in bewildering succession. Fire gleamed off silver and crystal, gold lace and shoe-buckles, earrings and coat buttons. From a distance, it looked as though the assembly were lit by fireflies, winking in and out among the dark mass of rustling fabric. Brianna was not wearing anything reflective, he thought, but she should be easy enough to spot, nonetheless, on account of her height.
He had caught no more than tantalizing glimpses of her during the day; she had been dancing attendance on her aunt, or caring for Jemmy, or engaged in conversation with the—apparently—dozens of people she knew from her earlier sojourn at River Run. He didn’t begrudge her the opportunity in the least; there was precious little society to be had on Fraser’s Ridge, and he was pleased to see her enjoying herself.
He’d been having a great time himself; his throat had an agreeably raspy feeling now, from the exertion of prolonged singing, and he had learned three new songs from Seamus Hanlon, safely committed to memory. He’d bowed out at last, and left the little orchestra playing in the drawing room, throbbing away in a steamy haze of effort, sweat, and alcohol.
There she was; he caught the glint of her hair as she came out of the parlor doors, turning back to say something to the woman behind her.
She caught sight of him as she turned back, and her face lit up, touching off a complementary warm glow beneath his rebuttoned waistcoat.
“There you are! I’ve barely seen you all day. Heard you now and then, though,” she added, with a nod toward the open drawing-room doors.
“Oh, aye? Sound all right, did it?” he asked casually, shamelessly fishing for compliments. She grinned and tapped his chest with her closed fan, mimicking the gesture of an accomplished coquette—which she wasn’t.
“Oh, Mrs. MacKenzie,” she said, pitching her voice high and through her nose, “your husband’s voice is divinity itself! Were I so fortunate, I am sure I should spend hours just drrrinking in the sound of it!”
He laughed, recognizing Miss Martin, old Miss Bledsoe’s young and rather plain companion, who had hung about wide-eyed and sighing while he sang ballads in the afternoon.
“You know you’re good,” she said, dropping back into her own voice. “You don’t need me to tell you.”
“Maybe not,” he admitted. “Doesn’t mean I don’t like to hear it, though.”
“Really? The adulation