The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [483]
“It—he—he didn’t actually do anything. Just looks. And . . . smiles. How could I tell Roger he was looking at me? I didn’t want to look weak, or helpless.” Though she had been both, and knew it. The knowledge burned under her skin like ant bites.
“I didn’t want to . . . to have to ask him to defend me.”
He stared at her, his face blank with incomprehension. He shook his head slowly, not taking his eyes away from her.
“What in God’s name d’ye think a man is for?” he asked at last. He spoke quietly, but in tones of complete bewilderment. “Ye want to keep him as a pet, is it? A lapdog? Or a caged bird?”
“You don’t understand!”
“Oh. Do I not?” He blew out a short breath, in what might have been a sardonic laugh. “I have been marrit near thirty years, and you less than two. What is it that ye think I dinna understand, lass?”
“It isn’t—it isn’t the same for you and Mama as it is for me and Roger!” she burst out.
“No, it’s not,” he agreed, his voice level. “Your mother has regard for my pride, and I for hers. Or do ye maybe think her a coward, who canna fight her own battles?”
“I . . . no.” She swallowed, feeling perilously close to tears, but determined not to let them escape. “But, Da—it is different. We’re from another place, another time.”
“I ken that fine,” he said, and she saw the edge of his mouth curl up in a wry half-smile. His voice grew more gentle. “But I canna think that men and women are so different, then.”
“Maybe not.” She swallowed, forcing her voice to steady. “But maybe Roger’s different. Since Alamance.”
He drew breath as though to speak, but then let it out again slowly, saying nothing. He had taken his hand away; she felt the lack of it. He leaned back a little, looking out over the dooryard, and his fingers tapped lightly on the boards of the porch between them.
“Aye,” he said at last, quietly. “Maybe so.”
She heard a muffled thump in the cabin behind them, then another. Jem was awake, throwing his toys out of his cradle. In a moment, he would start calling for her to come and pick them up. She stood up suddenly, straightening her dress.
“Jem’s up; I have to go in.”
Jamie stood up, too, and picking up the bucket, flung the buttermilk in a thick yellow splash across the grass.
“I’ll fetch ye more,” he said, and was gone before she could tell him not to bother.
Jem was standing up, clinging to the side of his cradle, eager for escape, and launched himself into her arms when she bent to pick him up. He was getting heavy, but she clutched him tightly to her, pressing her cheek against his head, damp with sweaty sleep. Her heart was beating heavily, feeling bruised inside her chest.
“That sounds lonesome,” Obadiah Henderson had said. He was right.
80
CREAMED CRUD
JAMIE LEANED BACK from the table, sighing in repletion. As he started to get up, though, Mrs. Bug popped up from her place, wagging an admonitory finger at him.
“Now, sir, now, sir, ye’ll be going nowhere, and me left wi’ gingerbread and fresh crud to go to waste!”
Brianna clapped a hand to her mouth, with the muffled noise characteristic of one who has just shot milk up one’s nose. Jamie and Mr. Bug, to whom “crud” was the familiar Scottish usage for “curds,” both looked at her curiously, but made no comment.
“Well, I’ll surely burst, Mrs. Bug, but I expect I’ll die a happy man,” Jamie informed her. “Bring it on, then—but I’ve a wee thing to fetch whilst ye serve it out.” With amazing agility for a man who had just consumed a pound or two of spiced sausage with fried apples and potatoes, he slid out of his chair and disappeared down the hall toward his study.
I took a deep breath, pleased that I had smelled the gingerbread cooking earlier in the afternoon, and had had the foresight to remove my stays before sitting down to supper.
“Wan’ crud!” Jemmy crowed, picking up infallibly on the word most calculated to cause maternal consternation. He pounded his hands