The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [51]
Her face eased a bit, accepting this.
“I guess you’re right. But still . . . to know he was alive, and not try to reach him . . .”
He bit the inside of his cheek, to keep from asking. If it were your choice, Brianna? If it was the bairn or me? For how could any man force a choice like that on a woman whom he loved, even hypothetically? Whether for her sake or his own . . . he would not ask.
“But he did put that gravestone there. Why did he do that?” The line between her brows was still deep, but no longer straight; it twisted with a growing perturbation.
He hadn’t known Frank Randall, but he felt a certain empathy for the man—and not only a disinterested sympathy, either. He hadn’t fully realized why he’d felt he must tell her about the letter now, before the wedding, but his own motives were becoming clearer—and more disturbing to him—by the moment.
“I think it was obligation, as I said. Not just to Jamie or your mother—to you. If it—” he started, then stopped and squeezed her hand, hard. “Look. Take wee Jemmy. He’s mine, as much as you are—he always will be.” He took a deep breath. “But if I were the other man . . .”
“If you were Stephen Bonnet,” she said, and her lips were tight, gone white with chill.
“If I were Bonnet,” he agreed, with a qualm of distaste at the notion, “if I knew the child was mine, and yet he was being raised by a stranger—would I not want the child to know the truth, sometime?”
Her fingers convulsed in his, and her eyes went dark.
“You mustn’t tell him! Roger, for God’s sake, promise me you won’t tell him, ever!”
He stared at her in astonishment. Her nails were digging painfully into his hand, but he made no move to free himself.
“Bonnet? Christ, no! If I ever see the man again, I’ll not waste time talking!”
“Not Bonnet.” She shuddered, whether from cold or emotion, he couldn’t tell. “God, keep away from that man! No, it’s Jemmy I mean.” She swallowed hard, and gripped both his hands. “Promise me, Roger. If you love me, promise that you’ll never tell Jemmy about Bonnet, never. Even if something happens to me—”
“Nothing will happen to you!”
She looked at him, and a small, wry smile formed on her lips.
“Celibacy’s not my thing, either. It might.” She swallowed. “And if it does . . . promise me, Roger.”
“Aye, I promise,” he said, reluctantly. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure!”
“Would you not have wanted ever to know, then—about Jamie?”
She bit her lip at that, her teeth sinking deep enough to leave a purple mark in the soft pink flesh.
“Jamie Fraser is not Stephen Bonnet!”
“Agreed,” he said dryly. “But I wasna speaking of Jemmy to start with. All I meant was that if I were Bonnet, I should want to know, and—”
“He does know.” She pulled her hand from his, abruptly, and stood up, turning away.
“He what?” He caught up with her in two strides, and grabbed her by the shoulder, turning her back to face him. She flinched slightly, and he loosened his grip. He took a deep breath, fighting to keep his voice calm. “Bonnet knows about Jemmy?”
“Worse than that.” Her lips were trembling; she pressed them tightly together to stop it, then opened them just enough to let the truth escape. “He thinks Jemmy is his.”
She wouldn’t sit down with him again, but he drew her arm tightly through his and made her walk with him, walk through the falling rain and tumbled stones, past the rush of the creek and the swaying trees, until the movement calmed her enough to talk, to tell him about her days left alone at River Run, a prisoner of her pregnancy. About Lord John Grey, her father’s friend, and hers; how she had confided to Lord John her fears and struggles.
“I was afraid you were dead. All of you—Mama, Da, you.” Her hood had fallen back and she made no effort to reclaim it. Her red hair hung in dripping rattails on her shoulders,