The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [52]
“The last thing Da said to me—he didn’t say it, even, he wrote it—he had to write it, I wouldn’t talk to him. . . .” She swallowed and ran a hand beneath her nose, wiping away a pendant drop. “He said—I had to find a way to . . . to forgive him. B-Bonnet.”
“To do what?” She pulled her arm away slightly, and he realized how hard his fingers were digging into her flesh. He loosened his grip, with a small grunt of apology, and she tilted her head briefly toward him in acknowledgment.
“He knew,” she said, and stopped. She turned to face him, her feelings now in hand. “You know what happened to him—at Wentworth.”
Roger gave a short, awkward nod. In actuality, he had no clear notion what had been done to Jamie Fraser—and had no wish to know more than he did. He knew about the scars on Fraser’s back, though, and knew from the few things Claire had said that these were but a faint reminder.
“He knew,” she said steadily. “And he knew what had to be done. He told me—if I wanted to be . . . whole . . . again, I had to find a way to forgive Stephen Bonnet. So I did.”
He had Brianna’s hand in his, held so tight that he felt the small shift of her bones. She had not told him, he had not asked. The name of Stephen Bonnet had never been mentioned between them, not until now.
“You did.” He spoke gruffly, and had to stop to clear his throat. “You found him, then? You spoke to him?”
She brushed wet hair back from her face, nodding. Grey had come to her, told her that Bonnet had been taken, condemned. Awaiting transport to Wilmington and execution, he was being held in the cellar beneath the Crown warehouse in Cross Creek. It was there that she had gone to him, bearing what she hoped was absolution—for Bonnet, for herself.
“I was huge.” Her hand sketched the bulge of advanced pregnancy before her. “I told him the baby was his; he was going to die, maybe it would be some comfort to him, to think that there’d be . . . something left.”
Roger felt jealousy grip his heart, so abrupt in its attack that for a moment, he thought the pain was physical. Something left, he thought. Something of him. And what of me? If I die tomorrow—and I might, girl! Life’s chancy here for me as well as you—what will be left of me, tell me that?
He oughtn’t ask, he knew that. He’d vowed never to voice the thought that Jemmy was not his, ever. If there was a true marriage between them, then Jem was the child of it, no matter the circumstances of his birth. And yet he felt the words spill out, burning like acid.
“So you were sure the child was his?”
She stopped dead and turned to look at him, eyes wide with shock.
“No. No, of course not! If I knew that, I would have told you!”
The burning in his chest eased, just a little.
“Oh. But you told him it was—you didn’t say to him that there was doubt about it?”
“He was going to die! I wanted to give him some comfort, not tell him my life story! It wasn’t any of his goddamn business to hear about you, or our wedding night, or—damn you, Roger!” She kicked him in the shin.
He staggered with the force of it, but grabbed her arm, preventing her from running off.
“I’m sorry!” he said, before she could kick him again, or bite him, which she looked prepared to do. “I’m sorry. You’re right, it wasn’t his business—and it’s not my business, either, to be making you think of it all again.”
She drew in a deep breath through her nose, like a dragon preparing to sear him into ash. The spark of fury in her eyes lessened slightly, though her cheeks still blazed with it. She shook off his hand, but didn’t run away.
“Yes, it is,” she said. She gave him a dark, flat look. “You said there shouldn’t be secrets between us, and you were right. But when you tell a secret, sometimes there’s another one behind it, isn’t there?”
“Yeah. But it’s not— I don’t mean—”
Before he could say more, the sound of feet and conversation interrupted him. Four men came out of the mist, speaking casually in Gaelic. They carried sharpened sticks and nets, and all were barefoot, wet to the knees. Strings of