The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [628]
“Ahhh . . .” Roger said. “No. I’m afraid you’re mistaken—no, don’t touch that. No. Non! Nein!” He fumbled with her hands, which seemed determined to unfasten his belt. She said something else in the unfamiliar tongue. He didn’t understand a word, but he got the sense of it well enough.
“No, I’m a married man. Would ye stop!”
She laughed, gave him a flashing glance from under long black lashes, and renewed her assault on his person.
He would have been convinced he was hallucinating, were it not for the smell. Engaged at close quarters, he realized that onions were the least of it. She wasn’t filthy to look at, but had the deep-seated reek of someone just off a long sea voyage; he recognized that smell at once. Beyond that, though, the unmistakable scent of pigs wafted from her skirts.
“Excusez-moi, mademoiselle.” Jamie’s voice came from somewhere behind him, sounding rather startled. The girl was startled, too, though not frightened. She let go of his balls, though, allowing him to step back.
Jamie had a pistol drawn, though he held it by his side. He raised one eyebrow at Roger.
“Who’s this, then?”
“How in hell should I know?” Struggling for composure, Roger shook himself back into some kind of order. “I thought she was Bonnet or one of his men, but evidently not.”
“Evidently.” Fraser seemed disposed to find something humorous in the situation; a muscle near his mouth was twitching fiercely. “Qui êtes-vous, mademoiselle?” he asked the girl.
She frowned at him, clearly not understanding, and said something in the odd language again. Both Jamie’s brows rose at that.
“What’s she speaking?” Roger asked.
“I’ve no idea.” His look of amusement tinged with wariness, Jamie turned toward the door, raising his pistol. “Watch her, aye? She’ll no be alone.”
This was clear; there were voices on the wharf. A man’s voice, and another woman. Roger exchanged baffled glances with Jamie. No, the voice was neither Bonnet’s nor Lyon’s—and what in God’s name were all these women doing here?
The voices were coming closer, though, and the girl suddenly called out something in her own language. It didn’t sound like a warning, but Jamie quickly flattened himself beside the door, pistol at the ready and his other hand on his dirk.
The narrow door darkened almost completely, and a dark, shaggy head thrust into the shed. Jamie stepped forward and shoved his pistol up under the chin of a very large, very surprised-looking man. Seizing the man by the collar, Jamie stepped backward, drawing him into the shed.
The man was followed almost at once by a woman whose tall, solid build and handsome face identified her at once as the girl’s mother. The woman was blond, though, while the man—the girl’s father?—was as dark as the bear he strongly resembled. He was nearly as tall as Jamie, but almost twice as broad, massive through the chest and shoulders, and heavily bearded.
None of them appeared to be at all alarmed. The man looked surprised, the woman affronted. The girl laughed heartily, pointing at Jamie, then at Roger.
“I begin to feel rather foolish,” Jamie said to Roger. Removing the pistol, he stepped back warily. “Wer seid Ihr?” he said.
“I don’t think they’re German,” Roger said. “She”—he jerked a thumb at the girl, who was now eyeing Jamie in an appraising sort of way, as though sizing up his potential for sport in the straw—“didna seem to understand either French or German, though perhaps she was pretending.”
The man had been frowning, glancing from Jamie to Roger in an attempt to make out what they were saying. At the word “French,” though, he seemed to brighten.
“Comment ça va?” he said, in the most execrable accent Roger had ever heard.
“Parlez-vous Francais?” Jamie said, still eyeing the man cautiously.
The giant smiled and put a callused thumb and forefinger an inch apart.
“Un peu.”
A very little peu, as they shortly discovered. The man had roughly