The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [682]
“Right,” I said dryly. “Well, then. You and I, Jamie, evidently each have one of the dominant genes that allows us to roll our tongues. But—” I continued, raising a finger, “we must also each have a recessive gene, that doesn’t allow tongue-rolling. And evidently, each of us gave the recessive gene to Bree. Therefore, she can’t roll her tongue. Likewise, Roger must have two copies of the non-rolling recessive gene, since if he had even one of the dominant genes, he could do it—and he can’t. Q.E.D.” I bowed.
“Wat’s tes-tees?” inquired a small voice. Jemmy had abandoned his rocks and was looking up at me in profound interest.
“Er . . .” I said. I glanced round the room in search of aid.
“That’s Latin for your balls, lad,” Roger said gravely, suppressing a grin.
Jemmy looked quite interested at that.
“I gots balls? W’ere I gots balls?”
“Er . . .” said Roger, and glanced at Jamie.
“Mmphm,” said Jamie, and looked at the ceiling.
“Well, ye do have a kilt on, Uncle Jamie,” Ian said, grinning. Jamie gave his nephew a look of gross betrayal, but before he could move, Roger had leaned forward and cupped Jemmy gently between the legs.
“Just there, a bhalaich,” he said.
Jemmy kneaded his crotch briefly, then looked at Roger, small strawberry brows knitted into a puzzled frown.
“Nots a ball. ’Sa willy!”
Jamie sighed deeply and got up. He jerked his head at Roger, then reached down and took Jemmy’s hand.
“Aye, all right. Come outside with me and your Da, we’ll show ye.”
Bree’s face was the exact shade of her hair, and her shoulders shook briefly. Roger, also suspiciously pink about the cheeks, had opened the door and stood aside for Jamie and Jem to go through.
I didn’t think Jamie paused to think about it; seized by impulse, he turned to Jemmy, rolling up his tongue into a cylinder and sticking it out.
“Can you do that, a ruaidh?” he asked, pulling it back in again.
Brianna drew in her breath with a sound like a startled duck, and froze. Roger froze, too, his eyes resting on Jemmy as though the little boy were an explosive device, primed to go off like the opal.
A second too late, Jamie realized, and his cheeks went pale.
“Damn,” he said, very quietly under his breath.
Jemmy’s eyes grew round with reproach.
“Bad, Granda! At’sa bad word. Mama?”
“Yes,” Brianna said, narrowed eyes on Jamie. “We’ll have to wash Grand-da’s mouth out with soap, won’t we?”
He looked very much as though he had already swallowed a good mouthful of soap, and lye-soap, at that.
“Aye,” he said, and cleared his throat. The flush had faded entirely from his face. “Aye, that was verra wicked of me, Jeremiah. I must beg pardon o’ the ladies.” He bowed, very formally, to me and Brianna. “Je suis navré, Madames. Et Monsieur,” he added softly to Roger. Roger nodded very slightly. His eyes were still on Jemmy, but his lids were lowered and his face carefully blank.
Jemmy’s own round face assumed the expression of beatific delight that he wore whenever French was spoken near him, and—as Jamie had clearly intended—broke immediately into his own pet contribution to that language of art and chivalry.
“Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques. . . .”
Roger looked up at Bree, and something seemed to pass through the air between them. He reached down and took hold of Jem’s other hand, momentarily interrupting his song.
“So, a bhalaich, can ye do it, then?”
“FRÈRE . . . do whats?”
“Look at Grand-da.” Roger nodded at Jamie, who took a deep breath and quickly put out his tongue, rolled into a cylinder.
“Can ye do that?” Roger asked.
“Chure.” Jemmy beamed and put out his tongue. Flat. “Bleah!”
A collective sigh gusted through the room. Jemmy, oblivious, swung his legs up, his weight suspended momentarily from Roger’s and Jamie’s hands, then stomped his feet down on the floor again, recalling his original question.
“Grand-da gots balls?” he asked, pulling on the men’s hands and tilting his head far back to look up at Jamie.
“Aye, lad, I have,” Jamie said dryly. “But your Da’s are bigger. Come on, then.”
And to the sound of Jemmy’s tuneless