The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [89]
I drowned my own mirth with a gulp of steaming tea, blissfully fragrant. I offered the cup to Jamie, but he waved it away, content with the rest of the ale.
“My aunt,” he observed, lowering the bottle at last, “kens verra well indeed what money will buy and what it will not.”
“And she’s just bought herself—and everyone else in the county—a good opinion of poor Roger, hasn’t she?” I replied, rather dryly.
Jocasta Cameron was a MacKenzie of Leoch; a family Jamie had once described as “charming as the larks in the field—and sly as foxes, with it.” Whether Jocasta had truly had any doubt herself of Roger’s motives in marrying Bree, or merely thought to forestall idle gossip along the Cape Fear, her methods had been undeniably successful. She was probably up in her tent chortling over her cleverness, looking forward to spreading the story of her offer and Roger’s response to it.
“Poor Roger,” Jamie agreed, his mouth still twitching. “Poor but virtuous.” He tipped up the bottle of ale, drained it, and set it down with a brief sigh of satisfaction. “Though come to that,” he added, glancing at me, “she’s bought the lad something of value as well, hasn’t she?”
“My son,” I quoted softly, nodding. “Do you think he realized it himself before he said it? That he really feels Jemmy is his son?”
Jamie made an indeterminate movement with his shoulders, not quite a shrug.
“I canna say. It’s as well he should have that fixed in his mind, though, before the next bairn comes along—one he kens for sure is his.”
I thought of my conversation that morning with Brianna, but decided it was wiser to say nothing—at least for now. It was, after all, a matter between Roger and Bree. I only nodded, and turned to tidy away the tea things.
I felt a small glow in the pit of my stomach that was only partly the result of the tea. Roger had sworn an oath to take Jemmy as his own, no matter what the little boy’s true paternity might be; he was an honorable man, Roger, and he meant it. But the speech of the heart is louder than the words of any oath spoken by lips alone.
When I had gone back, pregnant, through the stones, Frank had sworn to me that he would keep me as his wife, would treat the coming child as his own—would love me as he had before. All three of those vows his lips and mind had done his best to keep, but his heart, in the end, had sworn only one. From the moment that he took Brianna in his arms, she was his daughter.
But what if there had been another child? I wondered suddenly. It had never been a possibility—but if it had? Slowly, I wiped the teapot dry and wrapped it in a towel, contemplating the vision of that mythical child; the one Frank and I might have had, but never did, and never would. I laid the wrapped teapot in the chest, gently, as though it were a sleeping baby.
When I turned back, Jamie was still standing there, looking at me with a rather odd expression—tender, yet somehow rueful.
“Did I ever think to thank ye, Sassenach?” he said, his voice a little husky.
“For what?” I said, puzzled. He took my hand, and drew me gently toward him. He smelled of ale and damp wool, and very faintly of the brandied sweetness of fruitcake.
“For my bairns,” he said softly. “For the children that ye bore me.”
“Oh,” I said. I leaned slowly forward, and rested my forehead against the solid warmth of his chest. I cupped my hands at the small of his back beneath his coat, and sighed. “It was . . . my pleasure.”
“MR. FRASER, MR. FRASER!” I lifted my head and turned to see a small boy churning down the steep slope behind us, arms waving to keep his balance and face bright red with cold and exertion.
“Oof!” Jamie got his hands up just in time to catch the boy as he hurtled down the last few feet,