The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [97]
Mr. Goodwin emitted a low moan. He appeared to be massaging his face, no doubt to ease a recurrent ache from his tooth.
Mr. Lillywhite exhaled strongly through his nose.
“No,” he said evenly. “I am afraid not, Sheriff. My instructions are that the priest is not to be allowed to perform any ceremonial, and shall be prevented from receiving visitors.”
“Oh, aye? And what’s he doing now, then?” Anstruther demanded, gesturing toward the darkened tent, where Jamie’s voice had begun to speak, hesitant and barely audible. I thought perhaps he was speaking in Latin.
“That is quite different,” Lillywhite said testily. “Mr. Fraser is a gentleman. And the prohibition against visitors is to insure that the priest shall perform no secret marriages; hardly a concern at present.”
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” Jamie’s voice spoke in English, suddenly louder, and Mr. Lillywhite started. Father Kenneth murmured interrogatively.
“I have been guilty of the sins of lust and impurity, both in thought and in my flesh,” Jamie announced—with what I thought rather more volume than was quite discreet.
“Oh, to be sure,” said Father Kenneth, suddenly louder too. He sounded interested. “Now, these sins of impurity—what form, precisely, did they take, my son, and upon how many occasions?”
“Aye, well. I’ve looked upon women with lust, to be starting with. How many occasions—oh, make it a hundred, at least, it’s been a time since I was last to confession. Did ye need to know which women, Father, or only what it was I thought of doing to them?”
Mr. Lillywhite stiffened markedly.
“I think we’ll not have time for the lot, Jamie dear,” said the priest. “But if ye were to tell me about one or two of these occasions, just so as I could be formin’ a notion as to the . . . er . . . severity of the offense . . .?”
“Och, aye. Well, the worst was likely the time wi’ the butter churn.”
“Butter churn? Ah . . . the sort with the handle pokin’ up?” Father Kenneth’s tone encompassed a sad compassion for the lewd possibilities suggested by this.
“Oh, no, Father; it was a barrel churn. The sort that lies on its side, aye, with a wee handle to turn it? Well, it’s only that she was workin’ the churn with great vigor, and the laces of her bodice undone, so that her breasts wobbled to and fro, and the cloth clinging to her with the sweat of her work. Now, the churn was just the right height—and curved, aye?—so as make me think of bendin’ her across it and lifting her skirts, and—”
My mouth opened involuntarily in shock. That was my bodice he was describing, my breasts, and my butter churn! To say nothing of my skirts. I remembered that particular occasion quite vividly, and if it had started with an impure thought, it certainly hadn’t stopped there.
A rustling and murmuring drew my attention back to the men on the path. Mr. Lillywhite had grasped the Sheriff—still leaning avidly toward the tent, ears flapping—by the arm and was hissing at him as he forced him hastily down the path. Mr. Goodwin followed, though with an air of reluctance.
The noise of their departure had unfortunately drowned out the rest of Jamie’s description of that particular occasion of sin, but had luckily also covered the leaf-rustling and twig-snapping behind me that announced the appearance of Brianna and Marsali, Jemmy and Joan swaddled in their arms and Germain clinging monkeylike to his mother’s back.
“I thought they’d never go,” Brianna whispered, peering over my shoulder toward the spot where Mr. Lillywhite and his companions had disappeared. “Is the coast clear?”
“Yes, come along.” I reached for Germain, who leaned willingly into my arms.
“Ou nous allees, Grand-mère?” he inquired in a sleepy voice, blond head nuzzling affectionately into my neck.
“Shh. To see Grand-père and Father Kenneth,” I whispered to him. “We have to be very quiet, though.”
“Oh. Like this?” he hissed, in a loud whisper, and began to sing a very vulgar French song, chanting half under