The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [236]
“If he did, it’s like to be stuck to his head before morning.” Jamie glanced up at the lowering sky and shook his head.
“Happy the bride the sun shines on,” he quoted. “Happy the corpse the rain falls on.
“That’s what I like about Scots,” I said dryly. “An appropriate proverb for all occasions. Don’t you dare say that in front of Bree.”
“What d’ye take me for, Sassenach?” he demanded, with a half-smile down at me. “I’m her father, no?”
“Definitely yes.” I glanced over my shoulder, to be sure Bree wasn’t in hearing, but there was no sign of her blazing head among those nearby. Certainly her father’s daughter, she stood six feet tall in her stocking feet; nearly as easy as Jamie himself to pick out of a crowd.
“It’s not the wedding feast I need to deal with, anyway; I’ve got to manage breakfast, then find Murray MacLeod and ask him to come help with the morning clinic.”
“Oh, aye? I thought ye said wee Murray was a charlatan.”
“I said he was ignorant, stubborn, and a menace to the public health; that’s not the same thing—quite.”
“Quite,” said Jamie, grinning. “Ye mean to convert him, then—or poison him?”
“Whichever seems most effective. If nothing else, I might accidentally step on his fleam and break it; that’s probably the only way I’ll stop him bleeding people. Let’s go, though, I’m freezing!”
“Aye, we’ll awa,” Jamie agreed, with a glance at the soldiers, still drawn up along the creek bank at parade rest. “No doubt wee Archie means to keep his lads there till the crowd’s gone; they’re a bit blue round the edges, too.”
Though fully armed and uniformed, the row of Highlanders was relaxed; imposing, to be sure, but not threatening. Small boys—and not a few wee girls—scampered to and fro among them, impudently flicking the hems of the soldiers’ kilts or dashing in, greatly daring, to touch the gleaming muskets, dangling powder horns, and the hilts of dirks and swords.
“Abel, a charaid!” Jamie had paused to greet the last of the men from Drunkard’s Creek. “Will ye ha’ eaten yet the day?”
MacLennan had not brought his wife to the Gathering, and thus ate where luck took him. The crowd was dispersing around us, but he stood stolidly in place, holding the ends of a red flannel handkerchief pulled over his balding head against the spatter of rain. Probably hoping to cadge an invitation to breakfast, I thought.
I eyed his stocky form, mentally estimating his possible consumption of eggs, parritch, and toasted bread against the dwindling supplies in our hampers. Not that simple shortage of food would stop any Highlander from offering hospitality—certainly not Jamie, who was inviting MacLennan to join us, even as I mentally divided eighteen eggs by nine people instead of eight. Not fried, then; made into fritters with grated potatoes, and I’d best borrow more coffee from Jocasta’s campsite on the way up the mountain.
We turned to go, and Jamie’s hand slid suddenly downward over my backside. I made an undignified sound, and Abel MacLennan turned round to gawk at me. I smiled brightly at him, resisting the urge to kick Jamie again, less discreetly.
MacLennan scrambled up the slope in front of us with alacrity, coattails bouncing in anticipation over worn breeks. Jamie put a hand under my elbow to help me over the rocks, bending down as he did so to mutter in my ear.
“Why the devil are ye not wearing a petticoat, Sassenach?” he hissed. “Ye’ve nothing at all on under your skirt—you’ll catch your death of cold!”
“You’re not wrong there,” I said, shivering in spite of my cloak. I did in fact have on a chemise under my gown, but it was a thin, ragged thing, suitable for rough camping out in summertime, but quite insufficient to stem the wintry blasts that blew through my linen skirt as though it were cheesecloth.
“Ye had a fine woolen petticoat last night. What’s become of it?”
“You don’t want to know,” I assured him.
His eyebrows went up at this, but before he could ask