The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [243]
What was troubling me, though, was not the thought of Leftenant Hayes and his men; it was Jamie. Outwardly, he was calm and assured as ever, with that faint smile always hiding in the corner of his mouth. But I knew him very well; I had seen the two stiff fingers of his right hand—maimed in an English prison—twitch against the side of his leg as he traded jokes and stories with Hayes the night before.
He had come late to our makeshift bed, and had lain sleepless beside me, tossing and turning with a restlessness due to something more than the discomfort of sleeping on cedar boughs and heaped-up leaves. Even now, I could see the thin line that formed between his brows when he was troubled, and it wasn’t concern over what he was doing.
“… a Presbyterian,” he was saying. He glanced over at me with a wry smile. “Like wee Roger.”
The memory that had niggled at me earlier dropped suddenly into place.
“You knew that,” I said. “You knew Roger wasn’t a Catholic. You saw him baptize that child in Snaketown, when we… took him from the Indians.” Too late, I saw the shadow cross his face, and bit my tongue. When we took Roger—and left in his place Jamie’s dearly loved nephew Ian.
He smiled, though, pushing away the thought of Ian.
“Aye, I did,” he said.
“But Bree—”
“She’d marry the lad if he were a Hottentot,” Jamie interrupted. “Anyone can see that. And I canna say I’d object ower-much to wee Roger if he were a Hottentot,” he added, rather to my surprise.
“You wouldn’t?”
Jamie shrugged, and stepped over the tiny creek to my side, wiping wet hands on the end of his plaid.
“He’s a braw lad, and he’s kind. Ye’ll ken he’s taken the wean as his own and said no word to the lass about it. It’s no every man would do so.”
I glanced down involuntarily at Jemmy. I tried not to think of it, but could not help now and then searching his bluntly amiable features for any trace that might reveal his true paternity. He was gnawing his fist at the moment, with a ferocious scowl of concentration, and with his soft fuzz of red-gold plush, looked like no one so much as Jamie himself.
“Mm. So why all the insistence on having Roger vetted by a priest?”
“Well, they’ll be married in any case,” he said logically. “I wanted the wee lad baptized a Catholic, though.” He laid a large hand gently on Jemmy’s head, thumb smoothing the tiny red brows. “So if I made a bit of a fuss about Roger, I thought they’d be pleased to agree about a ruaidh here, aye?”
I laughed, and pulled a fold of blanket up around Jemmy’s ears.
“And I thought Brianna had you figured out!”
“So does she,” he said, with a grin. He bent suddenly and kissed me.
His mouth was soft and very warm. He tasted of coffee and honey, and he smelt strongly of woodsmoke and unwashed male, with just the faintest trace of effluvium of diaper.
“Oh, that’s nice,” I said with approval. “Do it again.”
The wood around us was still, in the way of woods. No bird, no beast, just the sough of leaves above and the rush of water underfoot. Constant movement, constant sound—and at the center of it all, a perfect peace. There were a good many people on the mountain, and most of them not that far away—yet just here, just now, we might have been alone on Jupiter.
I opened my eyes and sighed, tasting honey. Jamie smiled at me, and brushed a fallen yellow leaf from my hair. The baby lay in my arms, a heavy, warm weight, the center of the universe.
Neither of us spoke, not wishing to disturb the stillness. It was like being at the tip of a spinning top, I thought—a whirl of events and people going on all round, and a step in one direction or another would plunge us back into that spinning frenzy, but here at the very center—there was peace.
I reached up and brushed a scatter of maple seeds from his shoulder. He seized my hand, and brought it to his mouth with a sudden fierceness that startled me. And yet his lips were tender, the tip of his tongue warm on the fleshy mound at the base of my thumb—the mount of Venus,