Voyager - Diana Gabaldon [205]
“You’re a…a…goddamned whited sepulchre!” Young Ian came up with the simile triumphantly, then paused as though trying to think of another to equal it. His mouth opened, though nothing emerged but a soft belch.
“That boy is rather drunk,” I said to Jamie.
He picked up the decanter of porter, eyed the level within, and set it down.
“You’re right,” he said. “I should ha’ noticed sooner, but it’s hard to tell, scorched as he is.”
The elder Ian wasn’t drunk, but his expression strongly resembled his offspring’s, what with the suffused countenance, popping eyes, and straining neck cords.
“What the bloody, stinking hell d’ye mean by that, ye whelp?” he shouted. He moved menacingly toward Young Ian, who took an involuntary step backward and sat down quite suddenly as his calves met the edge of the sofa.
“Her,” he said, startled into monosyllables. He pointed at me, to make it clear. “Her! You deceivin’ my Mam wi’ this filthy whore, that’s what I mean!”
Ian fetched his son a clout over the ear that knocked him sprawling on the sofa.
“Ye great clot!” he said, scandalized. “A fine way to speak o’ your auntie Claire, to say nothing o’ me and your Mam!”
“Aunt?” Young Ian gawped at me from the cushions, looking so like a nestling begging for food that I burst out laughing despite myself.
“You left before I could introduce myself this morning,” I said.
“But you’re dead,” he said stupidly.
“Not yet,” I assured him. “Unless I’ve caught pneumonia from sitting here in a damp dress.”
His eyes had grown perfectly round as he stared at me. Now a fugitive gleam of excitement came into them.
“Some o’ the auld women at Lallybroch say ye were a wisewoman—a white lady, or maybe even a fairy. When Uncle Jamie came home from Culloden without ye, they said as how ye’d maybe gone back to the fairies, where ye maybe came from. Is that true? D’ye live in a dun?”
I exchanged a glance with Jamie, who rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.
“No,” I said. “I…er, I…”
“She escaped to France after Culloden,” Ian broke in suddenly, with great firmness. “She thought your uncle Jamie was killed in the battle, so she went to her kin in France. She’d been one of Prince Tearlach’s particular friends—she couldna come back to Scotland after the war without puttin’ herself in sore danger. But then she heard of your uncle, and as soon as she kent that her husband wasna deid after all, she took ship at once and came to find him.”
Young Ian’s mouth hung open slightly. So did mine.
“Er, yes,” I said, closing it. “That’s what happened.”
The lad turned large, shining eyes from me to his uncle.
“So ye’ve come back to him,” he said happily. “God, that’s romantic!”
The tension of the moment was broken. Ian hesitated, but his eyes softened as he looked from Jamie to me.
“Aye,” he said, and smiled reluctantly. “Aye, I suppose it is.”
* * *
“I didna expect to be doing this for him for a good two or three years yet,” Jamie remarked, holding his nephew’s head with an expert hand as Young Ian retched painfully into the spittoon I was holding.
“Aye, well, he’s always been forward,” Ian answered resignedly. “Learnt to walk before he could stand, and was forever tumblin’ into the fire or the washpot or the pigpen or the cowbyre.” He patted the skinny, heaving back. “There, lad, let it come.”
A little more, and the lad was deposited in a wilted heap on the sofa, there to recover from the effects of smoke, emotion, and too much porter under the censoriously mingled gaze of uncle and father.
“Where’s that damn tea I sent for?” Jamie reached impatiently for the bell, but I stopped him. The brothel’s domestic arrangements were evidently still disarranged from the excitements of the morning.
“Don’t bother,” I said. “I’ll go down and fetch it.” I scooped up the spittoon and carried it out with me at arm’s length, hearing Ian say behind me, in a reasonable tone of voice, “Look, fool—”
I found my way to the kitchen with no difficulty, and obtained the necessary supplies. I hoped Jamie and