“You think he cares less about William than you do?”
42
Sasannaich Clann Na Galladh!
JAMIE READ THE LETTER through twice, his lips tightening at the same place, halfway down the first page—and then again, at the end. It wasn’t actually unusual for him to react to one of John’s letters that way, but when he did, it was normally because it held unwelcome news of the war, of William, or of some incipient action on the part of the British government that might be about to result in Jamie’s imminent arrest or some other domestic inconvenience.
This, however, was the first letter John had sent in nearly two years—since before Jamie’s return from the dead to find me married to John Grey, and before he had punched John in the eye as a result of this news and inadvertently caused his lordship to be arrested and nearly hanged by the American militia. Well, turnabout was fair play, I supposed ….
No point in putting it off.
“What does John have to say?” I asked, keeping my voice pleasantly neutral. Jamie glanced up at me, snorted, and took off his spectacles.
“He wants Brianna,” he said shortly, and pushed the letter across the table to me.
I glanced involuntarily over my shoulder, but Bree had gone to the springhouse with a box of freshly made goat’s cheeses. I pulled my spectacles out of my pocket.
“I take it you noticed that last bit?” I said, glancing up when I’d finished reading.
“‘My son William has resigned his Commission and is presently staying with me in Savannah, making use of his new-found Leisure to contemplate his Future, as he has now attained his Majority’? Aye, I did.” He glared at the letter, then at me. “Contemplate his future? What is there to contemplate, for God’s sake? He’s an earl.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to be an earl,” I said mildly.
“It’s not something ye’ve got a choice about, Sassenach,” he said. “It’s like a birthmark; ye’re born with it.”
He was frowning down at the letter, lips tight.
I gave him an exasperated look, which he sensed, for he glanced up and raised his brows at me.
“What are ye giving me that sort of look for?” he demanded. “It’s not my f—” He stopped, almost in time.
“Well, let’s not say ‘fault’—nobody’s blaming you, but—”
“Nobody but William. He’s blaming me.” He exhaled through his nose, then took a breath and shook his head. “And no without reason. See, this is why I didna want Brianna telling him! If he’d never seen me nor found out the truth, he’d be in England right now, takin’ care of his lands and tenants, happy as a—” He stopped, groping.
“Clam?” I suggested. “What makes you think he isn’t happy at the moment? Perhaps he just hasn’t been able to arrange passage back to England yet.”
“Clam?” He looked at me for an instant, brows raised, then dismissed all clams with an abrupt gesture. “I wouldna be happy in his position, and I dinna see how an honorable man could be.”
“Well, he is very like you.” I was hoping to keep the conversation focused on William, and avoid notice of John, but I should have known that was futile. He snatched up the letter, crumpled it, and threw it into the fire with a very rude Gaelic expression.
“Mac na galladh! First he takes my son, then he swives my wife, and now he’s tryin’ to suborn my daughter!”
“Oh, he is not!” I’d been keeping a lid on my own temper, but the flames of rage curling round the edges of the room were getting too warm; I was growing brown and crispy. “He just wants Bree to go and talk to her brother! Can’t you see that, you bloody … Scot?”
That stopped him for an instant, and I saw a startled spark of amusement in his eyes, though it didn’t reach his mouth. He did breathe, though, that was an improvement.
“Talk to her brother,” he repeated. “Why? Does he think Brianna will sing my praises to such an extent that William will forget that I’m the reason he’s a bastard? And even if he decided to forgive me for that, it wouldna help him settle his mind to be an earl.” He snorted. “Left to the influence of that den o’ snakes, I’d no be surprised if Brianna ended up sailing off to England wi’ them to paint portraits of the Queen.”
“I have no idea what John thinks,” I said evenly. “But since he says ‘contemplate his future,’ I assume that he means William has doubts. Brianna is an outsider in this; she’d have a different perspective on things. She could listen without getting personally involved.”
“Ha,” he said. “That lassie is personally involved in every damned thing she touches. She gets it from you,” he added, with an accusing look at me.
“And she doesn’t give up on anything she’s made up her mind to do,” I said, settling back in my chair and folding my hands in my lap. “She gets that from you.”
“Thank you.”
“It wasn’t necessarily a compliment.”
That did get the breath of a laugh, though he stayed on his feet. He’d gone the color of the tomatoes in my garden at the height of his speech, but this was fading back to his normal ruddy bronze. I relaxed a little, too, and took a breath.
“You know one thing about John, though.”
“I ken a number of things about him—most of which I wish I didn’t. Which one thing d’ye mean?”
“He knows your daughter loves you. And that no matter what she and William have to say to each other, that will be part of the conversation.”
He blinked, disconcerted.
“I—well, aye, maybe … but—”
“Do you think he cares for William any less than you do?”
The atmosphere had cooled, and I could feel my heart rate slowing down. Jamie had turned his back and was leaning on the mantelpiece, looking into the fire. The letter had burned but was still visible, a curled black leaf on the hearth. The fingers of his right hand tapped slowly against the stone.
At last he sighed and turned round.
“I’ll talk to Brianna,” he said.
“DID YOU TALK to Brianna yet?” I asked, the next day.
“I will,” he said, with some reluctance, “but I’m no going to tell her about William.”
I was sniffing cautiously at the stew I’d made for dinner, but desisted in order to look sideways at him. “Why on earth not?”
“Because if I did, she’d go because she thought I wanted her to, even if she otherwise wouldna go at all.”
That was probably true, though I personally didn’t see anything wrong with asking her to do something Jamie wanted done. He plainly did, though, so I nodded agreeably and held out the spoon to him.
“Taste that, will you, and tell me if you think it’s fit for human consumption.”
He paused, spoon halfway to his mouth.
“What’s in it?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. I think it might possibly be venison, but Mrs. MacDonald didn’t know for sure; her husband came home with it from a trip to the Cherokee villages and it didn’t have any skin on it, and he said he’d been too drunk when he won it in a dice game to have asked.”