“She told ye everything, then.” Jamie’s expression hadn’t changed much, but his face had gone pale.
Oh, shit.
“Well, just the … er … the general outli—” He stopped. Ye’ll never make a decent minister if ye can’t be honest. Buck had said that to him, and he was right. Roger took a breath.
“Yes,” he said simply, and felt his innards hollow out.
Without a word, Jamie got to his feet and, turning away, took several steps into the bushes, stopped, and threw up.
Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. What was I thinking!
Roger felt as though he’d been holding his breath for an hour, and took a sip of air, and then another. He’d been thinking far ahead—to what he needed to say to Jamie, to explain and apologize, to ask forgiveness. He needed to do that, if he and Bree were to live here again. But he hadn’t thought at all that Jamie might not realize that Roger—and Bree, for God’s sake!—knew the intimate details of his personal Gethsemane; had known them for years.
Bloody, bloody, bloody … oh, hell …
Roger sat with his fists clenched, listening to Jamie gulp air, spit, and pant. He kept his eyes fixed on a scarlet ladybug with black spots that had lighted on his knee; it trundled to and fro over the gray homespun, curious antennae prodding the cloth. At last there was a rustling of bushes, and Jamie came back and sat down, back pressed against the sapling. Roger opened his mouth, and Jamie made a short chopping gesture with one hand.
“Don’t,” he said. His shirt was damp with sweat, wilted over his collarbones. All the evening insects had come out now; clouds of gnats floated over their heads, and the crickets had begun to chirp. A mosquito whined past Roger’s ear, but he didn’t lift a hand to swat it.
Jamie sighed and gave Roger a very direct look.
“Go on, then,” he said. “Tell me the rest.”
Roger nodded and met Jamie’s eyes.
“I knew about Randall, and what he was,” he said bluntly. “And what would happen. Not just to you—to your sister. And your father.”
This time Jamie did cross himself, slowly, and whispered something in Gaelic that Roger didn’t catch, but didn’t ask to have repeated.
“I told Buck, then—just, about the—the flogging, not about—” The fingers of Jamie’s maimed hand flickered, as though about to make the chopping motion again. “About your father, and what happened to him then.”
He felt again the cold horror of that conversation. If he did nothing to stop Jack Randall, Brian Dhu Fraser would be dead within a year, dead of an apoplexy suffered while watching his son being flogged to death (as he thought) by Captain Randall. Jamie would be outlawed, wounded in body and soul, bearing the guilt of knowing that his father’s death lay upon him, knowing that he had abandoned his home and tenants to his bereaved and shattered sister. And Jenny, that lovely young girl, left completely alone, without even a brother’s protection.
Jamie didn’t flinch at the telling, but Roger could feel the words go into his own flesh like darts. Jenny. Christ, how will I face her?
He drew a deep breath. They were nearly there.
“Buck wanted to kill him—Randall. Right away, without hesitation.”
There was the barest breath of a laugh in Jamie’s voice, though it wavered a bit.
“He was Dougal’s son, then.”
“Absolutely no doubt about it,” Roger assured him. “You should have seen the two of them together.”
“I wish I had.”
Roger rubbed a hand over his face, shaking his head.
“The thing is—we could have stopped him. Killed him, I mean. We were armed. I’d been to see him before, with your da. He’d have no fear of me; I could have gone into his office with Buck and done it. Or we might have followed him to his lodgings, done it there; we’d have had a good chance of getting away.”
Jamie had flinched, just once, at the word “da.” He sat quiet now, though, his eyes the only thing alive in his face.
“I wouldn’t let Buck do it,” Roger blurted, speaking to those eyes. “I knew what would happen—all of it—and I let it happen. To your family. To you.”
Jamie looked down but didn’t speak. Roger felt fresh air from the creek come up from below, and felt the cold shadow of the trees touch his burning face.
At last Jamie stirred, nodding his head once, then twice, deciding.
“And if ye’d killed him?” he said quietly. “If I hadna been an outlaw, I’d not have been near Craigh na Dun, and in bad need of a healer, on that day when …” One eyebrow lifted.
Roger nodded, wordless.
“Brianna?” Jamie said softly, her name the sound of cool breeze in the Gàidhlig. “Would she have happened? And the bairns? You, for that matter?”
“It—we—might still have happened,” Roger said, and swallowed. “Another way. But aye. I was scared it might not. But I’m not—” He bit that off. Jamie knew he wasn’t making excuses.
“Aye, well.” Jamie got to his feet, scattering a cloud of gnats like a shower of gold dust in the evening light. “Dinna fash, then. I willna let Jenny kill ye. Come on, or the supper will be burnt.”
Roger felt rather as though a rug had been pulled out from under him. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but apparent calm acceptance wasn’t it.
“You … don’t …” he began hesitantly.
“I don’t.” Jamie reached down a hand, and when Roger took it, hauled him to his feet so they stood face-to-face, the trees beginning to rustle around them in the evening breeze.
“I spent a great deal of time thinking, ken,” Jamie said conversationally, tilting his head toward the creek, “when I lived as an outlaw after Culloden. Out under the sky, listening to the voices ye hear in the wind. And I would look back, wondering at the things I’d done—and not done—and thinking what if I’d done it differently? If we’d not chosen to try to stop Charles Stuart … it would have been different for us, at least, if not for the Highlands. I’d maybe have kept Claire by me. If I’d not gone to fight Jack Randall in the Bois de Boulogne, would I have two daughters now?” He shook his head, the lines in his face deep and his eyes dark with shadows.
“No man owns his own life,” he said. “Part of you is always in someone else’s hands. All ye can do is hope it’s mostly God’s hands you’re in.” He touched Roger’s shoulder, nodding toward the trail. “We should go.”
Roger followed, eased in mind, but unable to see the grubby, coarse shirt that covered Jamie’s back without still seeing the scars beneath.
“Mind,” Jamie said, turning to Roger at the head of the trail, “I think ye maybe shouldna tell Jenny what ye just told me. Not first thing, I mean. Let her get used to ye.”
JAMIE TOOK THE kindling sticks from Fanny and Mandy and bade them watch to see how you put them in to build up a fire. The fire had been burning all day, but low, as it wasn’t needed to do anything more than boil water and cook the stew Claire had made: bits of roasted possum flavoring a mass of young potatoes with carrots, peas, wild mushrooms, and onions. He glanced over his shoulder to be sure she was occupied elsewhere, then beckoned the girls in, conspiratorially.