“Let’s have a wee whiff,” he whispered, and they giggled, pressing in against his shoulders as he reached out with the pot lifter and slowly raised the lid, letting out a puff of damp steam, scented with meat and wine and onions. The girls sniffed as hard as ever they could, and he let it come in through his nose, all the way to the back of his throat. His wame rumbled at the luscious smell, and the girls burst into giggles again at the sound, glancing guiltily round.
“What on earth are you doing, Da?” He turned to find his daughter towering over him, a look of disapproval on her face. “Mandy, watch out! You’ve got Esmeralda almost in the fire!”
“Only teaching the wee lassies a bit o’ cookery,” he said airily, and, handing her the pot lifter, bowed and left, the music of girls’ laughter in his ears.
It was a good time to go; supper would be ready soon, and the light was going. He’d been looking out for Jenny, meaning to take her aside and prepare her a bit before she met Roger Mac.
Prepare her, how? he wondered. Say, “D’ye mind a man who came to Lallybroch forty years ago, lookin’ for his son? Ye don’t? Oh. Well, he’s here … only …”
Maybe she would remember. She’d been a young lass and Roger Mac was no bad-looking. And from what Roger Mac had told him, Da had spent a good bit of time in helping him to search, so perhaps …
The realization that he’d thought about Da so casually, thinking of him as still alive, made him feel as though he’d missed the last stair and come down staggering.
“Eh?” He became aware that Claire had asked him something and was waiting for an answer. “Sorry, Sassenach, I was thinking. What did ye say?”
She raised a brow at him, but smiled and handed him a bottle.
“I said, would you please open that?” It was a bottle of last year’s muscat wine that Jimmy Robertson had given Claire in thanks for her setting his youngest son’s broken arm.
“Ye think it’ll be worth drinking?” he asked, taking the bottle and examining it critically. The cork was tight in the bottle-neck, but dry and brittle; Claire had evidently tried to pull it and the greater part had broken off, crumbling in her hand.
“No,” she said, “but since when has that consideration ever stopped a Scot from drinking anything?”
“It hasna stopped any Englishmen I know, either. Maybe a Frenchman would be more choosy.” He held the brown glass bottle up to the light, to see the level of the wine inside, then drew his dirk and struck the neck of the bottle with a ringing tap of the blade. The glass broke cleanly, though at an angle, and he handed it back to her. “It doesna smell corked, at least.”
“Oh, good. I’ll—is that Oggy? Or a catamount?”
“It sounds like a catamount havin’ the griping farts, so it’s likely Oggy.”
She laughed, which made him feel momentarily happy. He took a sip of the wine, made a face, and gave it back to her.
“Who are ye planning to serve that to?”
“Nobody,” she replied, sniffing gingerly. “I’m going to soak a very tough-looking chunk of elk in it overnight with the last of the ramps and then boil it with beans and rice. What are they ever going to name that child—and when, do you think?”
“There’s nay rush about it, is there? No one’s going to confuse him wi’ any other bairn on the Ridge.” No one would. Rachel’s wee man had the best lungs Jamie had ever heard, and seldom stopped using them. Right now, he didn’t seem upset, just bellowing for the fun of it.
“I’ll go meet them,” he said. “I want to talk to Jenny before she sees Roger Mac.”
Claire’s face went blank for an instant and then she turned her head quickly toward the trees, where Jamie saw Brianna and Roger Mac standing in close conversation. Is he telling her what he told me? he wondered, with a resurgence of the “falling off a staircase” feeling in his wame.
“Goodness,” Claire said, a look of intense interest coming into her eyes like the one she had when she saw the tinker’s anal warts that looked like a fleshy cauliflower growing out of his bum. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Well, I dinna think she’ll faint, because she never does,” he said. “But ye might have a dram of something ready, just in case.”
AS IT WAS, his sister wasn’t with Ian and Rachel; Rachel said Jenny had gone aside to thig a wee bit of mother of vinegar from Morag MacAuley, but would be down right after them. That was a bit of luck, and he thanked her, pausing to rub the top of Oggy’s head briskly with his palm, an attention that usually made the bairn laugh. It did this time, too, and he set off up the trail feeling just that wee bit more settled in himself.
He found Jenny sitting on a stump beside the trail, shaking a stone out of her shoe. She heard his step and, looking up to see him, leapt to her feet and flung herself into his arms, ignoring the shoe.
“Jamie, a chuisle! Your bonnie lass! I’m fit to burst wi’ joy for ye!” She let go of his ribs and looked up, eyes brimming, and he felt his own sting, too, though he couldn’t help laughing through it, her joy reminding him of his own.
“Aye, me, too,” he said. He wiped his eyes briefly on his sleeve and set her cap straight for her. “How long ago was it that ye met Brianna? She said she’d gone to Lallybroch looking for her mother and me. And met you and Ian and all. And Laoghaire,” he added, remembering.
Jenny crossed herself at mention of the name, and laughed, too.
“Blessed Mother, the look on Laoghaire’s face when she saw the lass! And then the one when she tried to claim Mam’s pearls and Brianna shut her up like a writing desk!”
“Did she?” He regretted not seeing that, but then forgot it, recalling why he’d come looking for Jenny.
“Brianna’s man,” he said to the top of her head as she bent to put her shoe back on. “Roger MacKenzie.”
“Aye, what sort of man is he, then? Ye said ye liked him fine, in your letters.”
“I still do,” he assured her. “It’s just … d’ye recall when Claire and I came to Scotland to bury Simon the General at Balnain?”
“I’m no likely to forget it,” she said, her face darkening. Nor would she; that had been during Ian’s long dying, a terrible time for them all, but worst by far for her. He hated to bring it back to her, even for a moment, but couldn’t think how else to begin.
“Ye’ll remember, then, what Claire told ye all—about … where she came from.”
Jenny looked blankly at him, her mind clearly still shadowed by memories, but then she blinked, frowning.
“Aye …” she said cautiously. “Some taradiddle about stone circles and faeries, as I recall.”
“Aye, that’s the bit. Now—can ye maybe cast your mind back a bit further, to—to the time I was away in Paris, just before Da died?”
“I can,” she said tersely, glaring up at him. “But I dinna want to. Why are ye plaguing me wi’ that, of all things?”
He patted the air with his palm, urging her to hear him out.
“There was a man came to Lallybroch, looking for his kidnapped son. A dark-haired man, called Roger MacKenzie, from Lochalsh, he said. Do ye remember him?”