“Oh, my,” she said softly. “Oh, my.” Brianna smiled tentatively, nodding to her aunt—her mother’s friend, her father’s beloved only sister. Oh, please! she thought, suddenly suffused with a longing as intense as it was unexpected. Please like me, please be happy I’m here!
Young Jamie bowed elaborately to his mother, beaming.
“Mam, might I have the honor to present to ye—”
“Jamie Fraser! I kent he was back—I told ye, Jenny Murray!”
The voice rang out from the back of the hallway in tones of highpitched accusation. Glancing up in startlement, Brianna saw a woman emerging from the shadows, rustling with indignation.
“Amyas Kettrick told me he’d seen your brother riding near Balriggan! But no, ye wouldna have it, would ye, Jenny—telling me I’m a fool, telling me Amyas is blind, and Jamie in America! Liars the both of ye, you and Ian, trying to protect that wicked coward! Hobart!” she shouted, turning toward the back of the house, “Hobart! Come out here this minute!”
“Be quiet!” said Jenny impatiently. “Ye are a fool, Laoghaire!” She jerked at the woman’s sleeve, urging her around. “And as for who’s blind, look at her! Are ye too far past it to tell the difference between a grown man and a lass in breeks, for heaven’s sake?” Her own eyes stayed fixed on Brianna, bright with speculation.
“A lass?”
The other woman turned, frowning nearsightedly at Brianna. Then she blinked once, anger erased as her round face went slack with surprise. She gasped, crossing herself.
“Mary, Margaret and Bride! Who in the name of God are you?”
Brianna took a deep breath, looking from one woman to the other as she answered, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
“My name is Brianna. I’m Jamie Fraser’s daughter.”
Both women’s eyes popped wide. The woman called Laoghaire grew slowly red and seemed to swell, opening and closing her mouth in a futile search for words.
Jenny stepped forward, though, and seized Brianna’s hands, looking up into her face. A soft pink bloomed in her cheeks, making her look suddenly young.
“Jamie’s? You’re truly Jamie’s lassie?” She squeezed Brianna’s hands hard between her own.
“My mother says so.”
Brianna felt the answering smile on her own face. Jenny’s hands were cool, but Brianna felt a rush of warmth nonetheless, which spread through her hands and up into her chest. She caught the faint, spicy scent of baking in the folds of Jenny’s gown, and something else, more earthy and pungent, that she thought must be the smell of sheep’s wool.
“Does she, so?” Laoghaire had recovered both her voice and her self-possession. She stepped forward, eyes narrowed. “Jamie Fraser’s your father, aye? And just who might your mother be?”
Brianna stiffened.
“His wife,” she said. “Who else?”
Laoghaire put back her head and laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh.
“Who else?” she said, mimicking. “Who else indeed, lassie! And just which wife would that be, now?”
Brianna felt the blood drain from her own face, and her hands grow stiff in Jenny’s as the flood of realization washed over her. You idiot, she thought. You stupid idiot. It was twenty years! Of course he would have married again. Of course. No matter how much he loved Mama.
On the heels of this thought was another, more terrible. Did she find him? Oh, God, did she find him with a new wife, and he sent her away? Oh, God, where is she?
She turned blindly, wanting to run, not knowing where to go, what to do, only feeling that she must get out of here at once, and find her mother.
“You’ll be wanting to sit down, I expect, Cousin. Come into the parlor, aye?” Young Jamie’s voice was firm in her ear, and his arm was around her, turning her, urging her down the hall and through one of the doors that opened off it.
She scarcely heard the babble of voices around her, the confusion of explanations and accusations that popped around her ears like strings of firecrackers. She glimpsed a small, neat man with a face like the White Rabbit, looking vastly surprised, and another man, much taller, who rose as she came into the parlor and came toward her, his weathered, homely face creased in concern.
It was the tall man who calmed the racket and brought everyone to order, extracting from the confused muddle of voices an explanation of her presence.
“Jamie’s daughter?” He glanced at her with interest, but looked much less surprised than anyone else so far. “What’s your name, a leannan?”
“Brianna.” She was too upset to smile at him, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“Brianna.” He eased himself down on a hassock, motioning her to a seat opposite, and she saw that he had a wooden leg that protruded stiffly to one side. He took her hand and smiled at her, the warm light in his soft brown eyes making her feel momentarily safer.
“I’m your uncle Ian, lass. Welcome to ye.” Her own hand tightened on his involuntarily, clinging to the refuge he seemed to offer. He didn’t flinch or draw back, just looked her over carefully, seeming amused by the way she was dressed.
“Been sleeping in the heather, have ye?” he said, seeing the dirt and plant stains on her clothes. “You’ll have come some way to find us, niece.”
“She says she’s your niece,” Laoghaire said. Recovered from her shock, she peered over Ian’s shoulder, her round face pinched with dislike. “Belike she’s only come to see what she can get.”
“I shouldna be callin’ the kettle black, Laoghaire,” Ian said mildly. He twisted round to face her. “Or was it not you and Hobart a half-hour past, tryin’ to squeeze five hundred pounds from me?”
Her lips pressed tight together, deepening the lines that bracketed her mouth.
“That money’s mine,” she snapped, “and well ye know it! It was agreed to; you witnessed the paper.”
Ian sighed; evidently this wasn’t the first he had heard of the matter today.
“I did,” he said patiently. “And ye’ll have your money—so soon as Jamie’s able to send it. He’s promised, and he’s an honorable man. But—”
“Honorable, is it?” Laoghaire produced an unladylike snort. “Is it honorable to commit bigamy, then? Desert his wife and children? Steal away my daughter and ruin her? Honorable!” She looked at Brianna, eyes bright and hard as fresh-rolled steel.
“I’ll ask again, lass—what’s your mother’s name?”
Brianna simply stared at her, overwhelmed. The stock around her throat was choking her, and her hands felt icy, despite Ian’s grasp.
“Your mother,” Laoghaire repeated, impatient. “Who was she?”
“It doesna matter who—” Jenny began, but Laoghaire rounded on her, face flushed with fury.
“Oh, it matters! If he got her on some army whore, or some slut of a maidservant when he was in England—that’s one thing. But if she’s—”
“Laoghaire!”
“Sister!”
“Ye foul-tongued besom!”
Brianna put a stop to the outcry simply by standing up. She was as tall as any of the men, and towered over the women. Laoghaire took one quick step back. Every face in the room was turned to her, marked with hostility, sympathy, or merely curiosity.