“Yes, I did know that.” She had a sudden awareness of what he was leading up to, and put her hand on his arm, startling him with the touch.
“I didn’t come for that, Uncle,” she said softly. “Lallybroch isn’t mine—and I don’t want it. All I want is to see my father—and my mother.”
Ian’s long face relaxed, and he put his hand over hers where it lay on his arm. He didn’t say anything for a moment; then squeezed her hand gently and let it go.
“Aye, well. You’ll tell him, nonetheless; if he wishes it—”
“He won’t,” she interrupted firmly.
Ian looked at her, a faint smile at the back of his eyes.
“Ye ken a lot about what he’ll do, for a lass that’s never met him.”
She smiled at him, the spring sun warm on her shoulders.
“Maybe I do.”
The smile broke through to Ian’s face.
“Aye, your mother will ha’ told ye, I suppose. And she did know him, for all she was a Sassenach. But then, she was always…special, your mother.”
“Yes.” She hesitated for a moment, wanting to hear more about the topic of Laoghaire, but unsure how to ask. Before she could think of something, he stood, brushed down his kilt, and started down the track, forcing her to rise and follow.
“What’s a fetch, Uncle Ian?” she asked the back of his head. Preoccupied with the difficulties of descent, he didn’t turn, but she saw him lurch slightly, wooden leg sinking into the loose earth. At the bottom of the hill he waited for her, leaning on his stick.
“You’ll be thinking of what Laoghaire said?” he asked. Without waiting for her nod, he turned and began making his way along the bottom of the hill, toward the small stream that flowed down through the rocks.
“A fetch is the sight of a person, when the person himself is far awa’,” he said. “Sometimes it will be a person that’s died, far from home. It’s ill luck to see one, but worse luck to meet your own—for if you do, ye die.”
It was the absolute matter-of-factness of his tone that made a shiver run down her spine.
“I hope I don’t,” she said. “But she said—Laoghaire—” She stumbled on the name.
“L’heery,” Ian corrected. “Aye, well. It was at her wedding to Jamie that Jenny saw your mother’s fetch, that’s true. She kent then that it was a bad match, but it was too late to be undone.”
He knelt awkwardly on his good knee, and splashed water from the burn over his face. Brianna did likewise, and gulped several handfuls of the cold, peaty-tasting water. Having no towel, she pulled her long shirttail from her breeks and wiped her face. She caught Ian’s scandalized look at the glimpse of her bare stomach thus afforded, and dropped the shirttail abruptly, her cheeks flushing.
“You were going to tell me why my father married her,” she said, to hide her embarrassment.
Ian’s cheeks had gone a dull red, and he turned hastily away, talking to cover his confusion.
“Aye. It was as I told ye—when Jamie came from England, it was like the spark had gone out o’ him, and there was nothing here to kindle it again. I dinna ken what it was that happened in England, but something did, sure as I’m born.”
He shrugged, the back of his neck fading to its normal sunburnt brown.
“After Culloden, he was bad hurt, but there was fighting still to do, of a kind, and that kept him alive. When he came home from England—there wasna anything here for him, really.” He spoke quietly, eyes cast down, watching his footing on the rocky ground.
“So Jenny made the match for him, with Laoghaire.” He glanced at her, eyes bright and shrewd.
“You’ll maybe be old enough to know, for all you’re unwed yet. What a woman can do for a man—or he for her, I suppose. To heal him, I mean. Fill his emptiness.” He touched his maimed leg absently. “Jamie wed Laoghaire from pity, I think—and if she had truly needed him—aye, well.” He shrugged again, and smiled at her.
“It’s no use to say what might have been or should be, is it? But he had left Laoghaire’s house some time before your mother came back, you should know that.”
Brianna felt a small surge of relief.
“Oh. I’m glad to know that. And my mother—when she came back—”
“He was verra glad to see her,” Ian said simply. This time the smile lighted his whole face, like sunshine. “So was I.”
35
BON VOYAGE
It reminded her uncomfortably of Boston’s city dog pound. A large, halfdark space whose rafters rang with yelping, and an atmosphere dense with animal smells. The big building on the market square in Inverness sheltered a great many enterprises—food vendors, cattle and swine brokers, assurance agents, ship-chandlers and Royal Navy recruiters, but it was the group of men, women and children bunched in one corner that lent most force to the illusion.
Here and there a man or a woman stood upright amid the group, chin out and shoulders set in a show of good health and spirit, putting themselves forward. But for the most part, the people who offered themselves for sale eyed the passersby warily, in darting glances whose expressions were fixed between hope and fear—much too reminiscent of the dogs in the animal shelter where her father had now and then taken her to adopt a pet.
There were several families, too, with children clinging to their mothers, or standing blank-faced beside their parents. She tried not to look at them; it was always the puppies that had broken her heart.
Young Jamie was sidling slowly around the group, hat held against his chest to save it being crushed by the crowd, eyes half closed as he considered the prospects on offer. Her uncle Ian had gone to the shipping office to arrange her passage to America, leaving her cousin Jamie to choose a servant to accompany her on the journey. In vain had she protested that she didn’t need a servant; after all, she had—so far as they knew—traveled from France to Scotland by herself, in perfect safety.
The men had nodded and smiled and listened with every evidence of polite attention—and here she was, obediently following Young Jamie through the crowd like one of her aunt Jenny’s sheep. She was beginning to understand exactly what her mother had meant by describing the Frasers as “stubborn as rocks.”
Despite the hubbub around her and her annoyance at her male relatives, her heart gave a small, excited bounce at thought of her mother. It was only now, when she knew for sure that Claire was safe, that she could admit to herself how sorely she had missed her. And her father—that unknown Highlander who had come so suddenly and vividly to life for her as she read his letters. The minor fact of an intervening ocean seemed no more than a small inconvenience.
Her cousin Jamie interrupted these rosy thoughts by taking her arm and leaning close to shout in her ear.
“Yon fellow wi’ the cast in one eye,” he said in a subdued bellow, indicating the gentleman in question by pointing with his chin. “What d’ye say to him, Brianna?”
“I’d say he looks like the Boston Strangler,” she muttered, then louder, shouting into her cousin’s ear, “He looks like an ox! No!”
“He’s strong, and he looks honest!”