“Well, I don’t think it was all his fault.” Brianna sounded pleasantly drowsy as well. It couldn’t be much off dawn; birds were already making noises outside, and the air had changed, growing fresher as the wind came in off the harbor.
“So if Dougal is my great-uncle, and your six-times great-grandfather…no, you’re wrong. I’m about your sixth or seventh cousin, not your aunt.”
“No, that would be right if we were in the same generation of descent, but we’re not; you’re up about five—on your father’s side, at least.”
Brianna was silent, trying to work this out in her head. Then giving up, she rolled over with a faint groan, nestling her bottom snugly into the hollow of his thighs.
“The hell with it,” she said. “As long as you’re sure it’s not incest.”
He clasped her to his bosom, but his sleepy brain had grasped the point and wouldn’t let it go.
“I really hadn’t thought of it,” he marveled. “You know what it means, though? I’m related to your father, too—in fact, I suppose he’s my only living relation, besides you!” Roger felt thoroughly nonplussed by this discovery, and rather moved. He had long since reconciled himself to having no close family at all—not that a seven-times great-uncle was all that close, but—
“No, he isn’t,” Brianna mumbled.
“What?”
“Not the only one. Jenny, too. And her kids. And grandkids. My aunt Jenny’s your—hm, maybe you’re right, after all. ’Cause if she’s my aunt, she’s your umpty-great aunt, so maybe I’m your…gahh.” She let her head loll back against Roger’s shoulder, the spill of her hair soft against his chest. “Who’d you tell them you were?”
“Who?”
“Jenny and Ian.” She shifted, stretching. “When you went to Lallybroch.”
“Never been there.” He shifted, too, fitting his body to hers. His hand settled in the dip of her waist, and he sank back into drowsiness, giving up the abstract complexities of genealogical calculation for more immediate sensations.
“No? But then…” her voice died away. Fogged with sleep and the exhaustions of pleasure, Roger paid no attention, only snuggling closer with a luxurious moan. A moment later, her voice sliced through his personal fog like a knife through butter.
“How did you know where I was?” she said.
“Hm?”
She twisted suddenly, leaving him with empty arms, and a pair of dark eyes a few inches from his own, slanted with suspicion.
“How did you know where I was?” she repeated slowly, each word a splinter of ice. “How did you know I’d gone to the Colonies?”
“Ah…I…why…” Much too late, he woke to the realization of his danger.
“You didn’t have any way of knowing I’d left Scotland,” she said, “unless you went to Lallybroch, and they told you where I was going. But you’ve never been to Lallybroch.”
“I…” He groped frantically for an explanation—any explanation—but there was none, other than the truth. And from the stiffening of her body, she had deduced that too.
“You knew,” she said. Her voice wasn’t much above a whisper, but the effect was as great as if she’d shouted in his ear. “You knew, didn’t you?”
She was sitting up now, looming over him like one of the Erinyes.
“You saw that death notice! You already knew, you knew all the time, didn’t you?”
“No,” he said, trying to gather his scattered wits. “I mean yes, but—”
“How long have you known? Why didn’t you tell me?” she cried. She stood up and snatched at the pile of clothes under them.
“Wait,” he pleaded. “Bree—let me explain—”
“Yeah, explain! I want to hear you explain!” Her voice was ragged with fury, but she did stop her rummaging for a moment, waiting to hear.
“Look.” He was up himself by now. “I did find it. Last spring. But I—” He took a deep breath, searching desperately for words that might make her understand.
“I knew it would hurt you. I didn’t want to show it to you because I knew there was nothing you could do—there was no point in you breaking your heart for the sake of—”
“What do you mean there’s nothing I could do?” She jerked a shirt over her head, and glared toward him, fists clenched.
“You can’t change things, Bree! Don’t you know that? Your parents tried—they knew about Culloden, and they did everything they possibly could have, to stop Charles Stuart—but they couldn’t, could they? They failed! Geillis Duncan tried to make Stuart a king. She failed! They all failed!” He risked a hand on her arm; she was stiff as a statue.
“You can’t help them, Bree,” he said, more quietly. “It’s part of history, it’s part of the past—you’re not from this time; you can’t change what’s going to happen.”
“You don’t know that.” She was still rigid, but he thought he heard a hint of doubt in her voice.
“I do!” He wiped a bead of sweat from his jaw. “Listen—if I’d thought there was the slightest chance—but I didn’t. I—God, Bree, I couldn’t stand the thought of you being hurt!”
She stood still, breathing heavily through her nose. If she’d had the choice, he was sure it would have been fire and brimstone rather than air.
“It wasn’t your business to make up my mind for me,” she said, speaking through clenched teeth. “No matter what you thought. And about something so important—Roger, how could you do something like that!?”
The tone of betrayal in her voice was too much.
“Damn it, I was afraid if I told you, ye’d do just what you did!” he burst out. “You’d leave me! You’d try to go through the stones by yourself. And now look what you’ve done—here’s the both of us in this godforsaken—”
“You’re trying to blame me for you being here? When I did everything I possibly could to keep you from being such an idiot as to follow me?”
Months of toil and terror, days of worry and fruitless searching caught up with Roger in a scorching blast.
“An idiot? That’s the thanks I get for killing myself to find you? For risking my fucking life to try to protect you?” He rose from the straw, meaning to get hold of her, not sure if he meant to shake her or bed her again. He had the chance to do neither; a hard shove caught him off balance, square in the chest, and he went sprawling into the hay.
She was hopping on one foot, cursing incoherently as she struggled into her breeches.
“You—bloody—arrogant—damn you, Roger!—damn you!” She jerked up the breeches and, leaning down, snatched up her shoes and stockings.
“Go!” she said. “Damn you, go! Go and get hanged if you want to! I’m going to find my parents! And I’m going to save them, too!”
She whirled away, reached the door and jerked it open before he could reach her. She stood for a moment, silhouetted in the paler square of the doorway, dark strands of hair afloat in the wind, live as the strands of Medusa’s mane.