He slowly and consciously unclenched his fists. There would be time enough for all that later. For the moment, there was the one thing to be dealt with.
“Fetch my pistols from the house,” he said, turning to Ian. “And you, lassie—” He gave Lizzie something intended for a smile, and reached for the coat he’d hung on the edge of the woodpile.
“Bide ye here, and wait for your mistress. Tell my wife—tell her I’ve gone to give Fergus a hand with his chimney. And dinna speak a word about this to my wife or daughter—or I’ll have your guts for garters.” This last threat was spoken half in jest, but the girl went white as though he’d meant it literally.
Lizzie sank down on the chopping block, her knees wabbling beneath her. She fumbled for the tiny medallion at her neck, seeking reassurance from the cold metal. She watched Mr. Fraser stride down the path, menacing as a great red wolf. His shadow stretched out black before him, and the late autumn sun touched him with fire.
The medal in her hand was cold as ice.
“O dear Mother,” she murmured, over and over. “O Blessed Mother, what have I done?”
45
FIFTY-FIFTY
The oak leaves were dry and crackling underfoot. There was a constant fall of leaves from the chestnut trees that towered overhead, a slow yellow rain that mocked the dryness of the ground.
“Is it true that Indians can move through the woods without making a sound, or is that just something they tell you in Girl Scouts?” Brianna kicked at a small drift of oak leaves, sending them flying. Dressed in wide skirts and petticoats that caught at leaves and twigs, we sounded like a herd of elephants ourselves.
“Well, they can’t do it in dry weather like this, unless they swing through the trees like chimpanzees. In a wet spring, it’s another story—even I could walk through here quietly then; the ground is like a sponge.”
I drew in my skirts to keep them away from a big elderberry bush, and stooped to look at the fruit. It was dark red, but not yet showing the blackish tinge of true ripeness.
“Two more days,” I said. “If we were going to use them for medicine, we’d pick them now. I want them for wine, though, and to dry like raisins—and for that, you want them to have a lot of sugar, so you wait until they’re nearly ready to drop from their stems.”
“Right. What landmark is it?” Brianna glanced around, and smiled. “No, don’t tell me—it’s that big rock that looks like an Easter Island head.”
“Very good,” I said approvingly. “Right, because it won’t change with the seasons.”
Reaching the edge of a small stream, we separated, working our way slowly down the banks. I had set Brianna to collect cress, while I poked about the trees in search of wood ears and other edible fungi.
I watched her covertly as I hunted, one eye on the ground, one on her. She was knee-deep in the stream with her skirts kilted up, showing an amazing stretch of long, muscular thigh as she waded slowly, eyes on the rippling water.
There was something wrong; had been for days. At first I had assumed her air of tension was due to the obvious stresses of the new situation in which she found herself. But over the past weeks she and Jamie had settled into a relationship that, while still marked by shyness on both sides, was increasingly warm. They delighted each other—and I was delighted to see them together.
Still, there was something troubling her. It had been three years since I had left her—four since she had left me, to live on her own, and she had changed; had grown entirely into a woman now. I could no longer read her as easily as I once had. She had Jamie’s trick of hiding strong feeling behind a mask of calmness—I knew it well in both of them.
In part, I had arranged this foraging expedition as an excuse to talk to her alone; with Jamie, Ian, and Lizzie in the house, and the constant traffic of tenants and visitors come to see Jamie, private conversation there was impossible. And if what I suspected was true, this wasn’t a conversation I wished to have where anyone could hear.
By the time I had my basket half filled with thick, fleshy orange wood ears, Brianna had emerged dripping from the stream, her own basket overflowing with clumps of wet green cress and bunches of jointed horsetail reeds to make into tapers.
She wiped her feet on the hem of her petticoat, and came to join me under one of the huge chestnut trees. I handed her the canteen of cider, and waited till she had had a drink.
“Is it Roger?” I said then, without preliminary.
She glanced at me, a flash of startlement visible in her eyes, and then I saw the tense line of her shoulder ease.
“I wondered whether you could still do that,” she said.
“Do what?”
“Read my mind. I sort of hoped you could.” Her wide mouth quirked awkwardly, trying to smile.
“I expect I’m a bit out of practice,” I said. “But give me a moment.” I reached up and smoothed the hair off her face. She looked at me, but beyond me, too shy to meet my eyes. A whippoorwill called in the far green shadows.
“It’s all right, baby,” I said quietly. “How far gone are you?”
The breath left her in a huge sigh. Her face went slack with relief.
“Two months.”
Now she met my eyes, and I felt a small shock of difference, the kind I had been getting since her arrival. Once, her relief would have been a child’s; a fear confided, and half eased already by the knowledge that I would somehow deal with it. But now it was only the relief of sharing an unbearable secret; she was not expecting me to remedy things. The knowledge that I couldn’t do anything in any case didn’t stop my irrational feeling of loss.
She squeezed my hand, as though reassuring me, and then sat down with her back against a tree trunk, stretching out her legs in front of her, long feet bare.
“Did you know already?”
I sat down next to her, less gracefully.
“I expect so; but I didn’t know I knew, if that makes sense.” Looking at her now, it was plain to see; the faint pallor of her skin and tiny alterations in her color, the fleeting look of inwardness. I had noticed, but had put the changes down to unfamiliarity and strain—to the flurry of emotions over finding me, meeting Jamie, to worry over Lizzie’s sickness, worry over Roger.
That particular worry now took on a sudden new dimension.
“Oh, Jesus. Roger!”
She nodded, pale in the filtered yellow shade of the chestnut leaves overhead. She looked jaundiced, and no wonder.
“It’s been nearly two months. He should have been here—unless something happened.”
My mind was busy calculating.
“Two months, and now it’s nearly November.” The leaves under us lay thick and soft, yellow and brown, fresh-fallen from the hickory and chestnut trees. My heart dropped suddenly in my chest. “Bree—you’ve got to go back.”
“What?” Her head jerked up. “Go back where?”
“To the stones.” I waved a hand in agitation. “To Scotland, and right away!”
She stared at me, thick brows drawn down.
“Now? What for?”
I took a deep breath, feeling a dozen different emotions collide. Concern for Bree, fear for Roger, a terrible sorrow for Jamie, who would have to give her up again, so soon. And for myself.