* * *
“Och, now, Coz, it could have been worse.” Ian patted Brianna tentatively on the back. “We didna kill him, after all.”
Brianna made a small choking sound, and pulled her head up off her knees. Her face was white and damp as the inside of an oyster shell, her hair in a tangle round it. She hadn’t vomited or fainted, but looked as though she still might do either.
“We did mean to,” Ian went on, looking at her a little nervously. “I’d my pistol pressed behind his ear, but then I thought it was really Uncle Jamie’s right to blow his brains out, but then he—”
Brianna choked again, and I hastily placed an ashet on the table in front of her, just in case.
“Ian, I really think she doesn’t need to hear this just now,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Yes, I do.” Brianna pushed herself upright, hands gripping the edge of the table. “I have to hear it all, I have to.” She turned her head slowly, as though her neck was stiff, toward Jamie.
“Why?” she said. “WHY?”
He was as white and ill-looking as she was. He had pushed away from the table and gone to the chimney corner, as though trying to get as far away as possible from the drawing, with its damning likeness of Roger MacKenzie Wakefield.
He looked as though he would have done anything rather than answer, but answer he did, his eyes steady on hers.
“I meant to kill him. I stopped Ian because shooting the prick seemed too easy a death—too quick for what he’d done.” He took a deep breath, and I could see that the hand gripping his writing shelf was clenched so tight that the knuckles stood out white against his skin.
“I stopped to think, how it should be; what I must do. I left Ian with him, and I walked away.” He swallowed; I could see the muscles move in his throat, but he didn’t look away.
“I walked into the forest a wee way, and leaned my back against a tree to let my heart slow. It seemed best he should be awake, to know—but I didna think I could bear to hear him speak again. He’d said too much already. But then I began to hear it, over again, what he’d said.”
“What? What did he say?” Even her lips were white.
So were Jamie’s.
“He said…that ye’d asked him to your bed. That you—” He stopped and bit his lip, savagely.
“He said ye wanted him; that ye’d asked him to take your maidenheid,” Ian said. He spoke coolly, his eyes on Brianna.
She drew in breath with a ragged sound, like paper being torn.
“I did.”
I glanced involuntarily at Jamie. His eyes were closed, his teeth fixed in his lip.
Ian made a shocked sound, and Brianna drew back a hand like lightning and slapped him across the face.
He jerked back, lost his balance, and half fell off the bench. He grabbed the edge of the table and staggered to his feet.
“How?” he shouted, his face contorted in sudden anger. “How could ye do such a thing? I told Uncle Jamie that ye’d never play the whore, never! But it’s true, isn’t it?”
She was on her feet like a leopard, her cheeks gone from white to blazing fury in a second.
“Well, damn you for a self-righteous prig, Ian! Who gave you the right to call me a whore?”
“Right?” He sputtered for a moment, at a loss for words. “I—you—he—”
Before I could intervene, she drew back a fist and punched him hard in the pit of the stomach. With a look of intense surprise, he sat down hard on the floor, mouth open like a suckling pig.
I moved, but Jamie was faster. In less than a second he was beside her, gripping her arm. She whirled, meaning to hit him, too, I think, but then froze. Her mouth was working soundlessly, tears of shock and fury running down her cheeks.
“Be still,” he said, and his voice was very cold. I saw his fingers dig into her flesh, and I made a small sound of protest. He paid no attention, too intent on Brianna.
“I didna want to believe it,” he said, in a voice like ice. “I told myself he was only saying so to save himself, it wasna true. But if it was—” He seemed to become aware at last that he was hurting her. He let go of her arm.
“I couldna take the man’s life, without being sure,” he said, and paused, his eyes searching her face. For regret? I wondered. Or remorse? Whatever he might be looking for, all he found was a smoldering rage. Her face was the echo of his own, her blue eyes hot as his.
His own face changed, and he looked away.
“I did regret it,” he said, very quietly. “When I came that night, and saw ye, I was sorry then that I hadna killed him. I held ye in my arms—and I felt my heart go sma’ wi’ shame, that I should doubt my daughter’s virtue.” He looked down, and I could see the mark where he had bitten his lip.
“Now my heart is shrunk altogether. Not only that ye should be impure but that ye should lie to me.”
“Lie to you?” Her voice was no more than whisper. “Lie to you?”
“Aye, lie to me!” With sudden violence, he turned back to her. “That ye should bed a man from lust, and cry rape when ye find ye’re with child! Do ye not realize that it’s only chance I have not the sin of murder on my soul, and you the cause of it?”
She was too furious to speak; I saw her throat swell with words, and knew I had to do something, at once, before either of them had the opportunity to say more.
I couldn’t speak, either. Blindly, I fumbled in the pocket of my gown, feeling for the ring. I found it, pulled it out, and dropped it on the table. It chimed against the wood; spun, and rattled to a stop, the gold of the tiny circlet gleaming red in the firelight.
From F. to C. with love. Always.
Jamie looked at it, his face gone completely blank. Brianna drew in her breath with a sob.
“That’s your ring, Auntie,” Ian said. He sounded dazed, and bent close to look, as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. “Your gold ring. The one that Bonnet took from ye, on the river.”
“Yes,” I said. My knees felt weak. I sat down at the table, and laid my hand over the telltale ring as though to take it back, deny its presence.
Jamie took my wrist and lifted it. Like a man handling a dangerous insect, he picked the ring up gingerly between thumb and forefinger.
“Where did ye get this?” he asked, his voice almost casual. He looked at me, and a bolt of terror shot through me at the look in his eyes.
“I brought it to her.” Brianna’s tears had dried, evaporated by the heat of her fury. She stood behind me and gripped me by the shoulders. “Don’t you look at her that way, don’t you dare!”
He shifted the look to her, but she didn’t flinch; only held on to me harder, her fingers digging into my shoulders.
“Where did ye get it?” he asked again, his voice no more than a whisper. “Where?”
“From him. From Stephen Bonnet.” Her voice was shaking, but from rage, not fear. “When…he…raped…me.”
Jamie’s face cracked suddenly, as though some explosion had burst him from within. I made an incoherent sound of distress, and reached out for him, but he whirled away and stood rigid, back turned to us, in the middle of the room.
I felt Brianna draw herself upright, heard Ian say, rather stupidly, “Bonnet?” I heard the ticking of the clock on the sideboard, felt the draft from the door. I was dimly aware of all these things, but had no eyes for anything but Jamie.