The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle (222 page)

“Whisky? Should ye not be having ale wi’ eggs beaten up in it?” he asked, repressing with some difficulty a mental vision of Fergus’s suggestion of appropriate sustenance for newly delivered mothers.

“Whisky,” his sister said definitely. “When ye were lyin’ downstairs crippled and your leg killin’ ye, did I give ye ale wi’ eggs beaten up in it?”

“Ye fed me stuff a damn sight worse than that,” her brother said, with a grin, “but ye’re right, ye gave me whisky, too.” He laid the sleeping child carefully on the coverlet, and turned to get the whisky.

“Has he a name, yet?” he asked, nodding toward the baby as he poured out a generous cup of the amber liquid.

“I’ll call him Ian, for his Da.” Jenny’s hand rested gently for a moment on the rounded skull, lightly furred with a gold-brown fuzz. A pulse beat visibly in the soft spot on top; it seemed hideously fragile to Jamie, but the midwife had assured him the babe was a fine, lusty lad, and he supposed he must take her word for it. Moved by an obscure impulse to protect that nakedly exposed soft spot, he picked up the baby once more, pulling the blanket up over its head.

“Mary MacNab told me about you and Mrs. Kirby,” Jenny remarked, sipping. “Pity I didna see it—she said the wretched auld besom nearly swallowed her tongue when ye spoke to her.”

Jamie smiled in return, gently patting the baby’s back as it lay against his shoulder. Dead asleep, the little body lay inert as a boneless ham, a soft comforting weight.

“Too bad she didn’t. How can ye stand the woman, living in the same house wi’ ye? I’d strangle her, were I here every day.”

His sister snorted and closed her eyes, tilting her head back to let the whisky slide down her throat.

“Ah, folk fash ye as much as ye let them; I dinna let her, much. Still,” she added, opening her eyes, “I canna say as I’ll be sorry to be rid of her. I have it in my mind to palm her off on auld Kettrick, down at Broch Mordha. His wife and his daughter both died last year, and he’ll be wanting someone to do for him.”

“Aye, but if I were Samuel Kettrick, I’d take the widow Murray,” Jamie observed, “not the widow Kirby.”

“Peggy Murray’s already provided for,” his sister assured him. “She’ll wed Duncan Gibbons in the spring.”

“That’s fast work for Duncan,” he said, a little surprised. Then a thought occurred to him, and he grinned at her. “Do either o’ them know it yet?”

“No,” she said, grinning back. Then the smile faded into a speculative look.

“Unless you were thinking of Peggy yourself, that is?”

“Me?” Jamie was as startled as if she had suddenly suggested he might wish to jump out of the second-story window.

“She’s only five and twenty,” Jenny pursued. “Young enough for more bairns, and a good mother.”

“How much of that whisky have ye had?” Her brother bent forward and pretended to examine the level of the decanter, cupping the baby’s head in one palm to prevent it wobbling. He straightened up and gave his sister a look of mild exasperation.

“I’m living like an animal in a cave, and ye wish me to take a wife?” He felt suddenly hollow inside. To prevent her seeing that the suggestion had upset him, he rose and walked up and down the room, making unnecessary small humming noises to the bundle in his arms.

“How long is it since ye’ve lain wi’ a woman, Jamie?” his sister asked conversationally behind him. Shocked, he turned on his heel to stare at her.

“What the hell sort of question is that to ask a man?”

“You’ve not gone wi’ any of the unwed lasses between Lallybroch and Broch Mordha,” she went on, paying no attention. “Or I’d have heard of it. None of the widows, either, I dinna think?” She paused delicately.

“Ye know damn well I haven’t,” he said shortly. He could feel his cheeks flushing with annoyance.

“Why not?” his sister asked bluntly.

“Why
not
?” He stared at her, his mouth slightly open. “Have ye lost your senses? What d’ye think, I’m the sort of man would slink about from house to house, bedding any woman who didna drive me out wi’ a girdle in her hand?”

“As if they would. No, you’re a good man, Jamie.” Jenny smiled, half sadly. “Ye wouldna take advantage of any woman. Ye’d marry first, no?”

“No!” he said violently. The baby twitched and made a sleepy sound, and he transferred it automatically to his other shoulder, patting, as he glared at his sister. “I dinna mean to marry again, so ye just abandon all thought of matchmaking, Jenny Murray! I willna have it, d’ye hear?”

“Oh, I hear,” she said, unperturbed, She pushed herself higher on the pillow, so as to look him in the eye.

“Ye mean to live a monk to the end of your days?” she asked. “Go to your grave wi’ no son to bury you or bless your name?”

“Mind your own business, damn ye!” Heart pounding, he turned his back on her and strode to the window, where he stood staring sightlessly out over the stableyard.

“I ken ye mourn Claire.” His sister’s voice came softly from behind him. “D’ye think I could forget Ian, if he doesna come back? But it’s time ye went on, Jamie. Ye dinna think Claire would mean ye to live alone all your life, with no one to comfort ye or bear your children?”

He didn’t answer for a long time, just stood, feeling the soft heat of the small fuzzy head pressed against the side of his neck. He could see himself dimly in the misted glass, a tall dirty gangle of a man, the round white bundle incongruous beneath his own grim face.

“She was with child,” he said softly at last, speaking to the reflection. “When she—when I lost her.” How else could he put it? There was no way to tell his sister, where Claire was—where he hoped she was. That he could not think of another woman, hoping that Claire still lived, even knowing her truly lost to him for good.

There was a long silence from the bed. Then Jenny said quietly, “Is that why ye came today?”

He sighed and turned sideways toward her, leaning his head against the cool glass. His sister was lying back, her dark hair loose on the pillow, eyes gone soft as she looked at him.

“Aye, maybe,” he said. “I couldna help my wife; I suppose I thought I might help you. Not that I could,” he added, with some bitterness. “I am as useless to you as I was to her.”

Jenny stretched out a hand to him, face filled with distress. “Jamie,
mo chridhe
,” she said, but then stopped, eyes widening in sudden alarm as a splintering crash and the sound of screams came from the house below.

“Holy Mary!” she said, growing even whiter. “It’s the English!”

“Christ.” It was as much a prayer as an exclamation of surprise. He glanced quickly from the bed to the window, judging the possibilities of hiding versus those of escape. The sounds of booted feet were already on the stair.

“The cupboard, Jamie!” Jenny whispered urgently, pointing. Without hesitation, he stepped into the armoire, and pulled the door to behind him.

The door of the chamber sprang open with a crash a moment later, to be filled with a red-coated figure in a cocked hat, holding a drawn sword before him. The Captain of dragoons paused, and darted his eyes all round the chamber, finally settling on the small figure in the bed.

“Mrs. Murray?” he said.

Jenny struggled to pull herself upright.

“I am. And what in flaming hell are ye doing in my house?” she demanded. Her face was pale and shiny with sweat, and her arms trembled, but she held her chin up and glared at the man. “Get out!”

Disregarding her, the man moved into the room and over to the window; Jamie could see his indistinct form disappear past the edge of the wardrobe, then reappear, back turned as he spoke to Jenny.

“One of my scouts reported hearing a shot from the vicinity of this house, not long since. Where are your men?”

“I have none.” Her trembling arms would not support her longer, and Jamie saw his sister ease herself back, collapsing on the pillows. “You’ve taken my husband already—my eldest son is no more than ten.” She did not mention Rabbie or Fergus; boys of their age were old enough to be treated—or mistreated—as men, should the Captain take the notion. With luck, they would have taken to their heels at the first sight of the English.

The Captain was a hard-bitten man of middle age, and not overly given to credulity.

“The keeping of weapons in the Highlands is a serious offense,” he said, and turned to the soldier who had come into the room behind him. “Search the house, Jenkins.”

He had to raise his voice in the giving of the order, for there was a rising commotion in the stairwell. As Jenkins turned to leave the room, Mrs. Innes, the midwife, burst past the soldier who tried to bar her way.

“Leave the poor lady alone!” she cried, facing the Captain with fists clenched at her sides. The midwife’s voice shook and her hair was coming down from its snood, but she stood her ground. “Get out, ye wretches! Leave her be!”

“I am not mistreating your mistress,” the Captain said, with some irritation, evidently mistaking Mrs. Innes for one of the maids. “I am merely—”

“And her not delivered but an hour since! It isna decent even for ye to lay eyes on her, so much as—”

“Delivered?” The Captain’s voice sharpened, and he glanced from the midwife to the bed in sudden interest. “You have borne a child, Mrs. Murray? Where is the infant?”

The infant in question stirred inside its wrappings, disturbed by the tightened grip of its horror-stricken uncle.

From the depths of the wardrobe, he could see his sister’s face, white to the lips and set like stone.

“The child is dead,” she said.

The midwife’s mouth dropped open in shock, but luckily the Captain’s attention was riveted on Jenny.

“Oh?” he said slowly. “Was it—”

“Mama!” The cry of anguish came from the doorway as Young Jamie broke free of a soldier’s grip and hurled himself at his mother. “Mama, the baby’s dead? No, no!” Sobbing, he flung himself on his knees and buried his head in the bedclothes.

As though to refute his brother’s statement, baby Ian gave evidence of his living state by kicking his legs with considerable vigor against his uncle’s ribs and emitting a series of small snuffling grunts, which fortunately went unheard in the commotion outside.

Jenny was trying to comfort Young Jamie, Mrs. Innes was futilely attempting to raise the boy, who kept a death grip on his mother’s sleeve, the Captain was vainly trying to make himself heard above Young Jamie’s grief-stricken wails, and over all, the muted sound of boots and shouting vibrated through the house.

Jamie rather thought the Captain was inquiring as to the location of the infant’s body. He clutched the body in question closer, joggling it in an attempt to prevent any disposition on its part to cry. His other hand went to the hilt of his dirk, but it was a vain gesture; it was doubtful that even cutting his own throat would be of help, if the wardrobe were opened.

Baby Ian made an irascible noise, suggesting that he disliked being joggled. With visions of the house in flames and the inhabitants slaughtered, the noise sounded as loud to Jamie as his elder nephew’s anguished howls.

“You did it!” Young Jamie had gotten to his feet, face wet and swollen with tears and rage, and was advancing on the Captain, curly black head lowered like a small ram’s. “You killed my brother, ye English prick!”

The Captain was somewhat taken aback by this sudden attack, and actually took a step back, blinking at the boy. “No, boy, you’re quite mistaken. Why, I only—”

“Prick! Cod!
A mhic an diabhoil!
” Entirely beside himself, Young Jamie was stalking the Captain, yelling every obscenity he had ever heard used, in Gaelic or English.

“Enh,” said baby Ian in the elder Jamie’s ear. “Enh, enh!” This sounded very much like the preliminary to a full-fledged screech, and in a panic, Jamie let go of his dirk and thrust his thumb into the soft, moist opening from which the sounds were issuing. The baby’s toothless gums clamped onto his thumb with a ferocity that nearly made him exclaim aloud.

“Get out! Get out! Get out or I’ll kill ye!” Young Jamie was screaming at the Captain, face contorted with rage. The Redcoat looked helplessly at the bed, as though to ask Jenny to call off this implacable small foe, but she lay as though dead with her eyes closed.

“I shall wait for my men downstairs,” the Captain said, with what dignity he could, and withdrew, shutting the door hastily behind him. Deprived of his enemy, Young Jamie fell to the floor and collapsed into helpless weeping.

Through the crack in the door, Jamie saw Mrs. Innes look at Jenny, mouth opening to ask a question. Jenny shot up from the bedclothes like Lazarus, scowling ferociously, finger pressed to her lips to enjoin silence. Baby Ian champed viciously at the thumb, growling at its failure to yield any sustenance.

Jenny swung herself to the side of the bed and sat there, waiting. The sounds of the soldiers below throbbed and eddied through the house. Jenny was shaking with weakness, but she reached out a hand toward the armoire where her men lay hidden.

Jamie drew a deep breath and braced himself. It would have to be risked; his hand and wrist were wet with saliva, and the baby’s growls of frustration were growing louder.

He stumbled from the wardrobe, drenched with sweat, and thrust the infant at Jenny. Baring her breast with a single wrench, she pressed the small head to her nipple, and bent over the tiny bundle, as though to protect it. The beginnings of a squawk disappeared into the muffled sounds of vigorous sucking, and Jamie sat down on the floor quite suddenly, feeling as though someone had run a sword behind his knees.

Young Jamie had sat up at the sudden opening of the wardrobe, and now sat spraddled against the door, his face blank with bewildered shock as he looked from his mother to his uncle and back again. Mrs. Innes knelt beside him, whispering urgently in his ear, but no sign of comprehension showed on the small, tear-streaked face.

By the time shouts and the creaking of harness outside betokened the soldiers’ departure, Young Ian lay replete and snoring in his mother’s arms. Jamie stood by the window, just out of sight, watching them go.

The room was silent, save for the liquid noise of Mrs. Innes, drinking whisky. Young Jamie sat close against his mother, cheek pressed to her shoulder. She had not looked up once since taking the baby, and still sat, head lowered over the child in her lap, her black hair hiding her face.