“Clam?” I suggested. “What makes you think he isn’t happy at the moment? Perhaps he just hasn’t been able to arrange passage back to England yet.”
“Clam?” He looked at me for an instant, brows raised, then dismissed all clams with an abrupt gesture. “I wouldna be happy in his position, and I dinna see how an honorable man could be.”
“Well, he is very like you.” I was hoping to keep the conversation focused on William, and avoid notice of John, but I should have known that was futile. He snatched up the letter, crumpled it, and threw it into the fire with a very rude Gaelic expression.
“Mac na galladh! First he takes my son, then he swives my wife, and now he’s tryin’ to suborn my daughter!”
“Oh, he is not!” I’d been keeping a lid on my own temper, but the flames of rage curling round the edges of the room were getting too warm; I was growing brown and crispy. “He just wants Bree to go and talk to her brother! Can’t you see that, you bloody … Scot?”
That stopped him for an instant, and I saw a startled spark of amusement in his eyes, though it didn’t reach his mouth. He did breathe, though, that was an improvement.
“Talk to her brother,” he repeated. “Why? Does he think Brianna will sing my praises to such an extent that William will forget that I’m the reason he’s a bastard? And even if he decided to forgive me for that, it wouldna help him settle his mind to be an earl.” He snorted. “Left to the influence of that den o’ snakes, I’d no be surprised if Brianna ended up sailing off to England wi’ them to paint portraits of the Queen.”
“I have no idea what John thinks,” I said evenly. “But since he says ‘contemplate his future,’ I assume that he means William has doubts. Brianna is an outsider in this; she’d have a different perspective on things. She could listen without getting personally involved.”
“Ha,” he said. “That lassie is personally involved in every damned thing she touches. She gets it from you,” he added, with an accusing look at me.
“And she doesn’t give up on anything she’s made up her mind to do,” I said, settling back in my chair and folding my hands in my lap. “She gets that from you.”
“Thank you.”
“It wasn’t necessarily a compliment.”
That did get the breath of a laugh, though he stayed on his feet. He’d gone the color of the tomatoes in my garden at the height of his speech, but this was fading back to his normal ruddy bronze. I relaxed a little, too, and took a breath.
“You know one thing about John, though.”
“I ken a number of things about him—most of which I wish I didn’t. Which one thing d’ye mean?”
“He knows your daughter loves you. And that no matter what she and William have to say to each other, that will be part of the conversation.”
He blinked, disconcerted.
“I—well, aye, maybe … but—”
“Do you think he cares for William any less than you do?”
The atmosphere had cooled, and I could feel my heart rate slowing down. Jamie had turned his back and was leaning on the mantelpiece, looking into the fire. The letter had burned but was still visible, a curled black leaf on the hearth. The fingers of his right hand tapped slowly against the stone.
At last he sighed and turned round.
“I’ll talk to Brianna,” he said.
“DID YOU TALK to Brianna yet?” I asked, the next day.
“I will,” he said, with some reluctance, “but I’m no going to tell her about William.”
I was sniffing cautiously at the stew I’d made for dinner, but desisted in order to look sideways at him. “Why on earth not?”
“Because if I did, she’d go because she thought I wanted her to, even if she otherwise wouldna go at all.”
That was probably true, though I personally didn’t see anything wrong with asking her to do something Jamie wanted done. He plainly did, though, so I nodded agreeably and held out the spoon to him.
“Taste that, will you, and tell me if you think it’s fit for human consumption.”
He paused, spoon halfway to his mouth.
“What’s in it?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. I think it might possibly be venison, but Mrs. MacDonald didn’t know for sure; her husband came home with it from a trip to the Cherokee villages and it didn’t have any skin on it, and he said he’d been too drunk when he won it in a dice game to have asked.”