“Claire and Brianna, you mean.” Roger took Jamie’s meaning at once. “Aye, they’ve notions of privacy. But a wee latch on the inside of the door …？”
“Aye, I thought of that.” Jamie waved a hand, dismissing it. “The difficulty’s more what they think of … germs.” He pronounced the word very carefully and glanced quickly at Roger under his brows, as though to see if he’d said it right, or as if he weren’t sure it was a real word to start with.
“Oh. Hadn’t thought of that. Ye mean the sick folk who come—they might leave …” He waved his own hand toward the hole.
“Aye. Ye should ha’ seen the carry-on when Claire insisted on scalding Amy’s privy wi’ boiling water and lye soap and pourin’ turpentine into it after the Crombie lad left.” His shoulders rose toward his ears in memory. “If she was to do that every time we had sick folk in our privy, we’d all be shitting in the woods, too.”
He laughed, though, and so did Roger.
“Both, then,” Roger said. “Two holes for the family, and a separate privy for visitors—or rather, for the surgery. Say it’s for convenience. Ye dinna want to seem highfalutin by not letting people use your own privy.”
“No, that wouldna do at all.” Jamie vibrated briefly then stilled, but stayed for a moment, looking down, a half smile still on his face. The smells of damp, fresh-dug earth and newly sawn wood rose thick around them, mingling with the scent of the fire, and Roger could almost imagine that he felt the house solidifying out of the smoke.
Jamie left off what he was thinking, then, and turned his head to look at Roger.
“I missed ye, Roger Mac,” he said.
ROGER OPENED HIS mouth to reply, but his throat had closed as hard as if he’d swallowed a rock, and nothing came out but a muffled grunt.
Jamie smiled and touched his arm, urging him toward a big stone at what Roger assumed would be the front of the house. The stone foundation ran out at ninety-degree angles from the big stone. It was going to be a sizable house—maybe even bigger than the original Big House.
“Come walk the foundation with me, aye?”
Roger bobbed his head and followed his father-in-law to the big stone, and was surprised to see that the word “FRASER” had been chiseled into it, and below that, “1779.”
“My cornerstone,” Jamie said. “I thought if the house was to burn down again, at least folk would ken we’d been here, aye?”
“Ah … mm,” Roger managed. He cleared his throat hard, coughed, and found enough air for a few words. “Lallybroch … y-your da …” He pointed upward, as though to a lintel. “He put—the date.”
Jamie’s face lit. “He did,” he said. “The place is still standing, then?”
“It was last time I … saw it.” His throat had loosened as the grip of emotion left it. “Though … come to think—” He stopped, recalling just when he’d last seen Lallybroch.
“I wondered, ken.” Jamie had turned his back and was leading the way down what would be the side of the house. A smell of roasting meat was wafting from the fire. “Brianna told me about the men who came.” He glanced back briefly at Roger, his face careful. “Ye were gone then, of course, lookin’ for Jem.”
“Yes.” And Bree had been forced to leave the house—their house—abandoned to the hands of thieves and kidnappers. It felt like the rock had dropped from his throat into his chest. No use thinking of that just now, though, and he shoved the vision of people shooting at his wife and children down into the bottom of his brain—for the moment.
“As it is,” he said, catching up with Jamie, “the last time I saw Lallybroch was … a bit earlier than that.”
Jamie paused, one eyebrow raised, and Roger cleared his throat. It was what he’d come back here to say; no better time to say it.
“When I went to find Jem, I started by going to Lallybroch. He knew it, it was his home—I thought, if he somehow got away from Cameron, he’d maybe go there.”
Jamie looked at him for a moment, then drew breath and nodded. “The lass said … 1739?”
“You would have been eighteen. Away at university in Paris. Your family was very proud of you,” Roger added softly. Jamie turned his head sharply away and stood quite still; Roger could hear the catch in his breath.
“Jenny,” he said. “Ye met Jenny. Then.”