“Jamie, a chuisle! Your bonnie lass! I’m fit to burst wi’ joy for ye!” She let go of his ribs and looked up, eyes brimming, and he felt his own sting, too, though he couldn’t help laughing through it, her joy reminding him of his own.
“Aye, me, too,” he said. He wiped his eyes briefly on his sleeve and set her cap straight for her. “How long ago was it that ye met Brianna? She said she’d gone to Lallybroch looking for her mother and me. And met you and Ian and all. And Laoghaire,” he added, remembering.
Jenny crossed herself at mention of the name, and laughed, too.
“Blessed Mother, the look on Laoghaire’s face when she saw the lass! And then the one when she tried to claim Mam’s pearls and Brianna shut her up like a writing desk!”
“Did she?” He regretted not seeing that, but then forgot it, recalling why he’d come looking for Jenny.
“Brianna’s man,” he said to the top of her head as she bent to put her shoe back on. “Roger MacKenzie.”
“Aye, what sort of man is he, then? Ye said ye liked him fine, in your letters.”
“I still do,” he assured her. “It’s just … d’ye recall when Claire and I came to Scotland to bury Simon the General at Balnain?”
“I’m no likely to forget it,” she said, her face darkening. Nor would she; that had been during Ian’s long dying, a terrible time for them all, but worst by far for her. He hated to bring it back to her, even for a moment, but couldn’t think how else to begin.
“Ye’ll remember, then, what Claire told ye all—about … where she came from.”
Jenny looked blankly at him, her mind clearly still shadowed by memories, but then she blinked, frowning.
“Aye …” she said cautiously. “Some taradiddle about stone circles and faeries, as I recall.”
“Aye, that’s the bit. Now—can ye maybe cast your mind back a bit further, to—to the time I was away in Paris, just before Da died?”
“I can,” she said tersely, glaring up at him. “But I dinna want to. Why are ye plaguing me wi’ that, of all things?”
He patted the air with his palm, urging her to hear him out.
“There was a man came to Lallybroch, looking for his kidnapped son. A dark-haired man, called Roger MacKenzie, from Lochalsh, he said. Do ye remember him?”
The sun was coming down, but there was plenty of light left to show him the blood draining from her face. She swallowed visibly and nodded, once.
“His wee lad was named Jeremiah,” she said. “I remember, because Da got a wee bawbee sent him from the garrison commander”—her lips compressed, and he kent she was thinking of Jack Randall—“and when the dark-haired man came back, Da gave it to him, and I heard Mr. MacKenzie talking to his friend later, and saying that it must have belonged to his own father, who was named Jeremiah, like … Jemmy. His son’s name was Jeremiah and they called him Jemmy.” She stopped talking and stared at him, her eyes round as three-penny bits. “Ye’re tellin’ me your grandson is that Jemmy, and the dark-haired man is …”
“I am,” he said, and let his breath out.
She sat down again, very slowly.
He let her alone, remembering all too well the mix of incredulity, bewilderment, and fear that he’d felt when Claire, battered and hysterical after he’d rescued her from the witch trial in Cranesmuir, had finally told him what she was.
He also remembered vividly what he’d said at the time. “It would ha’ been easier if ye’d only been a witch.” That made him smile, and he squatted down in front of his sister.
“Aye, I ken,” he said to her. “But it’s no really different than if they’d come from … Spain, maybe. Or Timbuktu, say.”
She darted a sharp look at him and snorted, but her hands—clenched in her lap—relaxed.
“So the way of it is that Roger Mac and Brianna were each of them at Lallybroch—then. Ye met Brianna when she came to find us. But ye’d met Roger Mac years earlier, looking for his wee lad. Brianna came again a bit later wi’ the bairns, looking for Roger. Ye didna meet her then, but she saw Da.”
He paused for a moment, waiting. Jenny’s look changed suddenly and she sat up straighter.
“She met Da? But he was already dead …” Her voice trailed off as she tried to juggle it all in her head.
“She did,” he said, and swallowed the lump in his throat. “And Roger Mac spent some time with Da, too, searching. He—told me things about Da. See … for the two o’ them, it was nay more than a few months ago that they saw him,” he said softly, and took her hand, holding it tight. “To hear Roger Mac speak of him so—it was as though Da stood beside me.”