There was a long pause.
"How d'ye know?" Hamish said.
"Know what?"
"Which is the right lady to get married to," the boy said impatiently.
"Oh." Jamie rocked back and settled himself against the stone wall, hands behind his head.
"I asked my own da that, once," he said. "He said ye just ken. And if ye dinna ken, then she's no the right lassie."
"Mmmphm." This seemed a less than satisfactory explanation, to judge from the expression on the small freckle-spattered face. Hamish sat back, consciously aping Jamie's posture. His stockinged feet stuck out over the edge of the hay bale. Small as he was, his sturdy frame gave promise of someday matching his cousin's. The set of the square shoulders, and the tilt of the solid, graceful skull were nearly identical.
"Where's your shoon, then?" Jamie asked accusingly. "You'll no ha' left them in the pasture again? Your mother will box your ears for ye if ye've lost them."
Hamish shrugged this off as a threat of no consequence. Clearly there was something of more importance on his mind.
"John—" he started, wrinkling his sandy brows in thought, "John says—"
"John the stable-lad, John the cook-boy, or John Cameron?" Jamie asked.
"The stable-lad." Hamish waved a hand, pushing away the distraction. "He said, er, about getting married …"
"Mmm?" Jamie made an encouraging noise, keeping his face tactfully turned away. Rolling his eyes upward, his glance met mine, as I peered over the edge. I grinned down at him, causing him to bite his lip to keep from grinning back.
Hamish drew a deep breath, and let it out in a rush, propelling his words like a burst of birdshot. "He-said-ye-must-serve-a-lass-like-a-stallion-does-a-mare-and-I-didna–believe–him–but–is–it-true?"
I bit my finger hard to keep from laughing out loud. Not so fortunately placed, Jamie dug his fingers into the fleshy part of his leg, turning as red in the face as Hamish. They looked like two tomatoes, set side by side on a hay bale for judging at a county vegetable show.
"Er, aye… weel, in a way…" he said, sounding strangled. Then he got a grip on himself.
"Yes," he said firmly, "yes, ye do."
Hamish cast a half-horrified glance into the nearby stall, where the bay gelding was relaxing, a foot or so of reproductive equipment protruding from its sheath. He glanced doubtfully down into his lap then, and I stuffed a handful of fabric into my mouth as far as it would go.
"There's some difference, ye ken," Jamie went on. The rich color was beginning to fade from his face, though there was still an ominous quiver around his mouth. "For one thing, it's… more gentle."
"Ye dinna bite them on the neck, then?" Hamish had the serious, intent expression of one taking careful notes. "To make them keep still?"
"Er… no. Not customarily, anyway." Exercising his not inconsiderable willpower, Jamie faced up manfully to the responsibilities of enlightenment.
"There's another difference, as well," he said, carefully not looking upward. "Ye may do it face to face, instead of from the back. As the lady prefers."
"The lady?" Hamish seemed dubious about this. "I think I'd rather do it from the back. I dinna think I'd like to have anyone lookin' at me while I did something like that. Is it hard," he inquired, "is it hard to keep from laughing?"
I was still thinking about Jamie and Hamish when I came to bed that night. I turned down the thick quilts, smiling to myself. There was a cool draft from the window, and I looked forward to crawling under the quilts and nestling against Jamie's warmth. Impervious to cold, he seemed to carry a small furnace within himself, and his skin was always warm; sometimes almost hot, as though he burned more fiercely in answer to my own cool touch.
I was still a stranger and an outlander, but no longer a guest at the Castle. While the married women seemed somewhat friendlier, now that I was one of them, the younger girls seemed strongly to resent the fact that I had removed an eligible young bachelor from circulation. In fact, noting the number of cold glances and behind-the-hand remarks, I rather wondered just how many of the Castle maidens had found their way into a secluded alcove with Jamie MacTavish during his short residency.
MacTavish no longer, of course. Most of the Castle inhabitants had always known who he was, and whether I was an English spy or not, I now knew of necessity as well. So he became Fraser publicly, and so did I. It was as Mistress Fraser that I was welcomed into the room above the kitchens where the married women did their sewing and rocked their babies, exchanging bits of mother-lore and eyeing my own waistline with frank appraisal.