"I've said I'm sorry! What more d'ye want of me?" he demanded. "Do ye want me to go on my knees to ye? I'll do it if I must, but tell me!"
She shook her head slowly, lip still caught between her teeth.
"No," she said at last, "I'll not have ye on your knees in your own house. Stand up, though."
Jamie stood, and she set the child down on the loveseat and crossed the room to stand in front of him.
"Take off your shirt," she ordered.
"I'll not!"'
She jerked the shirttail out of his kilt and reached for the buttons. Short of forcible resistance, clearly he was going to obey or submit to being undressed. Retaining as much dignity as he could, he backed away from her, and tight-lipped, removed the disputed garment.
She circled behind him and surveyed his back, her face displaying the same carefully blank expression I had seen Jamie adopt when concealing some strong emotion. She nodded, as though confirming something long suspected.
"Weel, and if you've been a fool, Jamie, it seems you've paid for it." She laid her hand gently on his back, covering the worst of the scars.
"It looks as though it hurt."
"It did."
"Did you cry?"
His fists clenched involuntarily at his sides. "Yes!"
Jenny walked back around to face him, pointed chin lifted and slanted eyes wide and bright. "So did I," she said softly. "Every day since they took ye away."
The broad-cheeked faces were once more mirrors of each other, but the expression that they wore was such that I rose and stepped quietly through the kitchen door to leave them alone. As the door swung to behind me, I saw Jamie catch hold of his sister's hands and say something huskily in Gaelic. She stepped into his embrace, and the rough, bright head bent to the dark.
* * *
27
The Last Reason
We ate like wolves at dinner, retired to a large, airy bedroom, and slept like logs. The sun would have been high by the time we rose in the morning, save that the sky was covered in clouds. I could tell it was late by the bustling feel of the house, as of people going cheerfully about their business, and by the tempting aromas that drifted up the stairs.
After breakfast the men prepared to go out, visiting tenants, inspecting fences, mending wagons, and generally enjoying themselves. As they paused in the hall to don their coats, Ian spotted Jenny's large basket resting on the table beneath the hall mirror.
"Shall I fetch home some apples from the orchard, Jenny? 'Twould save ye walking so far."
"Good idea," said Jamie, casting an appraising eye at his sister's expansive frontage. "We dinna want her to drop it in the road."
"I'll drop you where ye stand, Jamie Fraser," she retorted, calmly holding up the coat for Ian to shrug into. "Be useful for the once, and take this wee fiend outside wi' ye. Mrs. Crook's in the washhouse; ye can leave him there." She moved her foot, dislodging small Jamie, who was clinging to her skirts, chanting "up, up" monotonously.
His uncle obediently grabbed the wee fiend around the middle and swept him out the door, upside down and shrieking with delight. "Ah," Jenny sighed contentedly, bending to inspect her appearance in the gold-framed mirror. She wet a finger and smoothed her brows, then finished doing up the buttons at her throat. "Nice to finish dressing wi'out someone clinging to your skirts or wrapped round your knees. Some days I can scarce go to the privy alone, or speak a single sentence wi'out being interrupted."
Her cheeks were slightly flushed, and her dark hair gleamed against the blue silk of her dress. Ian smiled at her, warm brown eyes glowing at the blooming picture she presented.
"Weel, you'll have time to talk wi' Claire, perhaps," he suggested. He cocked one eyebrow in my direction. "I expect she's mannerly enough to listen, but for God's sake, dinna tell her any of your poems, or she'll be on the next coach to London before Jamie and I get back."
Jenny snapped her fingers under his nose, unperturbed by the teasing.
"I'm none too worried, man. There's no coach going before next April, and I reckon she'll be used to us by that time. Get on wi' ye; Jamie's waiting."
While the men went about their business, Jenny and I spent the day in the parlor, she stitching, I winding up stray bits of yarn and sorting the colored silks.
Outwardly friendly, we circled each other cautiously in conversation, watching each other from the corners of our eyes. Jamie's sister, Jamie's wife; Jamie was the central point, unspoken, about which our thoughts revolved.