Outraged, I stamped over to the desk and gripped Ian by the shoulder, shaking him roughly and ignoring Jamie, who pushed himself upright, saying, "Sassenach, wait…"
Ian was not quite unconscious. His head came up reluctantly, and he looked at me with a set, rigid face, eyes bleak and pleading holes. I realized suddenly that he thought I had come to tell him that Jenny was dead.
I relaxed my grip and patted him gently instead.
"She's all right," I said, softly. "You have a daughter."
He laid his head down on his arms again, and I left him, his thin shoulders shaking as Jamie patted his back.
The survivors now revived and cleaned up, the Murray-Fraser families gathered in Jenny's room for a celebratory supper. Little Margaret, tidied for inspection and swaddled in a small blanket, was given to her father, who received his new offspring with an expression of beatific reverence.
"Hello, wee Maggie," he whispered, touching the tiny button of a nose with one fingertip.
His new daughter, unimpressed by the introduction, closed her eyes in concentration, stiffened, and urinated on her father's shirt.
During the brief bustle of hilarity and repair occasioned by this lapse of good manners, small Jamie succeeded in escaping from the clutches of Mrs. Crook and flung himself onto Jenny's bed. She grunted slightly in discomfort, but put out a hand and gathered him in, waving at Mrs. Crook to let him be.
"My mama!" he declared, burrowing into Jenny's side.
"Well, who else?" she asked reasonably. "Here, laddie." She hugged him, and kissed the top of his head, and he relaxed, reassured, and snuggled against her. She gently pushed his head down, stroking his hair.
"Lay your head then, man," she said. "Past your bedtime. Lay your head." Comforted by her presence, he put a thumb in his mouth and fell asleep.
Given a turn to hold the baby, Jamie proved remarkably competent, cupping the small fuzzy skull in the palm of one hand like a tennis ball. He seemed reluctant to hand the child back to Jenny, who cuddled her against her breasts, crooning soft endearments.
At last we made our way to our own room, which seemed silent and empty in contrast to the warm family scene we had just left, Ian kneeling by his wife's bed, hand resting on small Jamie as Jenny nursed the new baby. I was conscious for the first time of just how tired I was; it was nearly twenty-four hours since Ian had roused me.
Jamie closed the door quietly behind him. Without speaking, he came behind me and undid the fastenings of my gown. His hands reached around me and I lay back gratefully against his chest. Then he bent his head to kiss me and I turned, putting my own arms around his neck. I felt not only very tired, but very tender, and not a little sad.
"Perhaps it's as well," Jamie said slowly, as though to himself.
"What's as well?"
"That you're barren." He couldn't see my face, buried in his chest, but he must have felt me stiffen.
"Aye, I knew that long ago. Geillis Duncan told me, soon after we wed." He stroked my back gently. "I regretted it a bit at first, but then I began to think it was as well; living as we must, it would be verra difficult if you were to get with child. And now"—he shivered slightly—"now I think I am glad of it; I wouldna want ye to suffer that way."
"I wouldn't mind," I said, after a long while, thinking of the rounded, fuzzy head and tiny fingers.
"I would." He kissed the top of my head. "I saw Ian's face; it was like his own flesh was being torn, each time Jenny screamed." My arms were around him, stroking the ridged scars on his back. "I can bear pain, myself," he said softly, "but I couldna bear yours. That would take more strength than I have."
* * *
33
The Watch
Jenny recovered rapidly after Margaret's birth, insisting on coming downstairs the day following the delivery. At the combined insistence of Ian and Jamie, she reluctantly refrained from doing any work, only supervising from the sofa in the parlor where she reclined, baby Margaret sleeping in her cradle alongside.
Not content to sit idle, though, within a day or two she had ventured as far as the kitchen, and then the back garden. Sitting on the wall, the well-wrapped baby in a carrying sling, she was keeping me company as I simultaneously pulled dead vines and kept an eye on the enormous cauldron in which the household's laundry was boiled. Mrs. Crook and the maids had already removed the clean wash to be hung and dried; now I was waiting for the water to cool sufficiently to be dumped out.
Small Jamie was "helping" me, yanking out plants with mad abandon and flinging bits of stick in all directions. I called a warning as he ventured too near the cauldron, then raced after him as he ignored me. Luckily the pot had cooled quickly; the water was no more than warm. Warning him to keep back with his mother, I grasped the pot and tilted it away from the iron contrivance that held it and kept it from falling.