“I’m not one of those born wi’ the Sight, nor one who has it regular. I’ve never had it before, and hope never to have it again. But I saw ye there, as clear as I see ye now, and it scairt me so that I had to leave the room, right in the midst o’ the vows.” She swallowed, looking at me directly.
“I dinna ken who ye are,” she said softly. “Or…or…what. We didna ken your people, or your place. I never asked ye, did I? Jamie chose ye, that was enough. But then ye were gone, and after so long—I thought he might have forgot ye enough to wed again, and be happy.”
“He wasn’t, though,” I said, hoping for confirmation from Jenny.
She gave it, shaking her head.
“No,” she said quietly. “But Jamie’s a faithful man, aye? No matter how it was between the two of them, him and Laoghaire, if he’d sworn to be her man, he wouldna leave her altogether. It didna matter that he spent most of his time in Edinburgh; I kent he’d always come back here—he’d be bound here, to the Highlands. But then you came back.”
Her hands lay still in her lap, a rare sight. They were still finely shaped, long-fingered and deft, but the knuckles were red and rough with years of work, and the veins stood out blue beneath the thin white skin.
“D’ye ken,” she said, looking into her lap, “I have never been further than ten miles from Lallybroch, in all my life?”
“No,” I said, slightly startled. She shook her head slowly, then looked up at me.
“You have, though,” she said. “You’ve traveled a great deal, I expect.” Her gaze searched my face, looking for clues.
“I have.”
She nodded, as though thinking to herself.
“You’ll go again,” she said, nearly whispering. “I kent ye would go again. You’re not bound here, not like Laoghaire—not like me. And he would go with ye. And I should never see him again.” She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them, looking at me under her fine dark brows.
“That’s why,” she said. “I thought if ye kent about Laoghaire, ye’d go again at once—you did—” she added, with a faint grimace, “and Jamie would stay. But ye came back.” Her shoulders rose in a faint, helpless shrug. “And I see it’s no good; he’s bound to ye, for good or ill. It’s you that’s his wife. And if ye leave again, he will go with ye.”
I searched helplessly for words to reassure her. “But I won’t. I won’t go again. I only want to stay here with him—always.”
I laid a hand on her arm and she stiffened slightly. After a moment, she laid her own hand over mine. It was chilled, and the tip of her long, straight nose was red with cold.
“Folk say different things of the Sight, aye?” she said after a moment.
“Some say it’s doomed; whatever ye see that way must come to pass. But others say nay, it’s no but a warning; take heed and ye can change things. What d’ye think, yourself?” She looked sideways at me, curiously.
I took a deep breath, the smell of onions stinging the back of my nose. This was hitting home in no uncertain terms.
“I don’t know,” I said, and my voice shook slightly. “I’d always thought that of course you could change things if you knew about them. But now…I don’t know,” I ended softly, thinking of Culloden.
Jenny watched me, her eyes so deep a blue as almost to be black in the dim light. I wondered again just how much Jamie had told her—and how much she knew without the telling.
“But ye must try, even so,” she said, with certainty. “Ye couldna just leave it, could ye?”
I didn’t know whether she meant this personally, but I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “You couldn’t. You’re right; you have to try.”
We smiled at each other, a little shyly.
“You’ll take good care of him?” Jenny said suddenly. “Even if ye go? Ye will, aye?”
I squeezed her cold fingers, feeling the bones of her hand light and fragile-seeming in my grasp.
“I will,” I said.
“Then that’s all right,” she said softly, and squeezed back.
We sat for a moment, holding each other’s hands, until the door of the root cellar swung open, admitting a blast of rain and wind down the stairs.
“Mam?” Young Ian’s head poked in, eyes bright with excitement. “Hobart MacKenzie’s come! Da says to come quick!”
Jenny sprang to her feet, barely remembering to snatch up the basket of onions.
“Has he come armed, then?” she asked anxiously. “Has he brought a pistol or a sword?”
Ian shook his head, his dark hair lifting wildly in the wind.
“Oh, no, Mam!” he said. “It’s worse. He’s brought a lawyer!”
* * *
Anything less resembling vengeance incarnate than Hobart MacKenzie could scarcely be imagined. A small, light-boned man of about thirty, he had pale blue, pale-lashed eyes with a tendency to water, and indeterminate features that began with a receding hairline and dwindled down into a similarly receding chin that seemed to be trying to escape into the folds of his stock.
He was smoothing his hair at the mirror in the hall when we came in the front door, a neatly curled bob wig sitting on the table beside him. He blinked at us in alarm, then snatched up the wig and crammed it on his head, bowing in the same motion.
“Mrs. Jenny,” he said. His small, rabbity eyes flicked in my direction, away, then back again, as though he hoped I really wasn’t there, but was very much afraid I was.
Jenny glanced from him to me, sighed deeply, and took the bull by the horns.
“Mr. MacKenzie,” she said, dropping him a formal curtsy. “Might I present my good-sister, Claire? Claire, Mr. Hobart MacKenzie of Kinwallis.”
His mouth dropped open and he simply gawked at me. I started to extend a hand to him, but thought better of it. I would have liked to know what Emily Post had to recommend in a situation like this, but as Miss Post wasn’t present, I was forced to improvise.
“How nice to meet you,” I said, smiling as cordially as possible.
“Ah…” he said. He bobbed his head tentatively at me. “Um…your…servant, ma’am.”
Fortunately, at this point in the proceedings, the door to the parlor opened. I looked at the small, neat figure framed in the doorway, and let out a cry of delighted recognition.
“Ned! Ned Gowan!”
It was indeed Ned Gowan, the elderly Edinburgh lawyer who had once saved me from burning as a witch. He was noticeably more elderly now, shrunken with age and so heavily wrinkled as to look like one of the dried apples I had seen in the root cellar.
The bright black eyes were the same, though, and they fastened on me at once with an expression of joy.
“My dear!” he exclaimed, hastening forward at a rapid hobble. He seized my hand, beaming, and pressed it to his withered lips in fervent gallantry.
“I had heard that you—”
“How did you come to be—”
“—so delightful to see you!”
“—so happy to see you again, but—”
A cough from Hobart MacKenzie interrupted this rapturous exchange, and Mr. Gowan looked up, startled, then nodded.