Bree drew herself abruptly upright, stiffening. A certain amount of grunting, gasping, and incoherent half-insults outside indicated that the fight was continuing—but Allan Christie’s raised voice had just called Roger an adulterer.
Brianna glanced sharply at the huddled form of Amy McCallum, and I said a very bad word to myself. I’d heard a few sidelong remarks about Roger’s visits to the McCallums—and Jamie had come close to saying something to Roger about it, but I had dissuaded him from interfering, telling him that I’d take up the matter tactfully with Bree. I hadn’t had the chance, though, and now—
With a last unfriendly look at Amy McCallum, Bree strode out the door, plainly intending to take a hand in the fight. I clutched my brow and must have moaned, for Tom Christie turned sharply from the window.
“Are ye ill, mistress?”
“No,” I said, a little wanly. “Just . . . look, Tom. I’m sorry if I’ve caused trouble, asking Malva to help me. She has a real gift for healing, I think—but I didn’t mean to persuade her into doing something you didn’t approve of.”
He gave me a bleak look, which he then transferred to Aidan’s slack body. The look sharpened suddenly.
“Is that child dead?” he asked.
“No, no,” I said. “I gave him ether; he’s just gone aslee—”
My voice dried in my throat, as I noticed that Aidan had chosen this inconvenient moment to stop breathing.
With an incoherent cry, I shoved Tom Christie out of the way and fell on Aidan, gluing my mouth over his and pressing the heel of my hand hard in the center of his chest.
The ether in his lungs flowed over my face as I took my mouth away, making my head swim. I gripped the edge of the table hard with my free hand, putting my mouth back on his. I could not black out, I couldn’t.
My vision swam and the room seemed to be revolving slowly round me. I clung doggedly to consciousness, though, urgently blowing into his lungs, feeling the tiny chest under my hand rise gently, then fall.
It couldn’t have been more than a minute, but a minute filled with nightmare, everything spinning round me, the feel of Aidan’s flesh the only solid anchor in a whirl of chaos. Amy McCallum stirred on the floor beside me, rose swaying to her knees—then fell on me with a shriek, pulling at me, trying to get me off her son. I heard Tom Christie’s voice, raised in command, trying to calm her; he must have pulled her away, for suddenly her grip on my leg was gone.
I blew into Aidan once more—and this time, the chest under my hand twitched. He coughed, choked, coughed again, and started simultaneously to breathe and to cry. I stood up, head spinning, and had to hold on to the table to avoid falling.
I saw a pair of figures before me, black, distorted, with gaping mouths that opened toward me, filled with sharp fangs. I blinked, staggering, and took deep gulps of air. Blinked again, and the figures resolved themselves into Tom Christie and Amy McCallum. He was holding her round the waist, keeping her back.
“It’s all right,” I said, my own voice sounding strange and far off. “He’s all right. Let her come to him.”
She flung herself at Aidan with a sob, pulling him into her arms. Tom Christie and I stood staring at each other over the wreckage. Outside, everything had gone quiet.
“Did ye just raise that child from the dead?” he asked. His voice was almost conversational, though his feathery brows arched high.
I wiped a hand across my mouth, still tasting the sickly sweetness of the ether.
“I suppose so,” I said.
“Oh.”
He stared at me, blank-faced. The room reeked of alcohol, and it seemed to sear my nasal lining. My eyes were watering a little; I wiped them on my apron. Finally, he nodded, as though to himself, and turned to go.
I had to see to Aidan and his mother. But I couldn’t let him go without trying to mend things for Malva, so far as I could.
“Tom—Mr. Christie.” I hurried after him, and caught him by the sleeve. He turned, surprised and frowning.
“Malva. It’s my fault; I sent Roger to bring her. You won’t—” I hesitated, but couldn’t think of any tactful way to put it. “You won’t punish her, will you?”
The frown deepened momentarily, then lifted. He shook his head, very slightly, and with a small bow, detached his sleeve from my hand.
“Your servant, Mrs. Fraser,” he said quietly, and with a last glance at Aidan—presently demanding food—he left.
BRIANNA DABBED THE wet corner of a handkerchief at Roger’s lower lip, split on one side, swollen and bleeding from the impact of some part of Allan Christie.
“It’s my fault,” he said, for the third time. “I should have thought of something sensible to tell them.”
“Shut up,” she said, beginning to lose her precarious grip on her patience. “If you keep talking, it won’t stop bleeding.” It was the first thing she’d said to him since the fight.
With a mumbled apology, he took the handkerchief from her and pressed it to his mouth. Unable to keep still, though, he got up and went to the open door of the cabin, looking out.
“He’s not still hanging around, is he? Allan?” She came to look over his shoulder. “If he is, leave him alone. I’ll go—”
“No, he’s not,” Roger interrupted her. Hand still pressed to his mouth, he nodded toward the Big House, at the far end of the sloped clearing. “It’s Tom.”
Sure enough, Tom Christie was standing on the stoop. Just standing, apparently deep in thought. As they watched, he shook his head like a dog shedding water, and set off with decision in the direction of his own place.
“I’ll go and talk to him.” Roger tossed the handkerchief at the table.
“Oh, no, you won’t.” She grabbed him by the arm as he turned toward the door. “You stay out of it, Roger!”
“I’m not going to fight him,” he said, patting her hand in what he plainly thought a reassuring manner. “But I’ve got to talk to him.”
“No, you don’t.” She tightened her grip on his arm, and pulled, trying to bring him back to the hearth. “You’ll just make it worse. Leave them alone.”
“No, I won’t,” he said, irritation beginning to show on his face. “What do ye mean, I’ll make it worse? What d’ye think I am?”
That wasn’t a question she wanted to answer right this minute. Vibrating with emotion from the tension of Aidan’s surgery, the explosion of the fight, and the niggling bur of Allan’s shouted insult, she barely trusted herself to speak, let alone be tactful.
“Don’t go,” she repeated, forcing herself to lower her voice, speak calmly. “Everyone’s upset. At least wait until they’ve settled down. Better yet, wait ’til Da comes back. He can—”
“Aye, he can do everything better than I can, I know that fine,” Roger replied caustically. “But it’s me that promised Malva she’d come to no harm. I’m going.” He yanked at his sleeve, hard enough that she felt the underarm seam give way.
“Fine!” She let go, and slapped him hard on the arm. “Go! Take care of everybody in the world but your own family. Go! Bloody go!”
“What?” He stopped, scowling, caught between anger and puzzlement.
“You heard me! Go!” She stamped her foot, and the jar of dauco seeds, left too near the edge of the shelf, fell off and smashed on the floor, scattering tiny black seeds like pepper grains. “Now look what you’ve done!”
“What I’ve—”
“Never mind! Just never mind. Get out of here.” She was puffing like a grampus with the effort not to cry. Her cheeks were hot with blood and her eyeballs felt red, bloodshot, so hot that she felt she might sear him with a look—certainly she wished she could.
He hovered, clearly trying to decide whether to stay and conciliate his disgruntled wife, or rush off in chivalrous protection of Malva Christie. He took a hesitant step toward the door, and she dived for the broom, making stupid, high-pitched squeaks of incoherent rage as she swung it at his head.
He ducked, but she got him on the second swing, catching him across the ribs with a thwack. He jerked in surprise at the impact, but recovered fast enough to catch the broom on the next swing. He yanked it out of her hand, and with a grunt of effort, broke it over his knee with a splintering crack.
He threw the pieces clattering at her feet and glared at her, angry but self-possessed.
“What in the name of God is the matter with you?”
She drew up tall and glared back.
“What I said. If you’re spending so much time with Amy McCallum that it’s common talk you’re having an affair with her—”
“I’m what?” His voice broke with outrage, but there was a shifty look in his eyes that gave him away.
“So you’ve heard it, too—haven’t you?” She didn’t feel triumphant at having caught him out; more a sense of sick fury.
“You can’t possibly think that’s true, Bree,” he said, his voice pitched uncertainly between angry repudiation and pleading.
“I know it isn’t true,” she said, and was furious to hear her own voice as shaky and cracked as his was. “That’s not the effing point, Roger!”
“The point,” he repeated. His black brows were drawn down, his eyes sharp and dark beneath them.
“The point,” she said, gulping air, “is that you’re always gone. Malva Christie, Amy McCallum, Marsali, Lizzie—you even go help Ute McGillivray, for God’s sake!”
“Who else is to do it?” he asked sharply. “Your father or your cousin might, aye—but they’ve to be gone to the Indians. I’m here. And I’m not always gone,” he added, as an afterthought. “I’m home every night, am I not?”
She closed her eyes and clenched her fists, feeling the nails dig into her palms.
“You’ll help any woman but me,” she said, opening her eyes. “Why is that?”
He gave her a long, hard look, and she wondered for an instant whether there was such a thing as a black emerald.
“Maybe I didn’t think ye needed me,” he said. And turning on his heel, he left.
51
THE CALLING
THE WATER LAY CALM as melted silver, the only movement on it the shadows of the evening clouds. But the hatch was about to rise; you could feel it. Or perhaps, Roger thought, what he felt was the expectation in his father-in-law, crouched like a leopard on the bank of the trout pool, pole and fly at the ready for the first sign of a ripple.
“Like the pool at Bethesda,” he said, amused.
“Oh, aye?” Jamie answered, but didn’t look at him, his attention fixed on the water.
“The one where an angel would go down into the pool and trouble the water now and then. So everyone sat about waiting, so as to plunge in the minute the water began to stir.”
Jamie smiled, but still didn’t turn. Fishing was serious business.
That was good; he’d rather not have Jamie look at him. But he’d have to hurry if he meant to say something; Fraser was already paying out the line to make a practice cast or two.