“I have no idea,” she lied. It was, in fact, under the small of her back, and very uncomfortable, but she wasn’t about to give him any further advantages. “What do you want it for?”
“Oh, I was going to explore the terrain a bit,” he said, raising himself on one elbow and walking his fingers slowly across the upper slope of one breast. “I suppose I could do it on foot, though. Takes more time, but ye do enjoy the scenery more. They say.”
“Mmm.” He could hold her down with his weight, but couldn’t restrain her arms. She extended one index finger, and placed the nail of it precisely on his nipple, making him breathe in deeply. “Did you have a long journey in mind?” She glanced at the small shelf near the bed, where she kept her contraceptive materials.
“Long enough.” He followed her glance, then looked back to meet her eyes, a question in his own.
She wriggled to make herself more comfortable, unobtrusively dislodging the miniature car.
“They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” she said, and raising her head, put her mouth on his nipple, and closed her teeth gently. A moment later, she let go.
“Be quiet,” she said reproachfully. “You’ll wake up Jemmy.”
“WHERE ARE YOUR SCISSORS? I’m cutting it off.”
“I’m not telling you. I like it long.” She pushed the soft dark hair back from his face and kissed the end of his nose, which appeared to disconcert him slightly. He smiled, though, and kissed her briefly back before sitting up, swiping the hair out of his face with one hand.
“That can’t be comfortable,” he said, eyeing the cradle. “Surely I should move him to his own bed?”
Brianna glanced up at the cradle from her position on the floor. Jemmy, aged four, had long since graduated to a trundle bed, but now and then insisted upon sleeping in his cradle for old times’ sake, wedging himself stubbornly into it, despite the fact that he couldn’t get all four limbs and his head inside at once. He was invisible at the moment, save for two chubby bare legs sticking straight up in the air at one end.
He was getting so big, she thought. He couldn’t quite read yet, but knew all his letters, and could count to a hundred and write his name. And he knew how to load a gun; his grandfather had taught him.
“Do we tell him?” she asked suddenly. “And if so, when?”
Roger must have been thinking something along the same lines, for he appeared to understand exactly what she meant.
“Christ, how do you tell a kid something like that?” he said. He rose and picked up a handful of bedding, shaking it in apparent hopes of finding the leather string with which he bound his hair.
“Wouldn’t you tell a kid if he were adopted?” she objected, sitting up and running both hands through her own bountiful hair. “Or if there’s some family scandal, like his father’s not dead, he’s in prison? If you tell them early, it doesn’t mean all that much to them, I don’t think; they’re comfortable with it as they get older. If they find out later, it’s a shock.”
He gave her a wry, sidelong look. “You’d know.”
“So would you.” She spoke dryly, but she felt the echo of it, even now. Disbelief, anger, denial—and then the sudden collapse of her world as she began, against her will, to believe. The sense of hollowness and abandonment—and the sense of black rage and betrayal at discovering how much of what she had taken for granted was a lie.
“At least for you, it wasn’t a choice,” she said, squirming into a more comfortable position against the edge of the bed. “Nobody knew about you; nobody could have told you what you were—but didn’t.”
“Oh, and ye think they should have told you about the time travel early on? Your parents?” He lifted one black brow, cynically amused. “I can see the notes coming home from your school—Brianna has a most creative imagination, but should be encouraged to recognize situations where it is not appropriate to employ it.”
“Ha.” She kicked away the remaining tangle of clothes and bedding. “I went to a Catholic school. The nuns would have called it lying, and put a stop to it, period. Where’s my shift?” She had wriggled completely out of it in the struggle, and while she was still warm from their struggle, she felt uncomfortably exposed, even in the dim shadows of the room.
“Here it is.” He plucked a wad of linen from the mess and shook it out. “Do you?” he repeated, looking up at her with one brow raised.
“Think they should have told me? Yes. And no,” she admitted reluctantly. She reached for the shift and pulled it over her head. “I mean—I see why they didn’t. Daddy didn’t believe it, to start with. And what he did believe . . . well, whatever it was, he did ask Mama to let me think he was my real father. She gave him her word; I guess I don’t think she should have broken it, no.” To the best of her knowledge, her mother had broken her word only once—unwillingly, but to staggering effect.
She smoothed the worn linen over her body and fished for the ends of the drawstring that gathered the neck. She was covered now, but felt just as much exposed as if she were still naked. Roger was sitting on the mattress, methodically shaking out the blankets, but his eyes were still fixed on her, green and questioning.
“It was still a lie,” she burst out. “I had a right to know!”
He nodded slowly.
“Mmphm.” He picked up a rope of twisted sheet and began unwinding it. “Aye, well. I can see telling a kid he’s adopted or his dad’s in prison. This is maybe more along the lines of telling a kid his father murdered his mother when he found her screwing the postie and six good friends in the kitchen, though. Maybe it doesn’t mean that much to him if you tell him early on—but it’s definitely going to get the attention of his friends when he starts telling them.”
She bit her lip, feeling unexpectedly cross and prickly. She hadn’t thought her own feelings were still so near the surface, and didn’t like either the fact that they were—or that Roger could see that they were.
“Well . . . yes.” She glanced at the cradle. Jem had moved; he was curled up like a hedgehog now, with his face pressed to his knees, and nothing visible save the curve of his bottom under his nightshirt, rising over the edge of the cradle like the moon rising above the horizon. “You’re right. We’d have to wait until he’s old enough to realize that he can’t tell people; that it’s a secret.”
The leather thong fell out of a shaken quilt. He bent to pick it up, dark hair falling round his face.
“Would ye want to tell Jem someday that I’m not his real father?” he asked quietly, not looking at her.
“Roger!” All her crossness disappeared in a flood of panic. “I wouldn’t do that in a hundred million years! Even if I thought it was true,” she added hastily, “and I don’t. Roger, I don’t! I know you’re his father.” She sat down beside him, gripping his arm urgently. He smiled, a little crookedly, and patted her hand—but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. He waited a moment, then moved, gently disengaging himself in order to tie up his hair.
“What ye said, though. Has he not got a right to know who he is?”
“That’s not—it’s different.” It was; and yet it wasn’t. The act that had resulted in her own conception hadn’t been rape—but it had been just as unintended. On the other hand, there had been no doubt, either: both—well, all three—of her parents had known that she was Jamie Fraser’s child, beyond doubt.
With Jem . . . she looked again at the cradle, instinctively wanting to find some stamp, some undeniable clue to his paternity. But he looked like her, and like her father, in terms both of coloring and feature. He was big for his age, long-limbed and broad-backed—but so were both of the men who might have fathered him. And both, damn them, had green eyes.
“I’m not telling him that,” she said firmly. “Not ever, and neither are you. You are his father, in any way that matters. And there wouldn’t be any good reason for him to even know that Stephen Bonnet exists.”
“Save that he does exist,” Roger pointed out. “And he thinks the wean is his. What if they should meet someday? When Jem’s older, I mean.”
She had not grown up with the habit of crossing herself at moments of stress as her father and cousin did—but she did it now, making him laugh.
“I am not being funny,” she said, sitting up straight. “It’s not happening. And if it did—if I ever saw Stephen Bonnet anywhere near my child, I’d . . . well, next time, I’ll aim higher, that’s all.”
“Ye’re determined to give the lad a good story for his classmates, aren’t you?” He spoke lightly, teasing, and she relaxed a little, hoping that she had succeeded in easing any doubt he might have about what she might tell Jemmy regarding his paternity.
“Okay, but he does have to know the rest, sooner or later. I don’t want him to find out by accident.”
“You didna find out by accident. Your mother did tell you.” And look where we are now. That bit went unspoken, but rang loud inside her head, as he gave her a long, straight look.
If she hadn’t felt compelled to come back, go through the stones to find her real father—none of them would be here now. They’d be safe in the twentieth century, perhaps in Scotland, perhaps in America—but in a place where children didn’t die of diarrhea and sudden fevers.
In a place where sudden danger didn’t lurk behind every tree and war wasn’t hiding under the bushes. A place where Roger’s voice still sang pure and strong.
But maybe—just maybe—she wouldn’t have Jem.
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling choked. “I know it’s my fault—all of it. If I hadn’t come back . . .” She reached out, tentatively, and touched the ragged scar that circled his throat. He caught her hand and pulled it down.
“Christ,” he said softly, “if I could have gone anywhere to find either of my parents—including hell—Brianna, I would have done it.” He looked up, his eyes bright green, and squeezed her hand hard. “If there’s anyone in this world who understands that, hen, it’s me.”
She squeezed back with both hands, hard. Relief that he didn’t blame her loosened the cords of her body, but sorrow for his own losses—and hers—still filled throat and chest, heavy as wet feathers, and it hurt to breathe.
Jemmy stirred, rose suddenly upright, then fell back, still sound asleep, so that one arm flopped out of the cradle, limp as a noodle. She’d frozen at his sudden movement, but now relaxed and rose to try to tuck the arm back in. Before she could reach the cradle, though, a knock came at the door.
Roger grabbed hastily for his shirt with one hand, his knife with the other.
“Who is it?” she called, heart thumping. People didn’t pay calls after dark, save in emergency.