The Fiery Cross (92 page)

“What—impotent?” I felt my mouth hanging open, and closed it.

“Aye. He was betrothed, as a young man, but there was a dreadful accident; a cart horse knocked him into the street and kicked him in the scrotum.” He made a slight motion, as though to touch himself for reassurance, but checked it. “He healed, but it—well, he wasna fit for nuptial rites any longer, so he released the young woman and she marrit elsewhere.”

“The poor man!” I said, with a pang of sympathy. “Gracious, poor Duncan’s had nothing but bad luck.”

“Well, he’s alive,” Jamie observed. “A good many others aren’t. Besides”—he gestured over one shoulder, at the spread of River Run behind him—“I shouldna be inclined to call his present situation precisely unlucky. Bar the one small difficulty, that is,” he added.

I frowned, running through the medical possibilities. If the accident had resulted in severe vascular damage, there wasn’t much I could do; I was in no way equipped for fine reconstructive surgery. If it were only a hemocoel, though, then perhaps . . .

“When he was a young man, you said? Hmm. Well, it’s not promising, after so long, but I can certainly have a look and see whether—”

Jamie stared at me, incredulous.

“A look? Sassenach, the man goes puce when ye inquire after the health of his bowels, and he nearly died o’ shame, telling me. He’ll have an apoplexy, and ye go pokin’ his privates.”

A strand of hair had been pulled loose by an oak twig; I pushed it irritably behind my ear.

“Well, what did you expect me to do, then? I can’t heal him with spell-casting!”

“Of course not,” he said, a little impatiently. “I dinna want ye to do anything to Duncan—only to speak to my aunt.”

“What—you mean she doesn’t know? But they’ve been engaged to be married for months, and living together for most of it!”

“Aye, but . . .” Jamie made the odd half-shrugging gesture he used when feeling embarrassed or uncomfortable, as though his shirt were too tight. “D’ye see—when the question of marriage rose, it never occurred to Duncan that it was a matter of . . . mmphm.”

“Mmphm,” I said, raising one eyebrow. “Doesn’t marriage usually involve at least the possibility of mmphm?”

“Well, he didna think my aunt was wanting him for his manly beauty, aye?” Jamie said, raising his own brows back at me. “It seemed only a matter of business and convenience—there are things he could manage as owner of River Run that he couldna do as overseer. At that, he wouldna have agreed, save she persuaded him.”

“And he never thought to mention this . . . this impediment?”

“Oh, he thought. But there wasna any indication that my aunt regarded marriage in any but the sense of business.
She
didna mention the matter of bed; he was too shy to say. And the question didna really arise, ken.”

“I gather that it now
has
arisen? What happened? Did your aunt slip her hand under his kilt this morning and make a bawdy remark about the wedding night?”

“He didna happen to say,” he replied dryly. “But it wasna until this morning, when he began to hear the jests among the guests, that it occurred to Duncan that perhaps my aunt was expecting him to . . . well.”

He lifted one shoulder, and let it fall. “He couldna think what to do, and was in a panic, listening to everyone.”

“I see.” I rubbed a knuckle across my upper lip, thinking. “Poor Duncan; no wonder he’s been nervous.”

“Aye.” Jamie straightened up, with the air of one having settled something. “So, if ye’ll be so kind as to speak wi’ Jocasta, and see it’s all straight—”

“Me? You want
me
to tell her?”

“Well, I shouldna think she’ll mind greatly,” he said, looking quizzically down at me. “After all, at her age, I shouldna think—”

I made a rude noise.

“Her age? Your grandfather Simon was well into his seventies and still putting it about, when last seen.”

“My aunt is a woman,” he said, rather austerely. “If ye hadna noticed it.”

“And you think that makes a difference?”

“You don’t?”

“Oh, it makes a difference, all right,” I said. I leaned back against a tree, arms crossed under my bosom, and gave him a look from under my lashes. “When I am a hundred and one, and you’re ninety-six, I’ll invite you to my bed—and we’ll see which one of us rises to the occasion, hmm?”

He looked at me thoughtfully, a glint in the dark blue of his eyes.

“I’ve a mind to take ye where ye stand, Sassenach,” he said. “Payment on account, hmm?”

“I’ve a mind to take you up on it,” I said. “However . . .” I glanced through the screen of branches toward the house, which was clearly visible. The trees were beginning to leaf out, but the tiny sprays of tender green were by no means sufficient camouflage. I turned back, just as Jamie’s hands descended on the swell of my hips.

Events after that were somewhat confused, with the predominant impressions being an urgent rustling of fabric, the sharp scent of trodden onion grass, and the crackling of last year’s oak leaves, dry underfoot.

My eyes popped open a few moments later.

“Don’t stop!” I said, disbelieving. “Not
now
, for God’s sake!”

He grinned down at me, stepping back and letting his kilt fall into place. His face was flushed a ruddy bronze with effort, and his chest heaved under his shirt ruffles.

He grinned maliciously, and wiped a sleeve across his forehead.

“I’ll gie ye the rest when I’m ninety-six, aye?”

“You won’t live that long! Come here!”

“Oh,” he said. “So ye’ll speak to my aunt.”

“Effing blackmailer,” I panted, fumbling at the folds of his kilt. “I’ll get you for this, I swear I will.”

“Oh, aye. You will.”

He put an arm round my waist and swung me off my feet, turning round so that his back was to the house, screening me with his body. His long fingers deftly ruffled up the skirt of my gown, then the two petticoats beneath, and even more deftly, slid between my bare legs.

“Hush,” he murmured in my ear. “Ye dinna want folk to hear, do ye?” He set his teeth gently in the curve of my ear, and proceeded about his business in a workmanlike way, ignoring my intermittent—and admittedly rather feeble—struggles.

I was more than ready and he knew what he was doing. It didn’t take long. I dug my fingers into his arm, hard as an iron bar across my middle, arched backward for a moment of dizzying infinity, and then collapsed against him, twitching like a worm on the end of a hook. He made a deep chuckling sound, and let go of my ear.

A cold breeze had sprung up, and was wafting the folds of my skirts about my legs. The scent of smoke and food drifted through the cool spring air, along with the rumble of talk and laughter from the lawn. I could dimly hear it, under the slow, loud thumping of my heart.

“Come to think of it,” Jamie remarked, releasing me, “Duncan has still got the one good hand.” He set me gently on my feet, keeping hold of my elbow, lest my knees give way. “Ye might mention that to my aunt, if ye think it will help.”

R
OGER MACKENZIE MADE HIS WAY through the crowd, nodding here and there to a familiar face, but pushing on purposefully, preventing any attempt at conversation. He was not in a talkative mood.

Brianna had gone off to feed the kid, and while he missed her, he was just as pleased that she was out of sight for the moment. He didn’t care at all for the sort of looks she’d been getting. Those directed at her face were admiring, but respectful enough; he’d caught that wee bastard Forbes staring at her rear view with an expression similar to the one the gentlemen were using on the undraped marble goddess on the lawn, though.

At the same time, he was more than proud of her. She was gorgeous in her new dress, and he felt a pleasant sense of possession when he looked at her. Still, his pleasure was slightly spoiled by the uneasy thought that she looked as though she belonged here, mistress of all this . . . this . . .

Yet another slave trotted past him, skirts hooped up over one arm as she made for the house, a basin of fresh rolls balanced on her head and another under her arm. How many slaves did Jocasta Cameron keep? he wondered.

Of course, that alone put the notion of Brianna’s inheriting River Run out of the question. She wouldn’t countenance the notion of slaves, not ever. Nor would he himself; still, it was comforting to think that it wasn’t merely his own pride keeping Bree from her rightful inheritance.

He caught the thin wail of a fiddle coming from the house, and felt his ears prick up at the sound. Of course there would be music for the party. And with luck, a few new songs that he didn’t know.

He turned across the terrace toward the house. He hadn’t a notebook with him, but doubtless Ulysses could provide him with something. He bowed to Mrs. Farquard Campbell, who looked like a particularly horrible but expensive lampshade in pink silk. He paused to let her precede him into the house, biting the inside of his cheek as the four-foot spread of her skirt stuck momentarily in the three-foot doorway. She twitched adroitly sideways, though, and sidled crabwise into the hall, Roger following at a respectful distance.

The fiddle had ceased, but he could hear the twang and throb of instruments being handled and tuned nearby. They were in the big drawing room, whose double doors could be thrown open to allow dancers to spill out across the foyer, when the time came. At the moment, there were only a few guests in the drawing room, engaged in casual conversation.

Roger made his way past Ulysses, who was standing at the hearth, immaculate in wig and green livery, a poker held at the ready as he supervised two maidservants in the making of a gigantic vat of fresh rum punch. His eyes flicked automatically to the door, registered Roger’s presence and identity, then returned to his business.

The musicians were huddled at the far end of the room, casting occasional thirsty glances at the hearth as they readied their instruments.

“What will you be giving us the day?” Roger inquired, pausing beside the fiddler. He smiled as the man turned round to him. “‘Ewie wi’ the Crooked Horn,’ perhaps, or ‘Shawn Bwee’?”

“Oh, God love ye, sir, nothin’ fancy.” The conductor of the small ensemble, a cricketlike Irishman whose bent back was belied by the brightness of his eyes, waved a hand in cordial scorn at his motley crew of musicians.

“They ain’t up to more than jigs and reels. No more are the folk as will be dancin’, though,” he added, practically. “’Tisn’t the Assembly Rooms in Dublin, after all, nor even Edenton; a good fiddler can keep ’em up to snuff.”

“And that would be you, I expect?” Roger said with a smile, nodding at the cracked fiddle case the conductor had set on a whatnot, carefully out of the way of being stepped or sat on.

“That would be me,” the gentleman agreed, with a graceful bow of acknowledgment. “Seamus Hanlon, sir—your servant.”

“I am obliged, sir. Roger MacKenzie, of Fraser’s Ridge.” He returned the bow, taking pleasure in the old-fashioned formality, and clasped Hanlon’s hand briefly, careful of the twisted fingers and knobby joints. Hanlon saw his care of the arthritic hand and gave a brief grimace of deprecation.

“Ah, they’ll be fine with a drop of lubrication, so they will.” Hanlon flexed one hand experimentally, then flipped the fingers in dismissal, fixing Roger with a bright glance.

“And yourself, sir; I felt the calluses on your fingertips. Not a fiddler, perhaps, but would ye be after playin’ some stringed instrument?”

“Only to pass the time of an evening; nothing like you gentlemen.” Roger nodded politely toward the ensemble, which, now unpacked, boasted a battered cello, two viols, a trumpet, a flute, and something which he thought might have started life as a hunting horn, though it appeared to have been amended since by the addition of several odd loops of tubing that stuck out in different directions.

Hanlon eyed him shrewdly, taking in his breadth of chest.

“And hark at the voice in him! Sure, and you’re a singer, Mr. MacKenzie?”

Roger’s reply was interrupted by a loud thump and a dolorous twang behind him. He whirled to see the cello player inflating himself over his instrument in the manner of a hen with a very large chick, to protect it from further injury by the gentleman who had evidently kicked it carelessly in passing.

“Watch yourself, then!” the cellist snapped. “Clumsy sot!”

“Oh?” The intruder, a stocky man in naval uniform, glowered menacingly at the cellist. “You dare . . . dare shpeak to me . . .” His face was flushed an unhealthy red, and he swayed slightly as he stood; Roger could smell the fumes of alcohol from a distance of six feet.

The officer raised a forefinger to the cellist, and appeared to be on the point of speech. A tongue tip showed pinkly between his teeth, but no words emerged. His empurpled jowls quivered for a moment, then he abandoned the attempt, turned on his heel, and made off, swerving narrowly to avoid an incoming footman with a tray of drinks, and caroming off the doorjamb as he passed into the corridor.

“’Ware, then, Mr. O’Reilly.” Seamus Hanlon spoke dryly to the cellist. “Were we near the sea, I should reckon there’d be a press-gang waitin’ for ye, the instant ye set foot outside. As it is, I’d put no odds on him layin’ for ye with a marlinspike or something of the kind.”