I hesitated, trying to think of something to tell him that perhaps wasn’t quite … I looked up at him and decided that, no, I couldn’t lie to him—and not only because he’d be able to tell immediately that I was lying.

“Do you remember,” I said slowly, looking up at him, “on our wedding night? You told me you wouldn’t ask me to tell you things that I couldn’t. You said that love had room for secrets, but not for lies. I won’t lie to you, Jamie—but I really don’t want to tell you.”

He shifted his weight from one leg to the other and sighed.

“If ye think that’s going to relieve my mind, Sassenach …” he said, and shook his head. “I didna say that, anyway. I do remember the occasion—vividly”—and he smiled a little at me—“and what I said was that there was nothing between us then but respect—and that I thought respect maybe had room for secrets, but not for lies.”

He paused for a moment, then said very gently, “D’ye no think there’s more than respect between us now, mo chridhe?”

I took a very deep breath. My heart was thumping against my stays, but it was just normal agitation, not panic.

“I do,” I said, looking up at him. “Jamie … please don’t ask me just now. I truly think it’s all right; I’ve been praying about it, and—and—I think it will be all right,” I ended, rather lamely. I stood up, though, and took his hands. “I’ll tell you when I think I can,” I said. “Can you live with that?”

His lips tightened as he thought. He wasn’t a man for facile answers. If he couldn’t live with it, he’d tell me.

“Is it a matter that I might need to make preparation for?” he asked seriously. “If it might cause a fight of some kind, I mean, I should need to be ready.”

“Oh.” I let out the breath I’d been holding, somewhat relieved. “No. No, it isn’t anything like that. More of a moral question kind of thing.”

I could see that he wasn’t happy about that; his eyes searched my face, and I saw the troubled look in them, but at last he nodded, slowly.

“I’ll live with it, a nighean,” he said softly, and kissed my forehead. “For now.”



INTERRUPTUS

THE OTHER MAJOR THINGS requiring a healer’s attention in summer were pregnancy and birth. I prayed every day that Marsali had safely delivered her child. Even though it was already June 1, it would likely be months before we had any news, but I had examined her before we parted company—with tears—in Charleston, and all seemed normal.

“Do ye think this one might be … like Henri-Christian?” She spoke the name with difficulty and pressed a hand to her swelling belly.

“Probably not,” I said, and saw the emotions ripple across her face like wind passing over water. Fear, regret … relief.

I crossed myself, with another quick prayer, and walked up the path to the MacDonald cottage, where Rachel and Ian were staying until Ian could build them a place of their own. Rachel was sitting on the bench out front, shelling peas into a basin, the basin sitting comfortably atop her stomach.

“Madainn mhath!” she said, smiling in delight when she saw me. “Is thee not impressed with my linguistic facility, Claire? I can say ‘Good morning,’ ‘Good night,’ ‘How are you?’ and ‘Bugger off to St. Kilda’ now.”

“Congratulations,” I said, sitting down next to her. “How does that last one go?”

“Rach a h-Irt,” she told me. “I gather ‘St. Kilda’ is actually a figure of speech indicating some extremely remote location, rather than being specified as the actual destination.”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Do you try to impose the principles of plain speech on Gàidhlig, or is that even possible?”

“I have no idea,” she said frankly. “Mother Jenny proposes to teach me the Lord’s Prayer in Gàidhlig. Perhaps I can tell from that, as presumably one addresses the Creator in the same sort of voice that one uses for plain speech.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t thought about that, but it was sensible. “So you call God ‘Thee’ when speaking to Him?”

“Of course. Who should be a closer Friend?”

It hadn’t occurred to me, but presumably that was why one used “thou,” “thy,” et cetera, in prayer; that was originally the familiar form of the singular pronoun “you,” even though common English speech had now moved on and lost the distinction, save for the Friends’ plain speech.

“How interesting,” I said. “And how is Oggy today?”

“Restless,” she said, catching the edge of the basin as a vigorous kick made it bounce, scattering peas. “So am I,” she added, as I brushed the spilled peas off her petticoat and poured them back into the pan.

“I don’t doubt it,” I said, smiling. “Pregnancy actually does last forever—until suddenly you go into labor.”

“I can’t wait,” she said fervently. “Neither can Ian.”

“Any particular reason?”

A slow, glorious blush rose up from the neck of her shift and suffused her to the hairline.

“I wake him six times a night, rising to piss,” she said, avoiding my eye. “And Oggy kicks him, nearly as much as he does me.”

“And?” I said invitingly.

The blush deepened slightly.

“He says he can’t wait to, er, suckle me,” she said diffidently. She coughed and then looked up, the blush fading a little.

“Really,” she said, now serious, “he’s anxious for the child. Thee knows about his children by the Mohawk woman; he said he’d told thee, making up his mind if it was right for him to marry again.”

“Ah. Yes, he would be.” I laid a hand on her belly, feeling the reassuring pressure of a thrusting foot and the long curve of a tiny back. The baby hadn’t dropped, but Oggy was at least head-down. That was a great relief.

“It will be all right,” I said, and squeezed her hand. “I’m sure of it.”

“I’m not afraid for myself at all,” she said, smiling and squeezing back. The smile faded a little as she put her hand on her stomach. “But very much afraid for them.”



THE WEATHER being fine—and the smallest Higgins teething—we took a pair of quilts and walked up to the house site after supper, to enjoy the long twilight. And a little privacy.

“You don’t think we’re likely to be interrupted by a bear or some other form of wildlife, do you?” I asked, shimmying out of the rough gown I wore for foraging.

“No. I spoke wi’ Jo Beardsley yesterday; he told me the nearest bear is a good league that way—” He nodded toward the far side of the cove. “And they dinna travel far in the summer, while the eating’s good where they are. And painters wouldna trouble wi’ people while there are easier things to kill. I’ll make a bitty fire, though, just on principle.”

“How’s Lizzie?” I asked, unfolding the quilts as I watched him assemble a small fire with deft efficiency. “Did Jo say?”

Jamie smiled, eyes on what he was doing.

“He did, at some length. The meat of it bein’ that she’s well enough but summat inclined to bite pieces out o’ him and Kezzie to distract her mind. That’s why Jo was out hunting; Kezzie stays in when she’s frachetty, because he canna hear her so well.” The Beardsley twins were identical, and so alike that the only sure way to tell which you were talking to was that Keziah was hard of hearing, as the result of a childhood infection.

“That’s good. No malaria, I mean.” I’d visited Lizzie soon after our arrival and found her and the brood thriving—but she’d told me that she’d had a few “spells” of fever during the last year, doubtless owing to lack of the Jesuit bark. I’d left her with most of what I’d brought from Savannah. I should have thought to ask if they had any at the trading post, I thought—and pushed away the heavy sense of uneasiness that came with the thought of that place, thinking firmly, I forgive you.

The fire built, we sat feeding it sticks and watching the last of the sunset go down in flaming banners of golden cloud behind the black pickets of the farthest ridge.

And with the light of the fire dancing on the stacked timbers and the piles of foundation stones, we enjoyed the privacy of our home, rudimentary as said home might be at the moment. We lay peacefully afterward between our quilts—it wasn’t cold but, so high up, the heat of the day vanished swiftly from the air—and watched the flickering lights of chimney sparks and lighted windows, in the few houses visible among the trees of the cove. Before the lights were extinguished for the night, we were asleep.