“Dr. McEwan . . . Hector,” he said softly, and laid a hand on the doctor’s arm. “You need to go right away from this place, and from her. She won’t merely bring you great unhappiness or imperil your soul—she may well kill you.”
A look of surprise momentarily displaced the unhappiness in McEwan’s eyes. He looked aside, pursed his mouth, and glanced back at Roger, side-long, as though afraid to look at him too directly.
“Surely you exaggerate,” he said, but the words had no force. McEwan’s own Adam’s apple bobbed visibly as he swallowed.
Roger drew a deep, unconstricted breath and felt the cold, damp air fresh in his chest.
“No,” he said gently. “I don’t. Think about it, aye? And pray, if ye can. There is mercy, aye? And forgiveness.”
McEwan sighed, too, but not with any sense of freedom in it. He cast his eyes down, fixed them on the muddy lane and the rain-dancing puddles in the low spots.
“I cannot,” he said, his voice low and hopeless. “I’ve . . . tried. I can’t.”
Roger’s hand was still on McEwan’s arm. He squeezed, hard, and said, “Then I’ll pray for ye. And for her,” he added, hoping no reluctance showed in his voice.
“Thank you, sir,” the doctor said. “I value that extremely.” But his eyes had lifted and turned, as though he had no power over them, toward Cranesmuir and its smoking chimneys, and Roger knew there was no hope.
HE WALKED BACK to Cranesmuir and waited in the square ’til the door of the Duncans’ house opened and Buck emerged. The man looked mildly surprised—but not displeased—to see Roger, and nodded at him but didn’t speak. They walked together to an ordinary, where they got a room and went upstairs to refresh themselves before supper. The ordinary didn’t run to a bath, but hot water, soap, razor, and towels went some way to restore them to a decent state of cleanliness.
Buck hadn’t spoken a word more than necessary, but he had an odd expression—half pleased and half ashamed—and kept darting sidelong glances at Roger, as though unsure whether to say something but rather wanting to.
Roger poured a cup of water from the ewer, drank half of it, and set the cup down with an air of resignation.
“Tell me you didn’t,” he said finally. “Please.”
Buck shot him a quick glance, looking both shocked at the words and slightly amused.
“No,” he said, after a pause long enough to knot Roger’s belly. “No, I didn’t. I’m no saying I couldn’t have, though,” he added. “She . . . wasn’t unwilling.”
Roger would have said he didn’t want to know, but he wasn’t quite able to deceive himself.
“Ye tried?”
Buck nodded, then picked up the cup of water and dashed the remnants into his own face, shaking them off with a whoof of breath.
“I kissed her,” he said. “Put my hand on her breast.”
Roger had seen the upper slopes of those br**sts as they swelled above her deep-green woolen bodice, round and white as snowdrops—but a lot bigger. By a considerable force of will, he kept himself from asking, “And what happened then?”
He didn’t have to, though; Buck was obviously reliving the experience and wanted nothing more than to talk about it.
“She put her hand on mine, but she didn’t pull my hand away. Not at first. She went on kissing me—” He broke off and looked at Roger, one brow raised. “Have ye kissed many women?”
“I haven’t kept count,” Roger said, with a slight edge. “Have you?”
“Four besides her,” Buck said contemplatively. He shook his head. “That was different.”
“I’d expect it would be. Kissing your mother, I mean—”
“Not that kind of different.” Buck touched his lips with two fingers, lightly as a girl might. “The other kind. Or maybe I dinna mean that, quite. I kissed a whore once, and it wasna like that at all.” He patted his lips absently for a moment, then realized what he was doing and drew his hand away, looking momentarily embarrassed. “Ever gone wi’ a whore?”
“I have not,” Roger said, trying not to sound censorious, but not managing all that well.
Buck shrugged, dismissing it.
“Well, so. She kept my hand on her breast while she took her time about kissin’ me. But then . . .” He paused, blushing, and Roger drew himself up. Buck, blushing?
“What, then?” he asked, unable to refrain.
“Well, she drew it down, ken, over her body, very slow, and still kissin’ me, and—well, I must have heard her skirts rustle, mustn’t I? But I wasna paying attention, because when she took my hand and put it on her . . . erm . . . lady part, I thought I’d pass out from the shock.”
“Her—was she—it, I mean—naked?”
“Bare as an egg, and just as bald, too,” Buck assured him. “Have ye ever heard of such a thing?”
“I have, aye.”
Buck stared at him, green eyes wide.
“Ye mean your wife—”
“I bloody don’t,” Roger snapped. “Don’t ye dare speak of Brianna, an amaidan, or I’ll gie you your head in your hands to play with.”
“You and who else?” Buck said automatically, but waved a hand to calm Roger. “Why did ye not tell me my mother was a whore?”
“I wouldn’t tell ye something like that, even if I knew it for a fact, and I didn’t,” Roger said.
Buck looked at him for a moment in silence, eyes direct. “Ye’ll never make a decent minister,” he said at last, “if ye can’t be honest.”