“I thought I might never see you again,” she whispered.
“Aye,” he said softly, and his hand stroked her long hair and her back. “Me, too.” They were silent for a long moment, each listening to the other’s breath—his came easier than it had, she thought, without the small catches—and then he finally said, “Tell me.”
She did, baldly and with as little emotion as she could manage. She thought he might be emotional enough for both of them.
He couldn’t shout or curse, because of the sleeping children. She could feel the rage in him; he was shaking with it, his fists clenched like solid knobs of bone.
“I’ll kill him,” he said, in a voice barely pitched above silence, and his eyes met hers, savage and so dark that they seemed black in the dim light.
“It’s okay,” she said softly, and, sitting up, took both his hands in hers, lifting one and then the other to her lips. “It’s okay. We’re all right, all of us. And we’re here.”
He looked away and took a deep breath, then looked back, his hands tightening on hers.
“Here,” he repeated, his voice bleak, still hoarse with fury. “In 1739. If I’d—”
“You had to,” she said firmly, squeezing back hard. Besides,” she added, a little diffidently, “I sort of thought we wouldn’t stay. Unless you’ve taken a great liking to some of the denizens?”
Expressions flickered across his face, from anger to rue to reluctant acceptance . . . and an even more reluctant humor, as he got a grip of himself. He cleared his throat.
“Aye, well,” he said dryly. “There’s Hector McEwan, to be sure. But there are a good many other people, too—Geillis Duncan, for one.”
A small jolt went through her at the name.
“Geillis Duncan? Well . . . yes, I suppose she would be here at this point, wouldn’t she? Did you—did you meet her?”
A truly extraordinary expression went over Roger’s face at that question.
“I did,” he said, avoiding her questioning glance. He turned and waved a hand at the surgery window that looked out onto the square. “She lives just across the way.”
“Really?” Brianna got to her feet, clutching a quilt to her bosom, forgot about her bad foot, and stumbled. Roger leapt up and caught her by the arm.
“You don’t want to meet her,” he said, with emphasis. “Sit down, aye? Ye’re going to fall.”
Brianna eyed him, but allowed him to ease her back down to their nest and to pull a quilt up over her shoulders. It was bloody cold in the surgery, now that the warmth of their efforts had faded.
“All right,” she said, and shook her hair down to cover her ears and neck. “Tell me why I don’t want to meet Geillis Duncan.”
To her surprise, he flushed deeply, visible even in the shadows of the surgery. Roger had neither the skin nor the temperament to blush easily, but when he did describe—briefly, but vividly—what had happened (or possibly not happened) with Buck, Dr. McEwan, and Geillis, she understood it.
“Holy moly,” she said, with a glance over her shoulder at the window. “Er . . . when Dr. McEwan said he’d find a bed with a friend . . . ?”
Buck had gone off, saying that he’d take a bed at the ordinary at the foot of the High Street and would see them in the morning. Presumably he’d meant it, but . . .
“She is married,” Roger said tersely. “Presumably her husband would notice were she inviting strange men to spend the night.”
“Oh, I don’t know so much,” she said, half-teasing. “She’s an herbalist, remember? Mama does a good sleeping potion; I imagine Geillis could, too.”
The color washed up Roger’s face again, and she knew, as clearly as if he’d said so, that he was envisioning Geillis Duncan doing something disgraceful with one or another of her lovers whilst lying beside her snoring husband.
“God,” he said.
“You, um, do remember what’s going to happen to her poor husband, don’t you?” Bree said delicately. The color vanished instantly from Roger’s face, and she knew he hadn’t.
“That’s one of the reasons we can’t stay here,” she said, gently but firmly. “There are too many things we know. And we don’t know what trying to interfere might do, but it’s a good bet that it’s dangerous.”
“Yes, but—” he began, but broke off at the look on her face. “Lallybroch. Is that why ye wouldna go there?” For he’d tried to take her down the hill to the house when he’d rescued her from the fort. She’d insisted that they must go to the village for help instead, even though it meant an awkward and painful three-hour ride.
She nodded and felt a small lump come into her throat. It stayed there as she told him about meeting Brian in the burying ground.
“It’s not just that I’m afraid what meeting them might do to . . . later,” she said, and the lump dissolved into tears. “It’s . . . oh, Roger, the look on his face when he saw me and thought I was Ellen!
“I—he—he’s going to die in a year or two. That beautiful, sweet man . . . and there isn’t any-anything we can do to stop it.” She gulped and swiped at her eyes. “He—he thinks he’s seen his wife and his son, that they’re w-waiting for him. And the—oh, God, the joy on his face. I couldn’t take that away from him, I just couldn’t.”
He took her in his arms and rubbed her back gently as she sobbed.