Alarms of Struggle and Flight 3 страница

OUR JOURNEY BACK TO Fraser’s Ridge was much quicker than the one to Alamance, for all that the return was uphill. It was late May, and the cornstalks stood already high and green in the fields around Hillsborough, shedding golden pollen on the wind. The grain would just be up, in the mountains, and the newborn stock appearing, calves and foals and lambs needing protection from wolf and fox and bear. The militia company had disbanded at once upon receiving the Governor’s dismissal, its members scattering in haste to return to their homesteads and fields.

We were in consequence a much smaller party going back; only two wagons. A few of the men who lived near the Ridge had chosen to travel with us, as had the two Findlay boys, since we would pass by their mother’s homestead on our way.

I cast a covert glance at the Findlays, who were helping to unload the wagon and set up our nightly camp. Nice boys, though quiet. They were respectful of—and rather awed by—Jamie, but had developed a peculiar sense of allegiance to Roger over the course of the short-lived campaign, and this odd fidelity had continued, even after the militia’s disbanding.

They had come, the two of them, to see him in Hillsborough, wriggling their bare toes in embarrassment on Phoebe Sherston’s Turkish carpets. Scarlet-faced and nearly speechless themselves, they had presented Roger with three early apples, lopsided green nubbins obviously stolen from someone’s orchard on the way.

He had smiled broadly at them in thanks, picked up one of the apples, and taken a heroic bite from it before I could stop him. He hadn’t swallowed anything but soup for a week, and nearly choked to death. Still, he got it down, strangling and gasping, and all three of them had sat there grinning wordlessly at each other, tears standing in their eyes.

The Findlays were usually to be found somewhere near Roger as we traveled, always watchful, leaping to help with anything he couldn’t quite manage with his injured hands. Jamie had told me about their uncle, Iain Mhor; plainly they had a good deal of experience in anticipating unspoken needs.

Young and strong, Roger had healed quickly, and the fractures weren’t bad ones—but two weeks was not a long time for broken bones to knit. I would have preferred to keep him bandaged for another week, but he was all too plainly chafing at the restraint. I had reluctantly taken the splints off his fingers the day before, warning him to take things easy.

“Don’t you dare,” I said now, seizing his arm as he reached into the wagon for one of the heavy rucksacks of supplies. He looked down at me, one eyebrow raised, then shrugged good-naturedly and stood back, letting Hugh Findlay pull out the sack and carry it away. Roger pointed at the ring of fire-stones Iain Findlay was assembling, then at the woods nearby. Could he gather firewood?

“Certainly not,” I said firmly. He pantomimed drinking, and raised his brows. Fetch water?

“No,” I said. “All it needs is for a bucket to slip, and . . .”

I looked around, trying to think of something he could safely do, but all camp-making chores involved rough work. At the same time, I knew how galling he found it to stand by, feeling useless. He was bloody tired of being treated like an invalid, and I could see the gleam of incipient rebellion in his eye. One more “no” and he would probably try to pick up the wagon, just to spite me.

“Can he write, Sassenach?” Jamie had paused by the wagon, and noticed the impasse in progress.

“Write? Write what?” I asked in surprise, but he was already reaching past me, digging out the battered portable writing-desk he carried when traveling.

“Love letters?” Jamie suggested, grinning down at me. “Or sonnets, maybe?” He tossed the lap-desk to Roger, who caught it neatly in his arms, even as I yelped in protest. “But perhaps before ye compose an epic in William Tryon’s honor, Roger Mac, ye might oblige me wi’ the tale of how our mutual kinsman came to try and murder ye, aye?”

Roger stood stock-still for a moment, clutching the desk, but then gave Jamie a lopsided smile, and nodded slowly.

He had begun while the camp was set up, paused to eat supper, and then taken up the task again. It was tiresome work, and very slow; the fractures were mostly healed, but his hands were very stiff, sore, and awkward. He had dropped the quill a dozen times. It made my own finger-joints ache just to watch him.

“Ow! Will you stop that?” I looked up from scouring out a pan with a handful of rushes and sand, to find Brianna locked in mortal combat with her son, who was arched backward like a bow over her arm, kicking, squirming, and making the sort of nerve-wracking fuss that makes even devoted parents momentarily contemplate infanticide. I saw Roger’s shoulders draw up toward his ears at the racket, but he went doggedly on with his writing.

“What is the matter with you?” Bree demanded crossly. She knelt and wrestled Jemmy into a semi-sitting position, evidently trying to make him lie down so she could change his clout for the night.

The diaper in question was much in need of attention, being wet, grimy, and hanging halfway down the little boy’s legs. Jem, having slept most of the afternoon in the wagon, had wakened sun-dazed, cranky, and in no mood to be trifled with, let alone changed and put to bed.

“Perhaps he isn’t tired yet,” I suggested. “He’s eaten, though, hasn’t he?” This was a rhetorical question; Jemmy’s face was smeared with hasty pudding, and he had bits of eggy toast in his hair.

“Yes.” Bree ran a hand through her own hair, which was cleaner, but no less disheveled. Jem wasn’t the only cranky one in the MacKenzie family. “Maybe he’s not tired, but I am.” She was; she had walked beside the wagon most of the day, to spare the horses on the steepening slopes. So had I.

“Leave him here and go have a wash, why don’t you?” I said, nobly suppressing a yawn. I picked up a large wooden spoon and waggled it alluringly toward Jem, who was oscillating backward and forward on his hands and knees, emitting horrible whining noises. Spotting the spoon, he stopped making the noise, but crouched in place, glaring suspiciously.

I added an empty tin cup to the lure, setting it on the ground near him. That was enough; he rolled onto his bottom with a squish, picked up the spoon with both hands and began trying to pound the cup into the dirt with it.

Bree cast me a look of profound gratitude, scrambled to her feet, and disappeared into the woods, heading down the slope to the small creek. A quick rinse in cold water, surrounded by dark forest, wasn’t quite the sybaritic escape that a fragrant bubble-bath by candlelight might be—but “escape” was the important word here. A little solitude worked wonders for a mother, as I knew from experience. And if cleanliness was not quite next to godliness, having clean feet, face, and hands definitely improved one’s outlook on the universe, particularly after a day of sweat, grime, and dirty diapers.

I examined my own hands critically; between horse-leading, fire-starting, cooking, and pot-scouring, my own outlook on the universe could stand a bit of improvement, too.

Still, water was not the only liquid capable of lifting one’s spirits. Jamie reached over my shoulder, put a cup of something into my hands, and sat down beside me, his own cup in hand.

“Slàinte, mo nighean donn,” he said softly, smiling at me as he lifted his cup in salute.

“Mmm.” I closed my eyes, inhaling the fragrant fumes. “Is it proper to say ‘Slàinte,’ if it isn’t whisky you’re drinking?” The liquid in the cup was wine—and a nice one, too, rough but with a good round flavor, redolent of sun and grape leaves.

“I canna see why not,” Jamie said logically. “It’s only to wish ye good health, after all.”

“True, but I think ‘Good Health’ may be more a practical wish than a figurative one, at least with some whiskies—that you hope the person you’re toasting survives the experience of drinking it, I mean.”

He laughed, eyes creasing in amusement.

“I havena killed anyone wi’ my distilling yet, Sassenach.”

“I didn’t mean yours,” I assured him, pausing for another sip. “Oh, that’s nice. I was thinking of those three militiamen from Colonel Ashe’s regiment.” The three in question had been found blind-drunk—in one case, literally blind—by a sentry, after having indulged in a bottle of so-called whisky, obtained from God knew where.

As Ashe’s Company had no surgeon, and we were camped next to them, I had been summoned in the middle of the night to deal with the matter, as best I could. All three men had survived, but one had lost the sight in one eye and another plainly had minor brain-damage—though privately, I had my doubts as to how intelligent he could have been to start with.

Jamie shrugged. Drunkenness was a simple fact of life, and bad brewing was another.

“Thig a seo, a chuisle!” he called, seeing Jemmy, who had lost interest in spoon and cup, making off on hands and knees toward the coffeepot, which had been left to keep hot between the stones of the fire-ring. Jemmy ignored the summons, but was snatched away from danger by Tom Findlay, who snagged him neatly round the waist and delivered him, kicking, to Jamie.

“Sit,” Jamie said firmly to him, and without waiting for a response, parked the child on the ground and handed him his ball of rags. Jemmy clutched this, looking craftily from his grandfather to the fire.

“Throw that in the fire, a chuisle, and I’ll smack your bum,” Jamie informed him pleasantly. Jemmy’s brow contorted and his lower lip protruded, quivering dramatically. He didn’t throw the ball into the fire, though.

“A chuisle?” I said, trying out the pronunciation. “That’s a new one. What’s it mean?”

“Oh.” Jamie rubbed a finger across the bridge of his nose, considering. “It means ‘my blood.’”

“I thought that was mo fuil.”

“Aye, it is, but that’s blood like what comes out when ye wound yourself. A chuisle is more like . . . ‘O, thou in whose veins runs my very blood.’ Ye only say it to a wee bairn, mostly—one ye’re related to, of course.”

“That’s lovely.” I set my empty wine-cup on the ground and leaned against Jamie’s shoulder. I still felt tired, but the magic of the wine had smoothed the rough edges of exhaustion, leaving me pleasantly muzzy.

“Would you call Germain that, do you think, or Joan? Or is it meant very literally, a chuisle?”

“I should be more inclined to call Germain un petit emmerdeur,” he said, with a faint snort of amusement. “But Joan—aye, I would call wee Joanie a chuisle. It’s blood of the heart, ken, not only the body.”

Jemmy had let his rag-ball fall to the ground and was staring in open-mouthed enchantment at the fireflies, which had begun to blink in the grass as darkness fell. With our stomachs full and cool rest at hand, everyone was beginning to feel the soothing effects of the gathering night.

The men were sprawled in the grassy dark under a sycamore tree, passing the wine bottle from hand to hand and exchanging talk in the easy, half-connected fashion of men who know each other well. The Findlay boys were on the wagon-track, that being the only really clear space, throwing something back and forth, missing half their catches as darkness fell, and exchanging genial shouted insults.

There was a loud rustling of bushes beyond the fire, and Brianna emerged, looking damp, but much more cheerful. She paused by Roger, a hand light on his back, and looked over his shoulder at what he was writing. He glanced up at her, then, with a shrug of resignation, withdrew the finished pages of his opus and handed them to her. She knelt down beside him and began to read, brushing back wet strands of hair and frowning to make out the letters by firelight.

A firefly landed on Jamie’s shirt, glowing cool green in the shadowed folds of cloth. I moved a finger toward it, and it flew away, spiraling above the fire like a runaway spark.

“It was a good idea, making Roger write,” I said, looking across the fire with approval. “I can’t wait to find out what actually happened to him.”

“Nor I,” Jamie agreed. “Though wi’ William Buccleigh vanished, what’s happened to Roger Mac is maybe no so important as what will happen to him.”

I didn’t have to ask what he meant by that. More than anyone, he knew what it meant, to have a life kicked out from under one—and what strength was required to rebuild it. I reached for his right hand, and he let me take it. Under cover of darkness, I stroked his crippled fingers, tracing the thickened ridges of the scars.

“So it doesn’t matter to you, to find out whether your cousin is a cold-blooded murderer or not?” I asked lightly, to cover the more serious conversation going on silently between our hands.

He made a small, gruff sound that might have been a laugh. His fingers curled over mine, smooth with callus, pressing in acknowledgment.

“He’s a MacKenzie, Sassenach. A MacKenzie of Leoch.”

“Hm.” The Frasers were stubborn as rocks, I’d been told. And Jamie himself had described the MacKenzies of Leoch—charming as larks in the field—and sly as foxes, with it. That had certainly been true of his uncles, Colum and Dougal. I hadn’t heard anything to indicate that his mother, Ellen, had shared that particular family characteristic—but then, Jamie had been only eight when she died. His aunt Jocasta? No one’s fool, certainly, but with a good deal less scope for plotting and scheming than her brothers had had, I thought.

“You what?” Brianna’s exclamation drew my attention back to the other side of the fire. She was looking at Roger, the pages in her hand, an expression of mingled amusement and dismay on her face. I couldn’t see Roger’s face; he was turned toward her. One hand rose in a shushing gesture, though, and he turned his head toward the tree where the men sat drinking, to be sure no one had heard her exclamation.

I caught a glimpse of firelight shining on the bones of his face, and then his expression changed in an instant, from wariness to horror. He lunged to his feet, mouth open.

“STOKH!” he roared.

It was a terrible cry, loud and harsh, but with a ghastly strangled quality to it, like a shout forced out around a fist shoved down his throat. It froze everyone in earshot—including Jemmy, who had abandoned the fireflies and stealthily returned to an investigation of the coffeepot. He stared up at his father, his hand six inches from the hot metal. Then his face crumpled, and he began to wail in fright.

Roger reached across the fire and snatched him up; the little boy screamed, kicking and squirming to get away from this terrifying stranger. Bree hastily took him, clutching him to her bosom and burying his face in her shoulder. Her own face had gone pale with shock.

Roger looked shocked, too. He put a hand to his throat, gingerly, as though unsure he was really touching his own flesh. The ridge of the rope-scar was still dark under his jaw; I could see it, even in the flicker of the firelight, along with the smaller, neater line of my own incision.

The initial shock of his shout had worn off, and the men came scrambling out from under the tree, the Findlays rushing in from the road, to gather round Roger, exclaiming in astonishment and congratulation. Roger nodded, submitting to having his hand shaken and his back pounded, all the while looking as though he would strongly prefer to be elsewhere.

“Say somethin’ else,” Hugh Findlay coaxed him.

“Yes, sir, you can do it,” Iain joined in, round face beaming. “Say . . . say ‘She sells sea shells, by the sea-shore’!”

This suggestion was howled down, to be replaced by a rain of other excited proposals. Roger was beginning to look rather desperate, his jaw set tight. Jamie and I had got to our feet; I could feel Jamie setting himself to intervene in some way.

Then Brianna pushed her way through the excited throng, with Jemmy perched on one hip, regarding the proceedings with intense distrust. She took Roger’s hand with her free one, and smiled at him, the smile trembling only a little round the edges.

“Can you say my name?” she asked.

Roger’s smile matched hers. I could hear the air rasp in his throat as he took a breath.

This time he spoke softly; very softly, but everyone held silence, leaning forward to listen. It was a ragged whisper, thick and painful, the first syllable punched hard to force it through his scarred vocal cords, the last of it barely audible. But,

“BRREEah . . . nah,” he said, and she burst into tears.

BLOOD MONEY

Fraser’s Ridge June, 1771

I SAT IN THE VISITOR’S CHAIR in Jamie’s study, companionably grating bloodroots while he wrestled with the quarterly accounts. Both were slow and tedious businesses, but we could share the light of a single candle and enjoy each other’s company—and I found enjoyable distraction in listening to the highly inventive remarks he addressed to the paper under his quill.

“Egg-sucking son of a porcupine!” he muttered. “Look at this, Sassenach—the man’s nay more than a common thief! Two shillings, threepence for two loaves of sugar and a brick of indigo!”

I clicked my tongue sympathetically, forbearing to note that two shillings seemed a modest enough price for substances produced in the West Indies, transported by ship to Charleston, and thence carried by wagon, pirogue, horseback, and foot another several hundred miles overland, to be finally brought to our door by an itinerant peddler who did not expect payment for the three or four months until his next visit—and who would in any case likely not get cash, but rather six pots of gooseberry jam or a haunch of smoked venison.

“Look at that!” Jamie said rhetorically, scratching his way down a column of figures and arriving with a vicious stab at the bottom. “A cask of brandywine at twelve shillings, two bolts of muslin at three and ten each, ironmongery—what in the name of buggery is wee Roger wanting wi’ an ironmonger, has he thought of a way to play tunes on a hoe?—ironmongery, ten and six!”

“I believe that was a ploughshare,” I said pacifically. “It’s not ours; Roger brought it for Geordie Chisholm.” Ploughshares were in fact rather expensive. Having to be imported from England, they were rare amongst colonial small farmers, many of whom made do with nothing more than wooden dibbles and spades, with an ax and perhaps an iron hoe for ground-clearing.

Jamie squinted balefully at his figures, rumpling a hand through his hair.

“Aye,” he said. “Only Geordie hasna got a spare penny to bless himself with, not until next year’s crops are sold. So it’s me that’s paying the ten and six now, isn’t it?” Without waiting for an answer, he plunged back into his calculations, muttering “Turd-eating son of a flying tortoise” under his breath, with no indication whether this applied to Roger, Geordie, or the ploughshare.

I finished grating a root and dropped the stub into a jar on the desk. Bloodroot is aptly named; the scientific name is Sanguinaria, and the juice is red, acrid, and sticky. The bowl in my lap was full of oozy, moist shavings, and my hands looked as though I had been disemboweling small animals.

“I have six dozen bottles of cherry cordial made,” I offered, picking up another root. As though he didn’t know that; the whole house had smelled like cough syrup for a week. “Fergus can take those over to Salem and sell them.”

Jamie nodded absently.

“Aye, I’m counting on that to buy seedcorn. Have we anything else that can go to Salem? Candles? Honey?”

I gave him a sharp glance, but encountered only the whorled cowlicks on top of his head, bent studiously over his figures. The candles and honey were a sensitive subject.

“I think I can spare ten gallons of honey,” I said guardedly. “Perhaps ten—well, all right, twelve dozen candles.”

He scratched the tip of his nose with the end of the quill, leaving a blot of ink.

“I thought ye’d had a good year wi’ the hives,” he said mildly.

I had; my original single hive had expanded, and I now had nine bee-gums bordering my garden. I had taken nearly fifty gallons of honey from them, and enough beeswax for a good thirty dozen candles. On the other hand, I had uses in mind for those things.

“I need some of the honey for the surgery,” I said. “It makes a good antibacterial dressing over wounds.”

One eyebrow went up, though he kept his eyes on the hen-scratches he was making.

“I should think it would draw flies,” he said, “if not bears.” He flicked the end of his quill, dismissing the thought. “How much d’ye need then? I shouldna think you’ve so many wounded coming through your surgery as to require forty gallons of honey—unless you’re plastering them with it, head to toe.”

I laughed, despite my wariness.

“No, two or three gallons should be enough for dressings—say five, allowing extra to make up electrolytic fluids.”

He glanced up at me, both brows raised.

“Electric?” He looked at the candle, its flame wavering in the draft from the window, then back at me. “Did Brianna not say that was something to do wi’ lights? Or lightning, at least?”

“No, electrolyte,” I amplified. “Sugar-water. You know, when a person is feeling shocked, or is too ill to eat, or has the flux—an electrolytic fluid is one that supports the body by putting back the essential ions they’ve lost from bleeding or diarrhea—the bits of salt and sugar and other things—which in turn draws water into the blood and restores blood pressure. You’ve seen me use it before.”

“Oh, is that how it works?” His face lighted with interest, and he seemed about to ask for an explanation. Then he caught sight of the stack of receipts and correspondence still waiting on his desk, sighed, and picked up his quill again.

“Verra well, then,” he conceded. “Keep the honey. Can I sell the soap?”

I nodded, pleased. I had, with a good deal of cautious experimentation, succeeded at last in producing a soap that did not smell like a dead pig soaked in lye, and that did not remove the upper layer of the epidermis. It required sunflower oil or olive oil in lieu of suet, though; both very expensive.

I had it in mind to trade my spare honey to the Cherokee ladies for sunflower oil with which to make both more soap and shampoo. Those, in turn, would fetch excellent prices almost anywhere—Cross Creek, Wilmington, New Bern—even Charleston, should we ever venture that far. Or so I thought. I was unsure whether Jamie would agree to gamble on that enterprise, though; it would take months to come to fruition, while he could dispose of the honey at an immediate profit. If he saw for sure that the soap would bring much more than the raw honey, though, there would be no difficulty in getting my way.

Before I could expound on the prospects, we heard the sound of light footsteps in the hall, and a soft rap at the door.

“Come,” Jamie called, pulling himself up straight. Mr. Wemyss poked his head into the room, but hesitated, looking mildly alarmed at the sight of the sanguinary splotches on my hands. Jamie beckoned him companionably in with a flick of his quill.

“Aye, Joseph?”

“If I might speak a word in your ear, sir?” Mr. Wemyss was dressed casually, in shirt and breeks, but had slicked down his fine, pale hair with water, indicating some formality about the situation.

I pushed back my chair, reaching to gather up my leavings, but Mr. Wemyss stopped me with a brief gesture.

“Oh, no, Ma’am. If ye wouldna mind, I should like ye to stay. It’s about Lizzie, and I should value a woman’s opinion on the matter.”

“Of course.” I sat back, brows raised in curiosity.

“Lizzie? Have ye found our wee lass a husband, then, Joseph?” Jamie dropped his quill into the jar on his desk and sat forward, interested, gesturing toward an empty stool.

Mr. Wemyss nodded, the candlelight throwing the bones of his thin face into prominence. He took the proffered seat with a certain air of dignity, quite at odds with his usual attitude of mild discombobulation.

“I am thinking so, Mr. Fraser. Robin McGillivray came to call upon me this morning, to speir for my Elizabeth, to be pledged to his lad, Manfred.”

My eyebrows went a little higher. To the best of my knowledge, Manfred McGillivray had seen Lizzie less than half a dozen times, and had not spoken more than the briefest of courtesies to her. It wasn’t impossible that he should have been attracted; Lizzie had grown into a delicately pretty girl, and if still very shy, was possessed of nice manners. It scarcely seemed the basis for a proposal of marriage, though.

As Mr. Wemyss laid out the matter, it became a little clearer. Jamie had promised Lizzie a dowry, consisting of a section of prime land, and Mr. Wemyss, freed from his indenture, had a freeman’s homestead claim of fifty acres as well—to which Lizzie was heir. The Wemyss land adjoined the McGillivrays’ section, and the two together would make a very respectable farm. Evidently, with her three girls now married or suitably engaged, Manfred’s marriage was the next step in Ute McGillivray’s master plan. Reviewing all of the available girls within a twenty-mile radius of the Ridge, she had settled upon Lizzie as the best prospect, and sent Robin round to open negotiations.

“Well, the McGillivrays are a decent family,” Jamie said judiciously. He dipped a finger into my bowl of bloodroot shavings and dotted it thoughtfully on his blotter, leaving a chain of red fingerprints. “They’ve not much land, but Robin does well enough for himself, and wee Manfred’s a hard worker, from all I hear.” Robin was a gunsmith, with a small shop in Cross Creek. Manfred had been apprenticed to another gun-maker in Hillsborough, but was now a journeyman himself.

“Would he take her to live in Hillsborough?” I asked. That might weigh heavily with Joseph Wemyss. While he would do anything to insure his daughter’s future, he loved Lizzie dearly, and I knew that the loss of her would strike him to the heart.

He shook his head. His hair had dried, and was beginning to rise in its usual fair wisps.

“Robin says not. He says the lad plans to ply his trade in Woolam’s Creek—providing he can manage a wee shop. They’d live at the farm.” He darted a sideways glance at Jamie, then looked away, blood rising under his fair skin.

Jamie bent his head, and I saw the corner of his mouth tuck in. So this was where he entered the negotiation, then. Woolam’s Creek was a small but growing settlement at the base of Fraser’s Ridge. While the Woolams, a local Quaker family, owned the mill there, and the land on the far side of the creek, Jamie owned all of the land on the Ridge side.

He had so far provided land, tools, and supplies to Ronnie Sinclair, Theo Frye, and Bob O’Neill, for the building of a cooper’s shop, a smithy—still under construction—and a small general store, all on terms that provided us with an eventual share of any profit, but no immediate income.

If Jamie and I had plans for the future, so did Ute McGillivray. She knew, of course, that Lizzie and her father held a place of special esteem with Jamie, and that he would in all likelihood be moved to do what he could for her. And that—of course—was what Joseph Wemyss was very delicately asking now; might Jamie provide premises for Manfred at Woolam’s Creek as part of the agreement?

Jamie glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. I lifted one shoulder in the faintest of shrugs, wondering whether Lizzie’s physical delicacy had entered into Ute McGillivray’s calculations. There were a good many girls sturdier than Lizzie, and better prospects for motherhood. Still, if Lizzie should die in childbirth, then the McGillivrays would be the richer both for her dower-land, and the Woolam’s Creek property—and new wives were not so difficult to come by.

“I expect something might be done,” Jamie said cautiously. I saw his gaze drift to the open ledger, with its depressing columns of figures, then speculatively to me. Land was not a problem; with no cash and precious little credit, tools and materials would be. I firmed my lips and returned his stare; no, he was not getting his hands on my honey!

He sighed, and sat back, tapping his red-tinged fingers lightly on the blotter.

“I’ll manage,” he said. “What does the lass say, then? Will she have Manfred?”

Mr. Wemyss looked faintly dubious.

“She says she will. He’s a nice enough lad, though his mother . . . a fine woman,” he added hurriedly, “verra fine. If just a trifle . . . erhm. But . . .” he turned to me, narrow forehead furrowed. “I am not sure Elizabeth knows her mind, ma’am, to say truly. She kens ’twould be a good match, and that it would keep her near me . . .” His expression softened at the thought, then firmed again. “But I wouldna have her make the match only because she thinks I favor it.” He glanced shyly at Jamie, then at me.