#011120

200111 sangam fansign

There was an ornamental seat under the trees near the dock, and it was to this that Jamie led me, into the shadows. He sank onto the marble bench with a deep sigh, reminding me that I wasn’t the only one for whom it had been an eventful evening.

I looked around with exaggerated attention, then sat down beside him.

“We’re alone and unobserved,” I said. “Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on now?”

“Oh, aye.” He straightened, stretching his back. “I should have said something to ye sooner, only I didna quite expect she would do such a thing.” He reached out and found my hand in the dark.

“It’s not anything wrong, exactly, as I told ye. It’s only that when Ulysses brought me the plaid and dirk and the brooch, he told me that Jocasta meant to make an announcement at the dinner tonight—to tell everyone that she meant to make me heir to … this.”

His gesture took in the house and fields behind us—and everything else: the river mooring, the orchard, the gardens, the stables, the endless acres of resinous pines, the sawmill and the turpentine camp—and the forty slaves who worked them.

I could see the whole thing unfolding as Jocasta had no doubt envisioned it; Jamie sitting at the head of the table, dressed in Hector Cameron’s tartan, wearing his blade and his brooch—that brooch with the Camerons’ unsubtle clan adjuration “Unite!”—surrounded by Hector’s old colleagues and comrades, all eager to welcome their friend’s younger kinsman into his place.

Let her make such an announcement, in that company of loyal Scots, well lubricated with the late Hector’s fine whisky, and they would have acclaimed him on the spot as the master of River Run, anointed him with boar’s fat and crowned him with beeswax candles.dramatic —and taking no account of the wishes of the persons involved.

“And if she had,” he said, echoing my thoughts with uncanny precision, “I should have found it verra awkward to decline the honor.”

“Yes, very.”

He sprang suddenly to his feet, too restless to stay still. Without speaking, he held out a hand to me; I rose beside him and we turned back into the orchard path, circling the formal gardens. The lanterns lit for the party had been removed, their candles thriftily snuffed for later use.

— Drums Of Autumn

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Drums Of Autumn, Chapter 13, Diana Gabaldon, 1996