“What about Brianna?” I demanded. “Would you feel the same way about it, if young Roger suddenly decided to take his belt or a switch to your daughter?”

He appeared to find something amusing in the notion.

“I think he’d have the devil of a fight on his hands if he tried,” he said. “That’s a braw wee lassie, no? And she has your notions of what constitutes wifely obedience, I’m afraid. But then,” he added, swinging the hive’s rope across his shoulder, “ye never ken what goes on in a marriage, do ye? Perhaps she’d be pleased if he tried.”

“Pleased?!” I gawked at him in astonishment. “How can you think that any woman would ever—”

“Oh, aye? What about my sister?”

I stopped dead in the middle of the path, staring at him.

“What about your sister? Surely you aren’t telling me—”

“I am.” The glint was back, but I didn’t think he was joking.

“Ian beat her?”

“I do wish ye’d stop calling it that,” he said mildly. “It sounds as though Ian took his fists to her, or blackened her eyes. I gave ye a decent skelping, but I didna bloody ye, for God’s sake.” His eyes flicked briefly toward my face; everything had healed, at least outwardly; the only trace left was a tiny scar through one eyebrow—invisible, unless one parted the hairs there and looked closely. “Neither would Ian.”

I was completely flabbergasted to hear this. I had lived in close proximity with Ian and Jenny Murray for months at a time, and had never seen the slightest indication that he possessed a violent nature. For that matter, it was impossible to imagine anyone trying such a thing on Jenny Murray, who had—if such a thing was possible—an even stronger personality than her brother.

“Well, what did he do? And why?”

“Well, he’d only take his belt to her now and then,” he said, “and only if she made him.”

I took a deep breath.

“If she made him?” I asked calmly, under the circumstances.

“Well, ye ken Ian,” he said, shrugging. “He’s no the one to be doing that sort of thing unless Jenny deviled him into it.”

“I never saw anything of that sort going on,” I said, giving him a hard look.

“Well, she’d scarcely do it in front of ye, would she?”

“And she would, in front of you?”

“Well, not precisely, no,” he admitted. “But I wasna often in the house, after Culloden. Now and then, though, I’d come down for a visit, and I’d see that she was … brewing for something.” He rubbed his nose and squinted against the sun, searching for words. “She’d devil him,” he said at last, shrugging. “Pick at him over nothing, make wee sarcastic remarks. She’d—” His face cleared a bit, as he came up with a suitable description. “She’d act like a spoilt wee lassie in need of the tawse.”

I found this description completely incredible. Jenny Murray had a sharp tongue, and few inhibitions about using it on anyone, her husband included. Ian, the soul of good nature, merely laughed at her. But I simply couldn’t countenance the notion of her behaving in the manner described.

“Well, so. I’d seen that a time or two, as I say. And Ian would give her an eye, but held his peace. But then the once, I was out hunting, near sunset, and took a small deer on the hill just behind the broch—ye ken the place?”

I nodded, still feeling stunned.

“It was close enough to carry the carcass to the house without help, so I brought it down to the smoke shed and hung it. There was no one about—I found out later the children had all gone to the market in Broch Mhorda, and the servants with them. So I thought the house was empty altogether, and stepped into the kitchen to find a bite and a cup of buttermilk before I left.”

Thinking the house empty, he had been startled by noises in the bedchamber overhead.

“What sort of noises?” I asked, fascinated.

“Well … shrieks,” he said, shrugging. “And giggling. A bit of shoving and banging, with a stool or some such falling over. If it weren’t for the yaffling, I should have thought there were thieves in the house. But I kent it was Jenny’s voice, and Ian’s, and—” He broke off, his ears going pink at the memory.

“So then … there was a bit more—raised voices, like—and then the crack of a belt on a bum, and the sort of skelloch ye could hear across six fields.”

He took a deep breath, shrugging.

“Well, I was taken back a bit, and couldna think what to do at once.”

I nodded, understanding that, at least.

“I expect it would be a bit of an awkward situation, yes. It … er … went on, though?”

He nodded. His ears were a deep red by now, and his face flushed, though that might only be from heat.

“Aye, it did.” He glanced at me. “Mind, Sassenach, if I’d thought he meant harm to her, I should have been up the stairs in an instant. But …” He brushed away an inquisitive bee, shaking his head. “There was—it felt—I canna even think how to say it. It wasna really that Jenny kept laughing, because she didna—but that I felt she wanted to. And Ian … well, Ian was laughing. Not out loud, I dinna mean; it was just … in his voice.”

He blew out his breath, and swiped his knuckles along his jaw, wiping sweat.

“I stayed quite frozen there, wi’ a bit of pie in my hand, listening. I came to myself only when the flies started lighting in my open mouth, and by that time, they’d … ah … they were … mmphm.” He hunched his shoulders, as though his shirt were too tight.

“Making it up, were they?” I asked very dryly.

“I expect so,” he replied, rather primly. “I left. Walked all the way to Foyne, and stayed the night with Grannie MacNab.” Foyne was a tiny hamlet, some fifteen miles from Lallybroch.

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, I had to,” he said logically. “I couldna ignore it, after all. It was either walk about and think of things, or else give in and abuse myself, and I couldna verra well do that—it was my own sister, after all.”

“You mean to say you can’t think and engage in sexual activity at the same time?” I asked, laughing.

“Of course not,” he said—thus confirming a long-held private opinion of mine—and gave me a look as though I were crazy. “Can you?”

“I can, yes.”

He raised one eyebrow, plainly unconvinced.

“Well, I’m not saying I do, always,” I admitted, “but it’s possible. Women are used to doing more than one thing at once—they have to, because of the children. Anyway, go back to Jenny and Ian. Why on earth—”

“Well, I did walk about and think of it,” Jamie admitted. “I couldna seem to stop thinking of it, to be honest. Grannie MacNab could see I’d something on my mind, and pestered me over the supper until … ah … well, until I told her about it.”

“Really. What did she say?” I asked, fascinated. I’d known Grannie MacNab, a sprightly old person with a highly forthright manner—and a lot of experience with human weakness.

“She cackled like thorns under a pot,” he said, one side of his mouth turning up. “I thought she’d fall into the fire wi’ merriment.”

Recovered to some extent, though, the old lady had wiped her eyes and explained matters to him, kindly, as though addressing a simpleton.

“She said it was because of Ian’s leg,” Jamie said, glancing at me to see whether this made sense to me. “She said that such a thing would make no difference to Jenny, but it would to him. She said,” he added, his color heightening, “that men havena got any idea what women think about bed, but they always think they have, so it causes trouble.”

“I knew I liked Grannie MacNab,” I murmured. “What else?”

“Well, so. She said it was likely that Jenny was only makin’ it clear to Ian—and maybe to herself, as well—that she still thought he was a man, leg or no.”

“What? Why?”

“Because, Sassenach,” he said, very dryly indeed, “when ye’re a man, a good bit of what ye have to do is to draw up lines and fight other folk who come over them. Your enemies, your tenants, your children—your wife. Ye canna always just strike them or take a strap to them, but when ye can, at least it’s clear to everyone who’s in charge.”