“Ian, you mustn’t worry yourself.” I put a consoling hand—dirt-stained as it was—on his arm. “It will … work itself out, somehow. Such things always do.” They did—generally with the maximum of uproar and catastrophe. And if Malva’s child should by some horrid cosmic joke be born with red hair … I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling a wave of dizziness.

“Aye, I suppose they will,” Ian said, sounding uncertain in the extreme. “It’s only—what they’re sayin’, about Uncle Jamie. Even his own Ardsmuir men, folk that should know better! That he must have—well, I’ll no repeat any of it, Auntie—but … I canna bear to hear it!”

His long, homely face was twisted with unhappiness, and it suddenly occurred to me that he might be having his own doubts about the matter.

“Ian,” I said, with as much firmness as I could muster, “Malva’s child could not possibly be Jamie’s. You do believe that, don’t you?”

He nodded, very slowly, but wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“I do,” he said softly, and then swallowed hard. “But, Auntie … it could be mine.”

A bee had lighted on my arm. I stared at it, seeing the veins in its glassy wings, the dust of yellow pollen that clung to the minuscule hairs of its legs and abdomen, the gentle pulsing of its body as it breathed.

“Oh, Ian,” I said as softly as he’d spoken himself. “Oh, Ian.”

He was strung tight as a marionette, but when I spoke, a little of the tension left the arm under my hand, and I saw that he had closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Auntie,” he whispered.

Wordless, I patted his arm. The bee flew off, and I wished passionately that I could exchange places with it. It would be so wonderful, simply to be about the business of gathering, single-minded in the sun.

Another bee lighted on Ian’s collar, and he brushed it absently away.

“Well, so,” he said, taking a deep breath and turning his head to look at me. “What must I do, Auntie?”

His eyes were dark with misery and worry—and something very like fear, I thought.

“Do?” I said, sounding as blank as I felt. “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, Ian.”

I hadn’t meant to make him smile, and he didn’t, but he did seem to relax very slightly.

“Aye, I’ve done it already,” he said, very rueful. “But—it’s done, Auntie. How can I mend it?”

I rubbed my brow, trying to think. Rollo had brought back his ball, but seeing that Ian was in no mood to play, dropped it by his feet and leaned against his leg, panting.

“Malva,” I said finally. “Did she tell you? Before, I mean.”

“Ye think I scorned her, and that’s what made her accuse Uncle Jamie?” He gave me a wry look, absently scratching Rollo’s ruff. “Well, I wouldna blame ye if ye did, Auntie, but no. She said not a word to me about the matter. If she had, I should ha’ marrit her at once.”

The hurdle of confession overcome, he was talking more easily now.

“You didn’t think of marrying her first?” I said, with perhaps a slight tinge of acerbity.

“Ah … no,” he said, very sheepish. “It wasna precisely a matter of—well, I wasna thinking at all, Auntie. I was drunk. The first time, anyway,” he added as an afterthought.

“The first—? How many— No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know the gory details.” I shut him up with a brusque gesture, and sat up straight, struck by a thought. “Bobby Higgins. Was that—”

He nodded, lowering his lashes so I couldn’t see his eyes. The blood had come up under his tan.

“Aye. That was why—I mean, I didna really wish to marry her, to begin with, but still, I would have asked, after we … but I put it off a bit, and—” He scrubbed a hand across his face, helpless. “Well, I didna want her to wife, but I couldna keep from wanting her, nonetheless, and I ken well enough how awful it must seem—but I’ve got to tell the truth, Auntie, and that’s it.” He took a gulp of air, and continued.

“I’d—wait for her. In the woods, when she came to gather. She’d not speak when she saw me, only smile, and raise her skirts a bit, then turn quick and run and … God, I should be after her like a dog after a bitch in heat,” he said bitterly. “But then one day I came late, and she wasna there where we usually met. But I heard her laughing, far off, and when I went to see …”

He twisted his hands hard enough to dislocate a finger, grimacing, and Rollo whined softly.

“Let us just say that yon bairn might well be Bobby Higgins’s, too,” he said, biting off the words.

I felt suddenly exhausted, as I had when recovering from my illness, as though it was too much effort even to breathe. I leaned back against the palisades, feeling the cool papery rustle of grape leaves against my neck, fanning softly over my heated cheeks.

Ian bent forward, head in his hands, the dappled green shadows playing over him.

“What shall I do?” he asked at last, voice muffled. He sounded as tired as I felt. “I dinna mind saying that I—that the child might be mine. But would it help, d’ye think?”

“No,” I said bleakly. “It wouldn’t.” Public opinion would not be changed in the slightest; everyone would simply assume that Ian was lying for his uncle’s sake. Even if he were to marry the girl, it wouldn’t—

A thought struck me and I pulled myself upright again.

“You said you didn’t want to marry her, even before you knew about Bobby. Why?” I asked curiously.

He lifted his head from his hands with a helpless gesture.

“I dinna ken how to say it. She was—well, she was bonnie enough, aye, and a proper spirit to her, as well. But she … I dinna ken, Auntie. It was only that I always had the feeling, lying wi’ her—that I dare not fall asleep.”

I stared at him.

“Well, that would be off-putting, I imagine.”

He had dismissed that, though, and was frowning, digging the heel of his moccasin into the soil.

“There’s no means of telling which of two men has fathered a bairn, is there?” he asked abruptly. “Only—if it’s mine, I should want it. I would wed her for the child’s sake, no matter what else. If it’s mine.”

Bree had told me the bare bones of his history; I knew about his Mohawk wife, Emily, and the death of his daughter, and I felt the small presence of my own first child, Faith, stillborn but always with me.

“Oh, Ian,” I said softly, and touched his hair. “You might be able to tell, by the way the child looked—but probably not, or not right away.”

He nodded, and sighed. After a moment, he said, “If I say it’s mine, and I wed her—folk might still talk, but after a time …” His voice died away. True, talk might eventually die down. But there would still be those who thought Jamie responsible, others who would call Malva a whore, a liar, or both—which she bloody well was, I reminded myself, but not a nice thing to hear about one’s wife. And what might Ian’s life be like, married under such circumstances, to a woman he could not trust and—I thought—did not especially like?

“Well,” I said, rising to my feet and stretching, “don’t do anything drastic just yet awhile. Let me talk with Jamie; you don’t mind if I tell him?”

“I wish ye would, Auntie. I dinna think I could face him, myself.” He still sat on the bench, bony shoulders slumped. Rollo lay on the ground at his feet, the big wolf head resting on Ian’s moccasined foot. Moved with pity, I put my arms round Ian, and he leaned his head against me, simply, like a child.

“It isn’t the end of the world,” I said.

The sun was touching the edge of the mountain, and the sky burned red and gold, the light of it falling in blazing bars through the palisades.

“No,” he said, but there was no conviction in his voice.

83



DECLARATIONS

Charlotte, Mecklenberg County

May 20, 1775

THE ONE THING ROGER HAD NOT envisioned about the making of history was the sheer amount of alcohol involved. He should have, he thought; if there was anything a career in academia had taught him, it was that almost all worthwhile business was conducted in the pub.