#raise bee travel do everything they wanted to do everything fitz talked about

[fitzbelovedhangover]

The Fool: And we will live happily ever after?

Fitz: That is my intention.

Hobb:

Me:

[betweensceneswriter]

Second Wife-Chapter 19 : Breakfast and Bairns

Second Wife Table of Contents

Second Wife on AO3

Previously -  Chapter 18 : Not Gone The Sassenach was dead, but not gone.

"It's a nuisance," she said, looking up to see me still watching. "Everything to do wi' bairns is a nuisance, almost. Still, ye'd never choose not to have them."

"No," I answered softly. "You wouldn't choose that" (Outlander 675).

The time periods on my version are closer to the book than the TV show—on the show, Jamie leaves, exiled with Dougal, and Claire is called to Geillis’s shop the same day. In the book, it’s closer to two weeks after Jamie leaves that Claire is arrested.

     By now, Jamie wasn’t surprised at any post-coital personality fluctuations from Laoghaire.  She woke up and had nothing to say to him, wouldn’t even look at him as she dressed.  He stretched lazily, rolled over, and ignored her.  He needed to live his life independently of Laoghaire’s moods.  If his attitude for the day was determined by her, he’d be miserable all the time.  And he intended to enjoy the relaxed way he felt after last night’s sexual relations; if he was going to be married, he should at least feel this way occasionally.

      Jamie closed his eyes.  Last night after sleeping with Laoghaire he had dreamed of Claire and Frank.  Having never seen the man himself, the Frank of his imagination was a strange mix of Jack Randall and his brother Alex.  With hair cropped short, as Claire described it, he imagined a lanky, loose man, rather than Black Jack Randall’s rigidity, with a face he hated to the depths of his being.  The man who wore that face had torn him from his family and vindictively marked his body forever.  Jamie couldn’t see his back, and his chest hid the scar from removing Randall’s brand on his ribcage, but there was no forgetting feeling so used and broken and violated.  Randall had stolen his manhood for a time, but Claire had stayed with him as he worked to get himself back.

     In his dream, Claire’s belly was ripe with their child.  But instead of her mounting him in the moonlit darkness in Paris, pregnant with Faith, she was climbing atop Frank Randall, pregnant with Jamie’s son.  Or was it Black Jack he saw?  “Find me, Jamie,” she had said.  And God, he could have reached out and killed her.  His baby, her body—and she was giving herself to Frank?

     Ah, he thought, with a sudden flush, covering his face with his hand.  That’s why Laoghaire was angry.  It hadn’t been but an hour or two after they had fallen asleep that he’d dreamed of Claire, and he’d woken up with an erection.  He cringed as he remembered pulling Laoghaire atop him, her legs astride his pelvis.  She was sleepy enough that she didn’t initially object, and her body felt so much like Claire pregnant, voluptuous breasts and curved belly.  His hands and mouth were hungry for her.  But as her mind cleared and she woke, she became angry, pulled herself off him, and turned her back to him.  He’d apologized, of course he had.  But how could he explain himself?  “I’m sorry, lass, I was dreaming of my first wife traveling forward in time and having sex with her first husband while pregnant wi’ my bairn; and jealous, I took advantage of you?”  There was no excuse.

     Jamie was grateful for the distraction of packing and family, going downstairs for breakfast once he had dressed himself.  He was greeted with fervent cries of “Nunka Jamie!!” from four enthusiastic little boys when he entered the dining room, a smile from Joanie and from Ian, and silence from Laoghaire.

      “Paul and I thought we’d visited aplenty yesterday and we could get much done today at home,” Maggie said apologetically.  “But the boys insisted that they wanted to see ‘Nunka Jamie’ again before ye left.”

      “And how could one say no to such faces?” Jenny grinned, placing more scones close to Maggie’s two urchins, mouths stained red with berry juice.

      “Nunka Jamie,” toothless Angus announced loudly.  “Mama has a bairn growing in her tummy.”

      “Wawr!” roared two-year-old Anthony, raising his hands and turning them into claws.

      “Not a BEAR, silly,” said Angus, turning to his little brother.  “A bairN.  A baby.”

      “Bee-bee,” repeated Anthony, his forehead wrinkled.

      “I dinna fink Anfony understands,” said Angus, shaking his head sadly.  Jamie patted the little one on the top of his curly-haired noggin.

      “Really, Cousin Maggie?  Number three?  Congratulations,” said Marsali, bringing in a plate piled high with ham slices.

      “Do you want a baby brother or a baby sister?” Jamie leaned forward to the boys’ level and asked them.

      “Baby…wabbit!”  Anthony announced solemnly. 

     Angus dissolved into giggles.  “Silly Anfony!  Mama can’t make a wabbit!”

     Jamie glanced at Laoghaire, wondering if the interchange was amusing her, but she looked absent, remote.  He looked away.

     Ian was choking on a bannock across the table.  “Maggie,” he said, “perhaps ye should be teaching yer sons a little more about bairns and where they come from.”

      “Anthony is two,” she insisted, shaking her head.  “Plenty of time for that later, ya ken?”

      “So much good news,” sighed Jenny, her hand on Ian’s shoulder, looking with pleasure around the faces at her table.  “Kitty to be married, and another bairn on the way.  And Marsali, a grown-up lass of fourteen!”  She smiled across at Jamie.  “We surely wish ye lived closer, or that ye could stay longer.”

     Jamie had just taken a bite of blueberry compote.  “Aye, but ‘tis planting season.  We canna stay away for long.”

      “Well, maybe the girls can come visit their cousins for a time this summer,” Ian offered.  Wee Janet and Marsali grinned wide-eyed at each other. 

     The time for farewells finally came, and the Balriggan Frasers mounted their horses and headed toward home.

      Laoghaire stared at Jamie’s broad back on Gaoth.  She had woken up to his lust in the darkness.  In a way she felt gratified—she had stirred him enough that he wanted her again, so soon. But she was also angry, bitter, and confused.

     Years ago, he had looked at her, hungry and single-minded.  Once his hands had been drawn to her body like a moth to a candle; once his eager touch and desire drove her mad. After he rescued her in the hall, after the moments in the alcove, Laoghaire had envisioned her future—Jamie as her husband, living with her, sitting across from her at the table,  sharing her bed, taking her body, fathering her children.

     And that is what she had now, Laoghaire thought, tears beginning to well in her eyes.  Why was it failing?  Why wasn’t she happy?

     When Jamie proposed marriage after Hogmanay, Laoghaire had thought finally Jamie would be freely devoted.  All hers. 

     Claire was finally, truly gone.

☆☆☆☆☆

     Ever since Claire had confronted her in the kitchen, Laoghaire had burned with resentment and anger.

     As she replayed the situation in her mind, she became more and more convinced that what she had told Claire was true. Jamie belonged with her. Claire was a usurper, a cuckoo chick that had pushed her out of the nest.  Laoghaire wanted her gone.

     But after seeing Jamie and Claire together in the hall that night, Laoghaire tried to tell herself to stay away. It would only hurt and disturb her to see Jamie with the Sassenach.  She should concentrate on her work.

       “Oh, Laoghaire,” Mrs Fitz called out to her as Laoghaire was about to head home after a hard day’s labor.  Though she stayed with Mrs. Fitz many nights, her da depended on her help with the younger children, and several nights a week he expected her to come home.  Those were the nights he stayed out late at the tavern, drinking.  Laoghaire’s ma had died three years ago, but he still grieved her, and getting soused was the one way he could forget.

     Mrs. Fitz drew close to speak to Laoghaire quietly.  “Remember to bring clean clouts with you from home.  I’m past that time so I dinna keep any now, and ye dinna want to be caught unprepared.”

      “Gran, what d’ye mean?”  Laoghaire asked, confused.

      ‘Isna it about yer time, m’dear?”  With no mother to look after her since she was 12 when her ma died in childbirth, Laoghaire’s grandmother had taken on the mothering role in her life.

     Again?  Laoghaire groaned inwardly.  The curse of Eve, her da called it.  Just another sign reminding the world that God despised women for their role in leading mankind astray, a monthly showing of blood that reminded all that death came to the world because of women.

      “Ye note my courses, Gran?” Laoghaire asked, dumbfounded.

      “Yer as regular as the moon, wee one,” said Mrs. Fitz.  “I imagine it will start anytime.”

     As she counted backward, Laoghaire was astounded that her gran was right.  Well, she would make sure to have a stack of clean clouts ready.

      Walking down the hallway to head out to the stable, Laoghaire was trying to decide what she should make for her family’s supper.  She wasn’t expecting it when John Robert suddenly appeared in front of her, so she startled and nearly fell, but he gently grabbed her elbow and steadied her, as smooth in his movements as he had been with his words.

     Laoghaire pushed past him.  “I dinna want to talk to ye, John Robert.”

     “What’s wrong, lass?” he asked, his eyes registering the chill in her body language.

     Laoghaire had one word for him.  “Married?” It was more a statement, a judgment than a question.

      “It’s no what ye think, lass,” John Robert said.  His hand was on the center of her back, right above her corset, stroking her gently, his fingers tracing the top edge of her shift.  “I love ye.  Can I please speak my case?  Meet me at the tavern, t’night after the moonrise.”

     He was so handsome, Laoghaire felt a pang in her stomach. She wished she could get it back—the way it felt to float down the street confident in her beauty, hopeful about her future, no longer bitter about the Sassenach stealing Jamie from her.  She should say no, but her heart and body said “Just this once.”

      And so it was, that after she fed her family, saw her father head off to the tavern to drink, and tucked her younger siblings into bed, Laoghaire found herself skulking in the shadows to the side of the tavern.

     When John Robert appeared, she hushed him and pulled him into the darkness by the building with her. 

      “My da is in there,” she said.  “I canna stay.  What ye have to say to me, ye need to say here.”

      “I need time to speak to ye, lass,” John Robert insisted.  “He willna find out.”

     She shouldn’t trust him, she knew she shouldn’t, but she pulled the hood of her cloak down over her face and followed him upstairs. When they were sitting in the parlor, John Robert touched her arm compassionately. “What have they been telling you?”

     “The truth,” she said.  “That ye have a wife, and bairns.”

      “Yer the one I truly love.”

      “It doesna matter.  How ye feel doesna change the facts,” she said. “Yer married.”

      “I am married.  And I’m miserable, lass.”  John Robert lamented, his hand on hers.  She tried to feel nothing, but he looked so woeful.  “My wife is pregnant, aye, but she doesna want me.  I’m starving for love and attention.  Being with you was the first comfort I’d had in months. Her family are weak constitutioned, and I’m afraid she’ll die in childbirth.  What will happen to me, if she is gone?  Will ye wait for me?”

      “How long?” Laoghaire asked.

      “Not long,” John said, his eyes and hands straying to the laces of her bodice, “But will you jest let me see ye, look at ye?  Will ye grant me something to give me strength while I wait?”

     She tried to resist, truly she did, but he said such nice things.

     He had been right, though.  She crept home in the darkness and was in her bed before her da came crashing in through the door, tripped across the doorstep in his boots, and soon was snoring drunkenly in his bed.

      When Laoghaire arrived at the castle the next day, the kitchen was buzzing with the newest gossip.  Dougal’s wife had been poisoned, and Geillis Duncan’s husband had died unexpectedly.  Or was it the other way around?  Whatever the facts of the matter, the result, Laoghaire was finally able to gather, was that Dougal had been sent home to mourn his wife, and Colum had angrily sent along Angus, Rupert, and Jamie. 

      “They say,” whispered Saffron, “That the reason Colum is so angry is that Geillis Duncan is with child.  And they say it’s not Arthur Duncan’s bairn.”

      “No,” agreed Fiona, glancing both directions to make sure none but Laoghaire heard, “They say it’s Dougal’s!”

      “And,” Saffron added, “Colum was so mad about Jamie dueling with the MacDonalds that he made him leave the Sassenach here at Castle Leoch.”

      This was new to Fiona, who turned to Saffron with an empathetic look on her face.  “Oh, what a shame,” she said.  “’Twill be hard for the young lovers to be apart.”

     Laoghaire tried to hide her pleasure, but she took some satisfaction in knowing that at least Claire and Jamie weren’t together.  Instead the Sassenach had to stay in the castle, where she continued to work in her surgery, binding up wounds and pounding and mixing potions for any of the castle inhabitants’ ailments or complaints.

       But as Laoghaire thought about ailments and complaints, she also thought of the clean stack of clouts she had brought back from home that now sat on a shelf in her cupboard in Mrs. Fitz’s room.  Several days went by, three, then four.  And still, her courses did not come. “Regular as the moon,” Mrs. Fitz had said.

     As the days went by, Laoghaire also began to see John Robert in a more realistic light.  She would come around the corner in the castle and find him leaning up against a wall, speaking flirtatiously to one of the ladies’ maids.  The next thing she knew, he would be putting his hands on one of the ladies of the castle as he helped her up on her freshly-shod horse.  It become clearer with time that John Robert MacLeod’s word could not be trusted.

     She truly didn’t want to believe it, but as the days went by, Laoghaire became more and more convinced.

      John Robert was a rake, and she was pregnant with his baby. 

On to Chapter 20 : The Waning O’ The Moon Desperate times call for desperate measures.