My niece’s son, really,” he confided. “Father shot down over the Channel, and mother killed in the Blitz, though, so I’ve taken him.
Colum’s response came in a cutting tone. “And while I’ve seldom found cause to thank the Lord, perhaps he’s done better by me than I’ve thought. I’ve heard it said often enough that a man’s brain stops workin’ when his cock’s standin’, and now I think maybe I believe it.
It may,” the deeper voice agreed. “It may rain straight up tomorrow instead of down, as well. That doesna mean I’ll stand waiting at the stairhead wi’ my wee bucket turned upside down.
Does he – is he one who knows what he is, do you think?” Claire’s hands stilled, the clanking pestle falling silent. “Oh, yes,” she said. “He knows.” “A laird? Is that what you’d call it?” Her mother hesitated, thinking. “No,” she said at last. She took up the pestle and began to grind again. The fragrance of dried marjoram filled the room like incense. “He’s a man,” she said, “and that’s no small thing to be.
BILIOUS HUMOURS.
Mm, you’re nice to croodle wi’,” he murmured, doing what I assumed was croodling.
You are a rather remarkable woman,” he said at last, in a level tone. “Indeed,” I said, not looking up. “In what way?” He leaned back; I heard the rustle of his bedding. “You are neither circumspect nor circuitous. In fact, I don’t believe I have ever met anyone more devastatingly straightforward – male or female.” “Well, it’s not by choice,” I said. I came to the end of the thread and tucked it neatly into the ball. “I was born that way.” “So was I,” he said, very softly.
All right. Where are we going?
Aye, I see. Aye well, I suppose if I shall be in Scotland, and still married to you – then maybe ‘when’ doesna matter so much.
Did the ancient Gaels not wear undergarments?” Frank leered. “You’ve never heard that old song about what a Scotsman wears beneath his kilts?
I reached for one, the heavy boar’s-tooth bracelets clinking together on my wrist. I saw Murtagh’s eyes on them and adjusted them so he could see the engraved silver end pieces. “Aren’t they lovely?” I said. “Jenny said they were her mother’s.” Murtagh’s eyes dropped to the bowl of parritch that Mrs. Crook had thrust unceremoniously under his nose. “They suit ye,” he mumbled.
Because to step outside the group, let alone to stand against it was for uncounted thousands of years death to the creature who dared it. To stand against a crowd would take something more than ordinary courage; something that went beyond human instinct. And I feared I did not have it, and fearing, was ashamed.
It’s only when the blood is bright red, and a terrible lot all at once, that ye worry.
To the taste of breasts like apricots, the warm scent of a woman’s navel when she wakens in the winter, the warmth of a mound that fills your hand like a peach, split with ripeness.
If thee thinks the spirit of God is necessarily logical, thee know Him better than I do.
He said the greatest thing in a man’s life is to lie wi’ a woman he loves,” he said softly. He smiled at me, eyes blue as the sky overhead. “He was right.
He had enough experience in the business of prayer to recognize an answer when it showed up, though, however unwelcome.
And then it came to me, as one of the redcoats, knocked flat by a fleeing Scot, rose and shook his fist theatrically after the horses. Of course. A film! I shook my head at my own slowness. They were shooting a costume drama of some sort, that was all. One of those Bonnie-Prince-in-the-heather sorts of things, no doubt. Well.
Pleasure?” Her voice rose behind me, incredulous. “Ye mean some women like it?
We had chosen the Highlands as a place to holiday before Frank took up his appointment as a history professor at Oxford, on the grounds that Scotland had been somewhat less touched by the physical horrors of war than the rest of Britain, and was less susceptible to the frenetic postwar gaiety that infected more popular vacation spots.