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32 - News

Four Months Later

In truth, I wasn't entirely sure how it had happened, but just four months later, I watched Jenny Fraser and Ian Murray become one. I was sitting in a chair at the front with several of the older tenants of Lallybroch around me.

Old Mrs Beardsley, who had minded me as a young child whilst my father worked and my mother walked wool, was on my right. We all sat down for a large meal in the July heat, and it was a glorious day. It was not raining for a change, and the weather was quite warm. I loved Scottish days like this because they were so few and far between, though when they came it seemed like they would never end.

I nibbled on a piece of partridge, the chosen meat at the wedding. It tasted divine, but I could scarcely bring myself to eat more than half of its breast before I felt myself paling.

"Ye look as though ye've seen a ghost, Eira," she said, reaching out and running her fingers through my black tresses, "whatever's wrong with ye?"

"I, um," I swallowed the meat, a sour taste going down with it, "in truth, Mrs Beardsley, I believe I'm a little ill. Most days I canna keep a thing down." I laid my fork down and removed the napkin from my lap. I turned to her, "would ye excuse me?"

"Ill?" Mrs Beardsley chuckled, "I very much doubt it, my dear, ye look like ye've put a wee bit of weight on, if anything." The last time she had seen me had been when I had gone into the village just a week before Jamie had arrived home with Ian... before I had been handfast and before we had gone to bed together.

Something stirred in the pit of my stomach and I frowned. "Excuse me." I said again as I stumbled over to the table that Jenny and Ian were sitting at. Ian had a brother and sister, but they both lived abroad, and so had not come to the wedding. Jenny, of course, had me, and had invited me to sit with her and her new husband, but I had declined since it would be just me and the two of them - John Murray had died. "Jenny!" I exclaimed as soon as I reached them.

She looked up from her dinner in surprise, "is something wrong with ye, Eira?"

I nodded, "I think there might be, aye." My tone was grim.

Ian furrowed his brow at me, "ye're not sick, are ye, Eira?"

"I dinna ken, Ian, I dinna ken." I replied slowly as Jenny stood up and followed me into the house and up to my room where I knew we could be alone.

"What is it with ye, sister?" She asked me as she sat at the bottom of my bed and gestured for me to sit beside her. I didn't, instead pacing up and down across the room. I couldn't get my head around it. "Are ye ill?"

"No."
"Are ye hurt? In pain?"

"No, nothing like that..." I bit my lip, feeling tears spring to my eyes. "Jenny, I think I'm going to have a baby."

She looked at my stomach, scrutinising my figure. I had undoubtedly put on some weight in the last few months - my corsets would not go as tightly as they used to and my appetite had increased significantly.

Jenny stood up and took my hand, leading me over to the bed. She laid me down and pressed down on my stomach through my dress and corset. It was uncomfortable because she applied a fair amount of pressure, but I trusted her.

After several minutes of pressing in various places, she looked at me and I knew.

"Oh God, what am I going to do?" I began to cry again. "I expected him to have come for me by now!" Jenny held me tightly as I cried. "Do ye think he's forgotten about me?"

"Nay, I dinna think he could." She replied soothingly.

"I'm sorry for ruining yer wedding day with this, Jenny!"

"Hush, ye haven't ruined my day at all! Ye've just told me I'm going to be an auntie! Jamie's going to be a father, I reckon he'll be fit to bursting when he finds out -"
"But how can he find out if I dinna ken where he is?" I sat back and wiped my eyes, trying to save Jenny's lovely wedding gown as much as I could. "What if he ne'er made it to Leoch?"

"Ye canna think like that, Eira!" She told me sharply but not unkindly. "Jamie's likely riding to ye right this moment! By the time the bairn is born, everything will be as it should be and ye'll both be living here as Laird and Lady Broch Tuarach -"
"But the price on his head, Jenny," I reminded her, "he canna come home until it is lifted -"
"Then ye'll be living at Leoch," she told me in a sure tone, "all three of ye. And when he is free, then ye shall return..."
I remembered the promise that I had made myself some four months before when Jenny had found me the morning that Jamie had left.

I'll go to him.

"Jenny, I need to go to Leoch."

"What?" She asked in an appalled tone of voice, "but in yer condition -"
"I have to go to him before I canna ride anymore." I put a hand on my small baby bump and smiled, for the first time realising that I was going to be a mother in just a few short months. "He could come tomorrow, or he could come six months from now - but in six months, it won't be just me that has to make the journey, will it? Nay, if I ride for Leoch now, then the bairn is safe inside of me rather than out in the open. I have to go."

"If I let ye go without protection, then he'd skin me, ye ken." She put her hands on her hips as she thought for a few seconds, "especially if he kent that I kent ye were to have a bairn." She paused, "I'll send Ian with ye."
"Jenny, ye canna. It's your wedding night. I canna take Ian from ye -"

One of us should have a husband at their side, at least, I thought.

"Then ye'll leave tomorrow." She turned on her heel and left the room without another word.