“Well, if the worst thing that can happen to ye is death, and ye’re no afraid of that … well, then.” Jenny shrugged. “I suppose ye’re right.” Her face crinkled suddenly and she laughed. “Fearless. I’ll need to think on that one for a bit—get used to it, ken. Still—” She lifted her chin, indicating Oggy, who had roused at the scent of home and was rooting sleepily at Rachel’s breast.

“Do ye not fear for him? Takin’ him all that way through a war?”

She didn’t add, “Wouldn’t losing him be worse than death?” but she didn’t need to.

Rachel unfastened her blouse and put Oggy to suck, drawing in her breath as he seized her nipple, then relaxing as her milk let down. Jenny was waiting for her, eyes fixed on Oggy’s head. Rachel spoke evenly.

“Would thee let thy husband go alone seven hundred miles to rescue his first wife and her three children—one of whom might just possibly be his?”

Jenny’s mouth opened, but apparently there were no Scottish sounds appropriate to the occasion.

“Well, no,” she said mildly. “Thee has a point.”

57

Ready for Anything

HE’D HAVE TO TELL her, and sooner rather than later. At least he’d got a plan made, whether she liked it or not.

It was raining, and the solid drops pounded the tin roof of the goat shed like gunfire. Ian ducked inside to find his mother milking one of the nannies and singing a waulking song called “Mile Marbhaisg Air A’ Ghaol” at the top of her lungs. She glanced up at him, nodded to indicate that she’d be with him in a wee bit, and went on singing “A Thousand Curses on Love” and milking.

The goats looked up at him, too, but recognized him and went on munching their grass with nothing more than the twitch of an ear. They seemed to be enjoying the song; they weren’t agitated by the rain—or the thunder, in the distance but growing steadily louder. His mother stripped off the udder with a wee flourish and concluded with “A’ Ghaol!” Ian applauded, which startled all the goats into a belated chorus of mehhhs.

“Hark at ye, ye wee gomerel,” his mother said, but in a tolerant tone. She rose, loosed the goat from the stanchion, and picked up the brimming pail. “Here, carry this into the house, but tell Rachel not to churn it ’til the storm passes—I dinna ken if she knows ye mustn’t churn during thunder; the butter won’t come.”

“I think she kens well enough that ye dinna want to stand on the front stoop doin’ it while the rain’s pissing down, even if ye weren’t like to be struck by lightning.”

“Piff,” she said, and pulled her shawl up over her head. No sooner had she done so, though, than the rain changed abruptly to hail. “A Mhoire Mhàthair!” she said, making the horns. “Dinna go out there now, ye’ll be brained.”