An echo in the bone - Gabaldon Diana (читать книги TXT) 📗

A steep flight of steps lay on the other side of the door, dimly lit—and at the top was another metal door, edged with light. She could hear the rumble and the metallic whine of a ceiling crane in operation.

Her breath was coming fast, and not from the effort of climbing the stairs. What would she find on the other side? It was the servicing chamber inside the dam; she knew that much. But would she find Thursday on the other side? The same Thursday she’d had when the tunnel doors had closed behind her?

She gritted her teeth and opened the door. Rob Cameron was waiting, lounging back against the wall, lit cigarette in hand. He broke into an enormous grin at sight of her, dropped the butt, and stepped on it.

“Knew ye’d make it, hen,” he said. Across the room, Andy and Craig turned from their work and applauded.

“Buy ye a pint after work, then, lass,” Andy called.

“Two!” shouted Craig.

She could still taste bile at the back of her throat. She gave Rob Cameron the sort of look she’d given Mr. Campbell.

“Don’t,” she said evenly, “call me hen.”

His good-looking face twitched and he tugged at his forelock with mock subservience.

“Anything you say, boss,” he said.

HILLTOPS

IT WAS NEARLY SEVEN by the time he heard Brianna’s car in the drive. The kids had had their supper, but came swarming out to her, clinging to her legs as though she’d just come back from darkest Africa or the North Pole.

It was some time before the kids were settled for the night and Bree had time to give her undivided attention to him. He didn’t mind. “Are you starving?” she said. “I can fix—”

He interrupted her, taking her by the hand and drawing her into his office, where he carefully closed and locked the door. She was standing there, hair half matted from her hard hat, grimy from spending the day in the bowels of the earth. She smelled of earth. Also engine grease, cigarette smoke, sweat, and… beer?

“I’ve a lot to tell you,” he said. “And I know ye’ve a lot to tell me. But first… could ye just slip off your jeans, maybe, sit on the desk, and spread your legs?”

Her eyes went perfectly round.

“Yes,” she said mildly. “I could do that.”

ROGER HAD OFTEN WONDERED whether it was true what they said about redheaded people being more volatile than the usual—or whether it was just that their emotions showed so suddenly and alarmingly on their skins. Both, he thought.

Maybe he should have waited ’til she’d got her clothes on before telling her about Miss Glendenning. If he had, though, he’d have missed the remarkable sight of his wife, naked and flushed with fury from the navel upward.

“That bloody old besom! If she thinks she can get away with—”

“She can’t,” he interrupted firmly. “Of course she can’t.”

“You bet she can’t! I’ll go down there first thing tomorrow and—”

“Well, maybe not.”

She stopped and looked at him, one eye narrowed.

“Maybe not what?”

“Maybe not you.” He fastened his own jeans, and picked hers up. “I was thinking it might be best if I go.”

She frowned, turning that one over.

“Not that I think ye’d lose your temper and set about the old bitch,” he added, smiling, “but you have got your job to go to, aye?”

“Hmmm,” she said, seeming skeptical of his ability to adequately impress Miss Glendenning with the magnitude of her crime.

“And if ye did lose the heid and nut the woman, I’d hate to have to explain to the kids why we were visiting Mummy in jail.”

That made her laugh, and he relaxed a little. He really didn’t think she’d resort to physical violence, but then, she hadn’t seen Jemmy’s ear right after he’d come home. He’d had a strong urge himself to go straight down to the school and show the woman what it felt like, but he was in better command of himself now.

“So what do you mean to say to her?” She fished her brassiere out from under the desk, giving him a succulent view of her rear aspect, as she hadn’t put the jeans on yet.

“Nothing. I’ll speak to the principal. He can have a word with her.”

“Well, that might be better,” she said slowly. “We don’t want Miss Glendenning to take it out on Jemmy.”

“Right.” The beautiful flush was fading. Her hard hat had rolled off under the chair; he picked it up and set it on her head again. “So—how was work today? And why don’t ye wear knickers to work?” he asked, suddenly remembering.

To his startlement, the flush roared back like a brushfire.

“I got out of the habit in the eighteenth century,” she snapped, plainly taking the huff. “I only wear knickers for ceremonial purposes anymore. What did you think, I was planning to seduce Mr. Campbell?”

“Well, not if he’s anything like you described him, no,” he said mildly. “I just noticed when ye left this morning, and wondered.”

“Oh.” She was still ruffled, he could see that and wondered why. He was about to ask again about her day when she took the hat off and eyed him speculatively.

“You said if I wore the hat, you’d tell me what you were doing with that champagne bottle. Other than giving it to Mandy to throw through the window,” she added, with a tinge of wifely censoriousness. “What were you thinking, Roger?”

“Well, in all honesty, I was thinking about your arse,” he said. “But it never occurred to me that she’d throw the thing. Or that she could throw it like that.”

“Did you ask her why she did it?”

He stopped, nonplused.

“It hadn’t occurred to me that she’d have a reason,” he confessed. “I snatched her off the table as she was about to pitch face-first into the broken window, and I was so frightened that I just picked her up and smacked her bum.”

“I don’t think she’d do something like that for no reason,” Bree said meditatively. She’d put aside the hard hat and was scooping herself into her brassiere, a spectacle Roger found diverting under just about any circumstances.

It wasn’t until they’d gone back to the kitchen for their own late supper that he remembered to ask again how her workday had gone.

“Not bad,” she said, with a good assumption of casualness. Not so good as to convince him, but good enough that he thought better of prodding, and instead asked, “Ceremonial purposes?”

A broad grin spread across her face.

“You know. For you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you and your fetish for women’s lacy underthings.”

“What—you mean you only wear knickers for—”

“For you to take off, of course.”

There was no telling where the conversation might have gone from this point, but it was interrupted by a loud wail from above, and Bree disappeared hastily in the direction of the stairs, leaving Roger to contemplate this latest revelation.

He’d got the bacon fried and the tinned beans simmering by the time she reappeared, a small frown between her brows.

“Bad dream,” she said, in answer to his lifted brow. “The same one.”

“The bad thing trying to get in her window again?”

She nodded and took the saucepan of beans he handed her, though she didn’t move immediately to serve out the food.

“I asked her why she threw the bottle.”

“Aye?”

Brianna took the bean spoon, holding it like a weapon.

“She said she saw him outside the window.”

“Him? The—”

“The Nuckelavee.”

IN THE MORNING, the broch was just as it had been the last time he’d looked. Dark. Quiet, save for the rustling of the doves overhead. He’d taken away the rubbish; no new fish papers had come. Swept and garnished, he thought. Waiting for the occupation of whatever roaming spirit might happen by?

He shook that thought off and closed the door firmly. He’d get new hinges and a padlock for it, next time he passed by the Farm and Household Stores.

Had Mandy really seen someone? And if she had, was it the same tramp who had frightened Jem? The idea of someone hanging round, spying on his family, made something hard and black curl through his chest, like a sharp-pointed iron spring. He stood for a moment, narrowly surveying the house, the grounds, for any trace of an intruder. Anywhere a man might hide. He’d already searched the barn and the other outbuildings.