Diana Gabaldon · @Writer_DG
14th Nov 2017 from TwitLonger
#DailyLines #BookNine #GoTELLTheBEESThatIAmGONE #boobytrap #breakfast
[Excerpt from GO TELL THE BEES THAT I AM GONE. Copyright 2017 Diana Gabaldon. Please don't cut and paste the #DailyLines to other sites. You're very welcome to post links from your sites to the lines, though. Thank you!]
Brianna had asked him if he knew what a conduit was. He’d given her a look over his parritch, set down his spoon and obligingly said, “_Sensu aquaeductus_ or _sensu canalis_?” He’d raised his brows. “Aye, I do, lass. Why d’ye ask?”
Not disconcerted in the slightest, she’d taken a bite of toast with honey and dimpled at him while she chewed.
“Because I thought you wouldn’t know what a hose is, but you’d know conduit. Don’t you recognize a rhetorical question when you hear one? After being married to Mama all these years?”
He felt rather than saw Claire cut her eyes at him, and carefully avoided meeting her glance.
“Aye, I do,” he repeated, picking up his spoon again. “And I ken a booby-trap when I see one, too. Do ye think I look like a booby, _mo leannan_?” he asked Amanda, who was sitting across the table from him, next to her mother.
She giggled and dropped her toast in her lap. Honey-side down, of course.
“Booby,” she said happily, disregarding her mother’s cry of dismay. “Booby-Booby-BOOby! GRAMpa’s a BOOby!”
He ought to have felt guilty, but didn’t. He grinned at his wee grand-daughter, and made what he considered a suitably booby-like face, which set Mandy and Jem well off.
“Don’t call your grand-da names, _a bhailach_,” Roger said mildly, putting a hand on Jem’s shoulder to calm him. “It’s no polite, and Grand-da’s not a booby, anyway.”
“Yes, he is,” Brianna said crossly, gingerly lifting the toast in hopes of not spreading the disaster further. “Really, Da!”
“Well, clearly ye think so, too,” he pointed out, “if ye think I’ve never heard the word hose before. I have a pair on, have I not?” He had in fact not yet put his boots on, and now put a stockinged foot out under the table, poking Mandy gently in the knee and provoking a delighted shriek.
“You,” said Claire, coming up behind him and putting her hands on his shoulders with a squeeze. “Stop. You, too,” she added reprovingly to Bree, who’d gone red in the face with a mixture of laughter and aggravation. “He does know what a hose is; he’s seen them on ships.”
“I have?”
“Yes, you have—though I’m not surprised you didn’t notice. The sailors use a hose to spray water on the sails, if they need to stiffen them. Why are you talking about hoses, anyway?” she added over his head to Bree. She didn’t take her hands off him, and he leaned back a little, savoring the warmth of her body on his back and the solid feel of her through her skirts.