A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [15]
The air was growing nippy, and gooseflesh stippled her arms and thighs—but Roger’s body against her own was very warm. She wrapped her arms around his waist, the fingers of one hand playing idly with the thicket of his short and curlies.
“What are you looking at?” she asked softly, for his eyes were fixed on the far side of the dooryard, where the trail emerged from the forest. The trailhead was dim, shadowed by a growth of dark pines—but empty.
“I’m watching out for a snake bearing apples,” he said, and laughed, then cleared his throat. “Are ye hungry, Eve?” His hand came down to twine with hers.
“Getting there. Are you?” He must be starving; they had had only a hasty snack at midday.
“Aye, I am, but—” He broke off, hesitating, and his fingers tightened in hers. “Ye’ll think I’m mad, but—would ye mind if I went to fetch wee Jem tonight, instead of waiting for the morning? It’s only, I’d feel a bit better to have him back.”
She squeezed his hand in return, her heart lifting.
“We’ll both go. It’s a great idea.”
“Maybe so, but it’s five miles to McGillivrays’, too. It’ll be long dark before we’re there.” He was smiling, though, and his body brushed against her breasts as he turned to face her.
Something moved by her face, and she drew back sharply. A tiny caterpillar, green as the leaves on which it fed and vibrant against Roger’s dark hair, reared itself into an S-shape, looking vainly for sanctuary.
“What?” Roger slid his eyes sideways, trying to see what she was looking at.
“Found your snake. I expect he’s looking for an apple, too.” She coaxed the tiny worm onto her finger, stepped outside, and squatted to let it crawl onto a grass blade that matched its vivid green. But the grass was in shadow. In only an instant, the sun had gone down, the forest no longer the color of life.
A thread of smoke reached her nose; chimney smoke from the Big House, but her throat closed at the smell of burning. Suddenly her uneasiness was stronger. The light was fading, night coming on. The mockingbird had fallen silent, and the forest seemed full of mystery and threat.
She rose to her feet, shoving a hand through her hair.
“Let’s go, then.”
“Do ye not want supper, first?” Roger looked quizzically at her, breeches in hand.
She shook her head, chill beginning to creep up her legs.
“No. Let’s just go.” Nothing seemed to matter, save to get Jem, and be together again, a family.
“All right,” Roger said mildly, eyeing her. “I do think ye’d best put on your fig leaf first, though. Just in case we meet an angel with a flaming sword.”
5
THE SHADOWS WHICH
FIRE THROWS
I ABANDONED IAN AND ROLLO to the juggernaut of Mrs. Bug’s benevolence—let Ian try telling her he didn’t want bread and milk—and sat down to my own belated supper: a hot, fresh omelette, featuring not only cheese, but bits of salty bacon, asparagus, and wild mushroom, flavored with spring onions.
Jamie and the Major had finished their own meals already, and sat by the fire beneath a companionable fug of tobacco smoke from the Major’s clay pipe. Evidently, Jamie had just finished telling Major MacDonald about the gruesome tragedy, for MacDonald was frowning and shaking his head in sympathy.
“Puir gomerels!” he said. “Ye’ll be thinking that it was the same banditti, perhaps, who set upon your nephew?”
“I am,” Jamie replied. “I shouldna like to think there were two such bands prowling the mountains.” He glanced toward the window, cozily shuttered for the night, and I noticed suddenly that he had taken down his fowling piece from over the hearth and was absently wiping the spotless barrel with an oily rag. “Do I gather, a charaid, that ye’ve heard some report of similar doings?”
“Three others. At least.” The Major’s pipe threatened to go