A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [176]
“Fine,” she said, with an excellent imitation of Claire with her stiffest English upper lip. “Perfectly fine.” She grimaced at him, and he laughed, though quietly, with an automatic glance at the trundle.
“Is she, then?”
Bree raised an eyebrow at him.
“Do you think so?”
“No,” he admitted, sobering. “But I don’t think she’s going to tell you if she’s not. She’ll not want ye worrying.”
She made a rather rude glottal noise in response to this notion, and turned her back on him, lifting the long veil of hair off her neck.
“Will you do my laces?”
“You sound just like your father when ye make that noise—only higher-pitched. Have ye been practicing?” He stood up and pulled the laces loose. Undid her stays as well, then on impulse, slid his hands inside the opened gown, resting them on the warm swell of her hips.
“Every day. Have you?” She leaned back against him, and his hands came up, cupping her breasts by reflex.
“No,” he admitted. “It hurts.” It was Claire’s suggestion—that he try to sing, pitching his voice both higher and lower than normal, in hopes of loosening his vocal cords, perhaps restoring a bit of his original resonance.
“Coward,” she said, but her voice was nearly as soft as the hair that brushed his cheek.
“Aye, I am,” he said as softly. It did hurt, but it wasn’t the physical pain that he minded. It was feeling the echo of his old voice in his bones—the ease and power of it—and then hearing the uncouth noises that emerged with such difficulty now from his throat—croaks and grunts and squeals. Like a pig choking to death on a crow, he thought disparagingly.
“It’s them that are cowards,” Bree said, still speaking softly, but with steel in her voice. She tensed a little in his arms. “Her face—her poor face! How could they? How could anybody do something like that?”
He had a sudden vision of Claire, naked by the pool, silent as the rocks, her breasts streaked with the blood from her newly set nose. He drew back, nearly jerking his hands away.
“What?” Brianna said, startled. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” He pulled his hands out of her gown and stepped back. “I—er, is there maybe a bit of milk?”
She looked at him oddly, but went out to the lean-to at the back and brought in a jug of milk. He drank it thirstily, aware of her eyes on him, watchful as a cat’s, as she undressed and changed into her night rail.
She sat down on the bed and began to brush out her hair, preparing to plait it for sleep. On impulse, he reached out and took the brush from her. Without speaking, he ran one hand through the thickness of her hair, lifting it, smoothing it back from her face.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, and felt tears come to his eyes again.
“So are you.” She lifted her hands to his shoulders and brought him slowly down to his knees before her. She looked searchingly into his eyes—he did his best to look back. She smiled a little, then, and reached to untie the thong that held his own hair back.
It fell around his shoulders in a dusty black tangle, smelling of burned things, stale sweat, and horses. He protested when she took up her hairbrush, but she ignored him, and made him bend his head over her lap, while she picked pine straw and sandburs from his head, slowly working out the snarls. His head bent lower, and lower still, and he found himself at last with his forehead pressed into her lap, breathing in the close scent of her.
He was reminded of medieval paintings, sinners kneeling, heads bowed in confession and remorse. Presbyterians did not confess on their knees—Catholics still did, he thought. In darkness, like this—in anonymity.
“Ye’ve not asked me what happened,” he whispered at last, to the shadows of her thighs. “Did your father tell ye?”
He heard her draw breath, but her voice was calm when she replied.
“No.”
She said no more, and the room was quiet, save for the sound of the brush through his hair, and the rising rush of the wind outside.
How would it be for Jamie? Roger wondered suddenly. Would he really do it? Try to . . . He shied away from the thought, unable