A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [406]
“Why does it matter?” Christie asked, seeming now merely baffled.
“I don’t know. I just—need to find things out.” I’d also needed both to get away from the house and to make some move to reclaim my life by the most direct means I knew—the practice of medicine. But that wasn’t anything I meant to share with Tom Christie.
“Hmph,” he said. He stood looking down at me, frowning and undecided, then suddenly extended a hand—the one I had operated on, I saw; the “Z” of the incision had faded to a healthy pale pink, and the fingers lay straight.
“Come outside, then,” he said, resigned. “I will see you home, and if ye insist upon asking intrusive and bothersome questions regarding my health along the way, I suppose I cannot stop you.”
Startled, I took his hand, and found his grip solid and steady, despite the haggard look of his face and the slump of his shoulders.
“You needn’t walk me home,” I protested. “You ought to be in bed, by the looks of you!”
“So should you,” he said, leading me to the door with a hand beneath my elbow. “But if ye choose to risk your health and your life by undertaking such inappropriate exertion—why, so can I. Though you must,” he added sternly, “put on your hat before we go.”
WE MADE IT BACK to the house, stopping frequently for rest, and arrived panting, dripping with sweat, and generally exhilarated by the adventure. No one had missed me, but Mr. Christie insisted upon delivering me inside, which meant that everyone observed my absence ex post facto, and in the irrational way of people, at once became very annoyed.
I was scolded by everyone in sight, including Young Ian, frog-marched upstairs virtually by the scruff of the neck, and thrust forcibly back into bed, where, I was given to understand, I should be lucky to be given bread and milk for my supper. The most annoying aspect of the whole situation was Thomas Christie, standing at the foot of the stairs with a mug of beer in his hand, watching as I was led off, and wearing the only grin I had ever seen on his hairy face.
“What in the name of God possessed ye, Sassenach?” Jamie jerked back the quilt and gestured peremptorily at the sheets.
“Well, I felt quite well, and—”
“Well! Ye’re the color of bad buttermilk, and trembling so ye can scarcely—here, let me do that.” Making snorting noises, he pushed my hands away from the laces of my petticoats, and had them off me in a trice.
“Have ye lost your mind?” he demanded. “And to sneak off like that without telling anyone, too! What if ye’d fallen? What if ye got ill again?”
“If I’d told anyone, they wouldn’t have let me go out,” I said mildly. “And I am a physician, you know. Surely I can judge my own state of health.”
He gave me a look, strongly suggesting that he wouldn’t trust me to judge a flower show, but merely gave a louder than usual snort in reply.
He then picked me up bodily, carried me to the bed, and placed me gently into it—but with enough demonstration of restrained strength as to let me know that he would have preferred to drop me from a height.
He then straightened up, giving me a baleful look.
“If ye didna look as though ye were about to faint, Sassenach, I swear I would turn ye over and smack your bum for ye.”
“You can’t,” I said, rather faintly. “I haven’t got one.” I was in fact a little tired . . . well, to be honest, my heart was beating like a kettledrum, my ears were ringing, and if I didn’t lie down flat at once, I likely would faint. I did lie down, and lay with my eyes closed, feeling the room spin gently round me, like a merry-go-round, complete with flashing lights and hurdy-gurdy music.
Through this confusion of sensations, I dimly sensed hands on my legs, then a pleasant coolness on my heated body. Then something warm and cloudlike enveloped my head, and I flailed my hands about wildly, trying to get it off before I smothered.
I emerged, blinking and panting, to discover that I was naked. I glanced at my pallid, sagging, skeletal remains, and snatched the sheet up over myself. Jamie was bending to collect my discarded gown, petticoat, and