A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [461]
“I dinna ken which it was, or if it was the same one all night, or if they changed now and then, but whenever I woke, he was there, wi’ his arms about me. And sometimes he’d put back the blanket and rub more ointment down my back and, and, round . . .” She stumbled, blushing. “But when I woke in the morning, the fever was gone, like it always is on the second day.”
She looked at me, pleading for understanding.
“D’ye ken how that is, ma’am, when a great fever’s broken? ’Tis the same every time, so I’m thinking it may be so for everyone. But it’s . . . peaceful. Your limbs are sae heavy ye canna think of moving, but ye dinna much care. And everything ye see—all the wee things ye take nay notice of day by day—ye notice, and they’re beautiful,” she said simply. “I think sometimes that will be how it is when I’m dead. I shall just wake, and everything will be like that, peaceful and beautiful—save I shall be able to move.”
“But you woke this time, and couldn’t,” I said. “And the boy—whichever it was—he was still there, with you?”
“It was Jo,” she said, nodding. “He spoke to me, but I didna pay much mind to what he said, and I dinna think he did, either.”
She bit her lower lip momentarily, the small teeth sharp and white.
“I—I hadna done it before, ma’am. But I came close, a time or two wi’ Manfred. And closer still wi’ Bobby Higgins. But Jo hadna ever even kissed a lass, nor his brother had, either. So ye see, ’twas really my fault, for I kent well enough what was happening, but . . . we were both slippery wi’ the ointment, still, and naked under the quilts, and it . . . happened.”
I nodded, understanding precisely and in detail.
“Yes, I can see how it happened, all right. But then it . . . er . . . went on happening, I suppose?”
Her lips pursed up and she went very pink again.
“Well . . . aye. It did. It—it feels sae nice, ma’am,” she whispered, leaning a little toward me as though imparting an important secret.
I rubbed a knuckle hard across my lips.
“Um, yes. Quite. But—”
The Beardsleys had washed the sheets at her direction, and there were no incriminating traces left by the time her father returned, two days later. The gallberries had done their work, and while she was still weak and tired, she told Mr. Wemyss only that she had had a mild attack.
Meanwhile, she met with Jo at every opportunity, in the deep summer grass behind the dairy shed, in the fresh straw in the stable—and when it rained, now and then on the porch of the Beardsleys’ cabin.
“I wouldna do it inside, for the stink o’ the hides,” she explained. “But we put an old quilt on the porch, so as I shouldna have splinters in my backside, and the rain comin’ down just a foot away . . .” She looked wistfully through the open door, where the rain had softened into a steady whisper, the needles trembling on the pine trees as it fell.
“And what about Kezzie? Where was he, while all this was going on?” I asked.
“Ah. Well, Kezzie,” she said, taking a deep breath.
They had made love in the stable, and Jo had left her lying on her cloak in the straw, watching as he rose and dressed himself. Then he had kissed her and turned to the door. Seeing that he had forgotten his canteen, she called softly after him.
“And he didna answer, nor turn round,” she said. “And it came to me sudden, as he didna hear me.”
“Oh, I see,” I said softly. “You, um, couldn’t tell the difference?”
She gave me a direct blue look.
“I can now,” she said.
In the beginning, though, sex was so new—and the brothers both sufficiently inexperienced—that she hadn’t noticed any differences.
“How long . . . ?” I asked. “I mean, do you have any idea when they, er . . . ?”
“Not for certain,” she admitted. “But if I was to guess about it, I think the first time it was Jo—no, I ken for sure that was Jo, for I saw his thumb—but the second time, it was likely Kezzie. They share, ken?”
They did