A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [574]
He didn’t protest when I flung the ratty quilt over him, nor yet when I curved my body to fit round him, wrapping an arm about his waist and laying my cheek against his back. He still smelled of smoke, though both of us had washed hastily the night before, before falling into bed and a dearly bought oblivion.
I could feel how tired he was. My own joints still ached with fatigue—and from the lumps in the flattened, wool-stuffed mattress. Ian had been waiting with horses when we came ashore, and we had ridden as far as we could before darkness fell, finally fetching up at a ramshackle inn in the middle of nowhere, a crude roadside accommodation for wagoneers on their way to the coast.
“Malcolm,” he’d said, with the slightest of hesitations, when the innkeeper had asked his name. “Alexander Malcolm.”
“And Murray,” Ian had said, yawning and scratching his ribs. “John Murray.”
The innkeeper had nodded, not particularly caring. There was no reason why he should associate three nondescript, bedraggled travelers with a notorious case of murder—and yet I had felt panic well up under my diaphragm when he glanced at me.
I had sensed Jamie’s hesitation in giving the name, his distaste for reassuming one of the many aliases he had once lived under. More than most men, he valued his name—I only hoped that given time, it would once more have value.
Roger might help. He would be a full-fledged minister by now, I thought, smiling at the thought. He had a true gift for soothing the divisions among the inhabitants of the Ridge, easing acrimony—and having the additional authority of being an ordained minister, his influence would be increased.
It would be good to have him back. And to see Bree and Jemmy again—I had a moment’s longing for them, though we would see them soon; we meant to go through Cross Creek and collect them on the way. But of course, neither Bree nor Roger had any notion what had happened in the last three weeks—nor what life might now be like, in the wake of it.
The birds were in full voice in the trees outside; after the constant screeching of gulls and terns that formed the background of life on the Cruizer, the sound of them was tender, a homely conversation that made me long suddenly for the Ridge. I understood Jamie’s strong urge to be home—even knowing that what we would find there was not the same life we had left. The Christies would be gone, for one thing.
I hadn’t had the chance to ask Jamie about the circumstances of my rescue; I had finally been put ashore just before sunset, and we had ridden off at once, Jamie wanting to put as much distance as possible between me and Governor Martin—and, perhaps, Tom Christie.
“Jamie,” I said softly, my breath warm in the folds of his shirt. “Did you make him do it? Tom?”
“No.” His voice was soft, too. “He came to Fergus’s printshop, the day after ye left the palace. He’d heard that the gaol had burned—”
I sat up in bed, shocked.
“What? Sheriff Tolliver’s house? No one told me that!”
He rolled onto his back, looking up at me.
“I dinna suppose anyone ye’ve spoken to in the last week or two would know,” he said mildly. “No one was killed, Sassenach—I asked.”
“You’re sure of it?” I asked with uneasy thoughts of Sadie Ferguson. “How did it happen? A mob?”
“No,” he said, yawning. “From what I hear, Mrs. Tolliver got stinking drunk, stoked her laundry fire too high, then lay down in the shade and fell asleep. The wood collapsed, the embers set fire to the grass, it spread to the house, and . . .” He flipped a hand in dismissal. “The neighbor smelt smoke, though, and rushed over in time to drag Mrs. Tolliver and the bairn safe away. He said there was no one else in the place.”
“Oh. Well . . .” I let him persuade me to lie down again, my head resting in the hollow of his shoulder. I couldn’t feel strange with him, not after spending the night pressed close against him in the narrow bed, each of us aware of the other’s every small movement.