A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [576]
“Or someone already wed. Or a woman, Sassenach.”
That stopped me cold. “A woman?”
“She took love,” he repeated, and shook his head. “What makes ye think it was only the young men she took it from?”
I closed my eyes, envisioning the possibilities. If she had had an affair with a married man—and they had looked at her, too, only more discreetly—yes, he might have killed her to keep it undiscovered. Or a scorned wife . . . I had a brief, shocking glimpse of Murdina Bug, face contorted with effort as she pressed the pillow over Lionel Brown’s face. Arch? God, no. Once again, with a sense of utter hopelessness, I turned away from the question, seeing in mind the myriad faces of Fraser’s Ridge—one of them hiding a murderer’s soul.
“No, I know it can’t be fixed for them—not Malva, or Tom. Or—or even Allan.” For the first time, I spared a thought for Tom’s son, so suddenly bereft of his family and in such dreadful circumstances. “But the rest . . .” The Ridge, I meant. Home. The life we had had. Us.
It had grown warm under the quilt, lying together—too warm, and I felt the heat of a hot flush wash over me. I sat up abruptly, throwing off the quilt, and leaned forward, lifting the hair off my neck in hopes of an instant’s coolness.
“Stand up, Sassenach.”
Jamie rolled out of bed, stood up, and took me by the hand, pulling me to my feet. Sweat had already broken out on my body like dew, and my cheeks were flushed. He bent and, taking the hem of my shift in both hands, stripped it off over my head.
He smiled faintly, looking at me, then bent and blew softly over my breasts. The coolness was a tiny but blessed relief, and my nipples rose in silent gratitude.
He opened the shutters for more air, then stepped back and pulled off his own shirt. Day had broken fully now, and the flood of pure morning light glimmered on the lines of his pale torso, on the silver web of his scars, the red-gold dusting of hair on his arms and legs, the rust and silver hairs of his sprouting beard. Likewise on the darkly suffused flesh of his genitals in their morning state, standing stiff against his belly and gone the deep, soft color one would find in the heart of a shadowed rose.
“As to putting things right,” he said, “I canna say—though I mean to try.” His eyes moved over me—stark naked, slightly salt-encrusted, and noticeably grimy about the feet and ankles. He smiled. “Shall we make a start, Sassenach?”
“You’re so tired you can barely stand up,” I protested. “Um—with certain exceptions,” I added, glancing down. It was true; there were dark hollows under his eyes, and while the lines of his body were still long and graceful, they were also eloquent of deep fatigue. I felt as though I’d been run over by a steamroller myself, and I hadn’t been up all night burning down forts.
“Well, seeing as we’ve a bed to hand, I didna plan to stand up for it,” he replied. “Mind, I may never get back on my feet again, but I think I might be able to stay awake for the next ten minutes or so, at least. Ye can pinch me if I fall asleep,” he suggested, smiling.
I rolled my eyes at him, but didn’t argue. I lay down upon the grubby but now-cool sheets, and with a small tremor in the pit of my stomach, opened my legs for him.
We made love like people underwater, heavy-limbed and slow. Mute, able to speak only through crude pantomime. We had barely touched one another in this way since Malva’s death—and the thought of her was still with us.
And not only her. For a time, I tried to focus only on Jamie, fixing my attention on the small intimacies of his body, so well known—the tiny white cicatrice of the triangular scar at his throat, the whorls of auburn hair and the sunburned skin beneath—but I was so tired that my mind refused to cooperate, and persisted in showing me instead random bits of memory or, even more disturbing, imagination.
“It’s no good,” I said. My eyes were shut tight, and I was clinging to the bedclothes