Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [115]
“See?” he said, removing the hand from his eye. He sat up and handed the cup to the boy. “Here, you try it.” He grinned at me, and slid a hand under the hem of my skirt, clasping my green silk ankle in greeting.
“Having fun?” I inquired.
“Not yet,” he replied, giving the ankle a squeeze. “I was waiting for you, Sassenach.” The long, warm fingers curled around my ankle slid higher, playfully stroking the curve of my calf, as a pair of limpid blue eyes gazed up at me, all innocence. His face had a streak of dried mud down one side, and there were dirty blotches on his shirt and kilt.
“Is that so?” I said, trying to pull my leg free of his grasp inconspicuously. “I should have thought your little playmate would have been all the company you needed.”
The boy, understanding none of the English in which these exchanges were conducted, ignored them, intent on trying to work the bilboquet with one eye closed. The first two attempts having failed, he opened the second eye and glared at the toy, as though daring it not to work. The second eye closed again, but not all the way; a small slit remained, gleaming alertly below the thick fringe of dark lashes.
Jamie clicked his tongue disapprovingly, and the eye hastily snapped tight shut.
“Nah, then, Fergus, we’ll have nay cheatin’, if ye please,” he said. “Fair’s fair.” The boy obviously caught the meaning, if not the words; he grinned sheepishly, displaying a pair of large, white, gleamingly perfect front teeth, square as a squirrel’s.
Jamie’s hand exerted an invisible pull, obliging me to move closer to him to avoid being toppled off my moroccan heels.
“Ah,” he said. “Well, Fergus here is a man of many talents, and a boon companion for the idle hours when a man’s wife has deserted him and left him to seek his own pursuits amidst the wickedness of the city”—the long fingers curled delicately into the hollow behind my knee, tickling suggestively—“but he isna qualified as a partner for the pastime I had in mind.”
“Fergus?” I said, eyeing the boy, and trying to ignore the goings-on below. The lad was possibly nine or ten, but small for his age, and fine-boned as a ferret. Clad in clean, worn clothes several sizes too big for him, he was also as French as they come, with the pale, sallow skin and big, dark eyes of a Parisian street child.
“Well, his name is really Claudel, but we decided that didna sound verra manly, so he’s to be called Fergus instead. A suitable warrior’s name, that.” Catching the sound of his name—or names—the boy glanced up and grinned shyly at me.
“This is Madame,” Jamie explained to the boy, gesturing to me with his free hand. “You may call her milady. I dinna think he could manage ‘Broch Tuarach,’ ” he added to me, “or even Fraser, for that matter.”
“ ‘Milady’ will be fine,” I said, smiling. I wriggled my leg harder, trying to shake off the leechlike grip. “Er, why, if I may ask?”
“Why what? Oh, why Fergus, ye mean?”
“That’s what I mean, all right.” I wasn’t sure just how far his arm would reach, but the hand was creeping slowly up the back of my thigh. “Jamie, take your hand away this minute!”
The fingers darted to one side, and deftly pulled loose the ribbon garter that held up my stocking. The stocking slithered down my leg to puddle round my ankle.
“You beast!” I kicked at him, but he dodged aside, laughing.
“Oh, beast, is it? What kind?”
“A cur!” I snapped, trying to bend over to pull up my stocking without falling off my heels. The child Fergus, after a brief, incurious glance at us, had resumed his trials with the bilboquet.
“As for the lad,” he continued blithely, “Fergus is now in my employ.”
“To do what?” I asked. “We already have a boy who cleans the knives and boots, and a stable-lad.”
Jamie nodded. “Aye, that’s true. We havena got a pickpocket, though. Or rather, we hadn’t; we have, now.”
I drew in my breath and blew it out again slowly.
“I see. I suppose it would be dense of me to ask exactly why we need to add a pickpocket to the household?”
“To steal letters, Sassenach,