Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [123]
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There was a bird singing outside, though it was long before first light. A mockingbird, practicing his trills and runs over and over, perched on a rain gutter somewhere in the dark nearby.
Moving sleepily, Jamie rubbed his cheek against the smooth skin of my freshly waxed underarm, then turned his head and planted a soft kiss in the warm hollow that sent a small, delicious shudder down my side.
“Mm,” he murmured, running a light hand over my ribs. “I like it when ye come out all gooseflesh like that, Sassenach.”
“Like this?” I answered, running the nails of my right hand gently over the skin of his back, which obligingly rippled into goose bumps under the teasing of the touch.
“Ah.”
“Ah, yourself, then,” I answered softly, doing it some more.
“Mmmm.” With a luxurious groan, he rolled to the side, wrapping his arms around me as I followed, enjoying the sudden contact of every inch of our naked skins, all down the front from head to toe. He was warm as a smothered fire, the heat of him safely banked for the night, to kindle again to a blaze in the black cold of dawn.
His lips fastened gently on one nipple, and I groaned myself, arching slightly to encourage him to take it deeper into the warmth of his mouth. My breasts were growing fuller, and more sensitive by the day; my nipples ached and tingled sometimes under the tight binding of my gowns, wanting to be suckled.
“Will ye let me do this later?” he murmured, with a soft bite. “When the child’s come, and your breasts fill wi’ milk? Will ye feed me, too, then, next to your heart?”
I clasped his head and cradled it, fingers deep in the baby-soft hair that grew thick at the base of his skull.
“Always,” I whispered.
14
MEDITATIONS ON THE FLESH
Fergus was more than adept at his profession, and nearly every day brought in a new selection of His Highness’s correspondence; sometimes I was hard pressed to copy everything before Fergus’s next expedition, when he would replace the items abstracted, before stealing the new letters.
Some of these were further coded communications from King James in Rome; Jamie put aside the copies of these, to puzzle over at leisure. The bulk of His Highness’s correspondence was innocuous—notes from friends in Italy, an increasing number of bills from local merchants—Charles had a taste for gaudy clothing and fine boots, as well as for brandywine—and the occasional note from Louise de La Tour de Rohan. These were fairly easy to pick out; aside from the tiny, mannered handwriting she employed, that made her letters look as though a small bird had been making tracks on them, she invariably saturated the paper with her trademark hyacinth scent. Jamie resolutely refused to read these.
“I willna be reading the man’s love letters,” he said firmly. “Even a plotter must scruple at something.” He sneezed, and dropped the latest missive back into Fergus’s pocket. “Besides,” he added more practically, “Louise tells ye everything, anyway.”
This was true; Louise had become a close friend, and spent nearly as much time in my drawing room as she did in her own, wringing her hands over Charles, then forgetting him in the fascination of discussing the marvels of pregnancy—she never had morning sickness, curse her! Scatterbrained as she was, I liked her very much; still, it was a great relief to escape from her company to L’Hôpital des Anges every afternoon.
While Louise was unlikely ever to set foot within L’Hôpital des Anges, I was not without company when I went there. Undaunted by her first exposure to the Hôpital, Mary Hawkins summoned up the courage to accompany me again. And yet again. While she couldn’t quite bring herself to look directly at a wound yet, she was useful at spooning gruel into people and sweeping floors. Apparently she considered these activities a welcome change from either the gatherings of the Court or the life at her uncle’s house.
While she was frequently shocked at some of the behavior she saw at Court—not that she saw much, but she was easily shocked—she didn’t betray any particular distaste