Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [148]
“You’d best go dress yourself, lassie,” Murtagh remarked. “I can see the gooseflesh from here.”
“Oh! Yes, I suppose so.” I glanced down at my arms; I had been hugging myself as suppositions raced through my mind, but to little effect; my teeth were beginning to chatter.
“Madame! You will give yourself a chill, surely!” Marguerite came stumping rapidly up the stairs, and I allowed her to shoo me into the bedroom, glancing back to see Murtagh below, carefully examining the point of his dirk before ramming it home in its sheath.
“You should be in bed, Madame!” Marguerite scolded. “It isn’t good for the child, for you to let yourself be chilled like that. I will fetch a warming pan at once; where is your nightrobe? Get into it at once, yes, that’s right…” I shrugged the heavy woolen nightrobe over the thin silk of my nightgown, but ignored Marguerite’s clucking to go to the window and open the shutters.
The street outside was beginning to glow as the rising sun struck the upper facades of the stone houses along the Rue Tremoulins. There was a good deal of activity on the street, early as it was; maids and footmen engaged in scrubbing steps or polishing brass gate-fittings, barrowmen selling fruit, vegetables, and fresh seafood, crying their wares along the street, and the cooks of the great houses popping up from their basement doors like so many jinni, summoned by the cries of the barrowmen. A delivery cart loaded with coal clopped slowly along the street, pulled by an elderly horse who looked as though he would much rather be in his stable. But no sign of Jamie.
I at last allowed an anxious Marguerite to persuade me into bed, for the sake of warmth, but couldn’t go back to sleep. Every sound from below brought me to the alert, hoping that each footstep on the pavement outside would be followed by Jamie’s voice in the hall below. The face of the Comte St. Germain kept coming between me and sleep. Alone among the French nobility, he had some connection with Charles Stuart. He had, in all likelihood, been behind the earlier attempt on Jamie’s life…and on mine. He was known to have unsavory associations. Was it possible that he had arranged to have both Charles and Jamie removed? Whether his purposes were political or personal made little difference, at this point.
When at last the sound of steps below did come, I was so occupied with visions of Jamie lying in a gutter with his throat cut, that I didn’t realize he was home until the bedroom door opened.
“Jamie!” I sat up in bed with a cry of joy.
He smiled at me, then yawned immensely, making no effort to cover his mouth. I could see a goodly distance down his throat, and observed with relief that it wasn’t cut. On the other hand, he looked distinctly the worse for wear. He lay down on the bed next to me and stretched, long and rackingly, then settled with a half-contented groan.
“What,” I demanded, “happened to you?”
He opened one red-rimmed eye.
“I need a bath,” he said, and closed it again.
I leaned toward him and sniffed delicately. The nose detected the usual smoky smell of closed rooms and damp wool, underlying a truly remarkable combination of alcoholic stenches—ale, wine, whisky, and brandy—which matched the variety of stains on his shirt. And forming a high note to the mixture, a horrible cheap cologne, of a particularly penetrating and noxious pungency.
“You do,” I agreed. I scrambled out of bed and leaning out into the corridor, shouted for Marguerite, sending her on arrival for a hip bath and sufficient water to fill it. As a parting gift from Brother Ambrose, I had several cakes of a fine-milled hard soap, made with attar of roses, and told her to fetch those, as well.
As the maid set about the tedious business of bringing up the huge copper bath-cans, I turned my attention to the hulk on the bed.
I stripped off his shoes and stockings, then loosening the buckle of his kilt, I flipped it open. His hands went reflexively to