Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [291]
Curious, I slipped out of bed and crept quietly to the door. I could see them there at the end of the hall. Jamie sat leaning back against the side of the window seat, wearing only his shirt. His bare legs were raised, forming a back against which small Katherine Mary rested as she sat facing him in his lap, her own chubby legs kicking restlessly over his stomach.
The baby’s face was blank and light as the moon’s, her eyes dark pools absorbing his words. He traced the curve of her cheek with one finger, again and again, whispering with heartbreaking gentleness.
He spoke in Gaelic, and so low that I could not have told what he said, even had I known the words. But the whispering voice was thick, and the moonlight from the casement behind him showed the tracks of the tears that slid unregarded down his own cheeks.
It was not a scene that bore intrusion. I came back to the still-warm bed, holding in my mind the picture of the laird of Lallybroch, half-naked in the moonlight, pouring out his heart to an unknown future, holding in his lap the promise of his blood.
* * *
When I woke in the morning, there was a warm, unfamiliar scent next to me, and something tangled in my hair. I opened my eyes to find Katherine Mary’s rosebud lips smacking dreamily an inch from my nose, her fat fingers clutched in the hair above my left ear. I cautiously disengaged myself, and she stirred, but flopped over onto her stomach, drew her knees up and went back to sleep.
Jamie was lying on the other side of the child, face half-buried in his pillow. He opened one eye, clear blue as the morning sky.
“Good morning, Sassenach,” he said, speaking quietly so as not to disturb the small sleeper. He smiled at me as I sat up in bed. “Ye looked verra sweet, the two of you, asleep face-to-face like that.”
I ran a hand through my tangled hair, and smiled myself at Kitty’s upturned bottom, jutting absurdly into the air.
“That doesn’t look at all comfortable,” I observed. “But she’s still asleep, so it can’t be that bad. How late were you up with her last night? I didn’t hear you come to bed.”
He yawned and ran a hand through his hair, smoothing it away from his face. There were shadows under his eyes, but he seemed peacefully content.
“Oh, some time. Before moonset, at least. I didna want to wake Jenny by taking the wean back to her, so I laid her in the bed between us, and she didna twitch once, the rest of the night.”
The baby was kneading the mattress with elbows and knees, rootling in the bedclothes with a low grunting noise. It must be close to time for her morning feed. This supposition was borne out in the next moment, when she raised her head, eyes still tight shut, and let out a healthy howl. I reached hastily for her and picked her up.
“There-there-there,” I soothed, patting the straining little back. I swung my legs out of bed, then reached back and patted Jamie on the head. The rough bright hair was warm under my hand.
“I’ll take her to Jenny,” I said. “It’s early yet; you sleep some more.”
“I may do that, Sassenach,” Jamie said, flinching at the noise. “I’ll see ye at breakfast, shall I?” He rolled onto his back, crossed his hands on his chest in his favorite sleeping posture, and was breathing deeply again by the time Katherine Mary and I had reached the door.
The baby squirmed vigorously, rooting for a nipple and squawking in frustration when none was immediately forthcoming. Hurrying along the hall, I met Jenny, hurrying out of her bedroom in response to her offspring’s cries, pulling on a green dressing gown as she came. I held out the baby, waving little fists in urgent demand.
“There, mo mùirninn, hush now, hush,” Jenny soothed. With a cock of the eyebrow in invitation, she took the child from me and turned back into her room.
I followed her in and sat on the rumpled bed as she sat down on a nursing stool by the