Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [51]
I thought “ready” was a bit of an overstatement in one regard; he’d gotten his buttons half undone, and his shirt hung askew on his shoulders, but that was as far as he was likely to make it unaided.
In other respects, though…the broad expanse of his chest was exposed, showing the small hollow in the center where I was accustomed to rest my chin, and the small curly hairs sprang up joyous around his nipples. He saw me looking at him, and reached for one of my hands, clasping it to his breast. He was startlingly warm, and I moved instinctively toward him. The other arm swept round me and he bent to kiss me. He made such a thorough job of it that I felt mildly intoxicated, merely from sharing his breath.
“All right,” I said, laughing. “If you’re ready, so am I. Let me undress you first, though—I’ve had enough mending today.”
He stood still as I stripped him, scarcely moving. He didn’t move, either, as I attended to my own clothes and turned down the bed.
I climbed in and turned to look at him, ruddy and magnificent in the sunset glow. He was finely made as a Greek statue, long-nosed and high-cheeked as a profile on a Roman coin. The wide, soft mouth was set in a dreamy smile, and the slanted eyes looked far away. He was perfectly immobile.
I viewed him with some concern.
“Jamie,” I said, “how, exactly, do you decide whether you’re drunk?”
Aroused by my voice, he swayed alarmingly to one side, but caught himself on the edge of the mantelpiece. His eyes drifted around the room, then fixed on my face. For an instant, they blazed clear and pellucid with intelligence.
“Och, easy, Sassenach. If ye can stand up, you’re not drunk.” He let go of the mantelpiece, took a step toward me, and crumpled slowly onto the hearth, eyes blank, and a wide, sweet smile on his dreaming face.
“Oh,” I said.
* * *
The yodeling of roosters outside and the clashing of pots below woke me just after dawn the next morning. The figure next to me jerked, waking abruptly, then froze as the sudden movement jarred his head.
I raised up on one elbow to examine the remains. Not too bad, I thought critically. His eyes were screwed tightly shut against stray beams of sunlight, and his hair stuck out in all directions like a hedgehog’s spines, but his skin was pale and clear, and the hands clutching the coverlet were steady.
I pried up one eyelid, peered within, and said playfully, “Anybody home?”
The twin to the eye I was looking at opened slowly, to add its baleful glare to the first. I dropped my hand and smiled charmingly at him.
“Good morning.”
“That, Sassenach, is entirely a matter of opinion,” he said, and closed both eyes again.
“Have you got any idea how much you weigh?” I asked conversationally.
“No.”
The abruptness of the reply suggested that he not only didn’t know, he didn’t care, but I persisted in my efforts.
“Something around fifteen stone, I make it. About as much as a good-sized boar. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any beaters to hang you upside down from a spear and carry you home to the smoking shed.”
One eye opened again, and looked consideringly at me, then at the hearthstone on the far side of the room. One corner of his mouth lifted in a reluctant smile.
“How did you get me in bed?”
“I didn’t. I couldn’t budge you, so I just laid a quilt over you and left you on the hearth. You came to life and crawled in under your own power, somewhere in the middle of the night.”
He seemed surprised, and opened the other eye again.
“I did?”
I nodded and tried to smooth down the hair that spiked out over his left ear.
“Oh, yes. Very single-minded, you were.”
“Single-minded?” He frowned, thinking, and stretched, thrusting his arms up over his head. Then he looked startled.
“No. I couldn’t have.”
“Yes, you could. Twice.”
He squinted down his chest, as though looking for confirmation of this improbable statement, then looked back at me.
“Really? Well, that’s hardly fair; I dinna remember a thing about it.” He hesitated