Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [166]
“Two hundred years from now, I shall most certainly be dead, Sassenach,” he said. He smiled crookedly. “Be it Indians, wild beasts, a plague, the hangman’s rope, or only the blessing of auld age—I will be dead.”
“Yes.”
“And while ye were there—in your own time—I was dead, no?”
I nodded, wordless. Even now, I could look back and see the abyss of despair into which that parting had dropped me, and from which I had climbed, one painful inch at a time.
Now I stood with him again upon the summit of life, and could not contemplate descent. He reached down and plucked a stalk of grass, spreading the soft green beards between his fingers.
“ ‘Man is like the grass of the field,’ ” he quoted softly, brushing the slender stem over my knuckles, where they rested against his chest. “ ‘Today it blooms; tomorrow it withers and is cast into the oven.’ ”
He lifted the silky green tuft to his lips and kissed it, then touched it gently to my mouth.
“I was dead, my Sassenach—and yet all that time, I loved you.”
I closed my eyes, feeling the tickle of the grass on my lips, light as the touch of sun and air.
“I loved you, too,” I whispered. “I always will.”
The grass fell away. Eyes still closed, I felt him lean toward me, and his mouth on mine, warm as sun, light as air.
“So long as my body lives, and yours—we are one flesh,” he whispered. His fingers touched me, hair and chin and neck and breast, and I breathed his breath and felt him solid under my hand. Then I lay with my head on his shoulder, the strength of him supporting me, the words deep and soft in his chest.
“And when my body shall cease, my soul will still be yours. Claire—I swear by my hope of heaven, I will not be parted from you.”
The wind stirred the leaves of the chestnut trees nearby, and the scents of late summer rose up rich around us; pine and grass and strawberries, sun-warmed stone and cool water, and the sharp, musky smell of his body next to mine.
“Nothing is lost, Sassenach; only changed.”
“That’s the first law of thermodynamics,” I said, wiping my nose.
“No,” he said. “That’s faith.”
PART SIX
Je T’Aime
17
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Inverness, Scotland, December 23, 1969
He checked the train schedule for the dozenth time, then prowled around the manse’s living room, too restless to settle. An hour yet to wait.
The room was half dismantled, with piles of cartons lying higgledy-piggledy on every surface. He’d promised to have the place cleared out by the New Year, except for the pieces Fiona wanted to keep.
He wandered down the hall and into the kitchen, stood staring into the ancient refrigerator for a moment, decided he wasn’t hungry and closed the door.
He wished that Mrs. Graham and the Reverend could have met Brianna, and she them. He smiled at the empty kitchen table, remembering an adolescent conversation with the two elderly people, when he, in the grip of a mad—and unrequited—lust for the tobacconist’s daughter, had asked how to know if one was truly in love.
“If ye have to ask yourself if you’re in love, laddie—then ye aren’t,” Mrs. Graham had assured him, tapping her spoon on the edge of her mixing bowl for emphasis. “And keep your paws off wee Mavis MacDowell, or her Da will murder ye.”
“When you’re in love, Rog, you’ll know it with no telling,” the Reverend had chimed in, dipping a finger in the cake batter. He ducked in mock alarm as Mrs. Graham raised a threatening spoon, and laughed. “And do mind yourself with young Mavis, lad; I’m not old enough to be a grandfather.”
Well, they’d been right. He knew, with no telling—had known since he’d met Brianna Randall. What he didn’t know for sure was whether Brianna felt the same.
He couldn’t wait any longer. He slapped his pocket to be sure of his keys, ran down the stairs and out into the winter rain that had begun to pelt down just after breakfast. They did say a cold shower was the thing. Hadn’t worked with Mavis, though.
December 24, 1969
“Now, the plum pudding’s in the warming oven, and the hard sauce in the wee pan to the back,” Fiona instructed