Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [30]
“I daresay,” he said. “But when a bloody fiend’s tryin’ his best to chop off the top of my head, I’m no so much concerned with his point of view, Sassenach.”
“Well, you can’t really blame them,” I protested.
“I most certainly can,” he assured me. “If one of the brutes scalps ye, I shall blame him a great deal.”
“Ah … hmm,” I said. I cleared my throat and had another stab at it. “Well, what if a bunch of strangers came round and tried to kill you and shove you off the land you’d always lived on?”
“They have,” he said, very dryly indeed. “If they hadna, I should still be in Scotland, aye?”
“Well …” I said, floundering. “But all I mean is—you’d fight, too, under those circumstances, wouldn’t you?”
He drew a deep breath and exhaled strongly through his nose.
“If an English dragoon came round to my house and began to worry me,” he said precisely, “I should certainly fight him. I would also have not the slightest hesitation in killing him. I would not cut off his hair and wave it about, and I wouldna be eating his private parts, either. I am not a savage, Sassenach.”
“I didn’t say you were,” I protested. “All I said was—”
“Besides,” he added with inexorable logic, “I dinna mean to be killing any Indians. If they keep to themselves, I shallna be worrying them a bit.”
“I’m sure they’ll be relieved to know that,” I murmured, giving up for the present.
We lay cradled close together in the hollow of the rock, lightly glued with sweat, watching the stars. I felt at once shatteringly happy and mildly apprehensive. Could this state of exaltation possibly last? Once I had taken “forever” for granted between us, but I was younger, then.
Soon, God willing, we would settle; find a place to make a home and a life. I wanted nothing more, and yet at the same time, I worried. We had known each other only a few months since my return. Each touch, each word was still at once tinged with memory and new with rediscovery. What would happen when we were thoroughly accustomed to each other, living day by day in a routine of mundane tasks?
“Will ye grow tired of me, do ye think?” he murmured. “Once we’re settled?”
“I was just wondering the same thing about you.”
“No,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “That I willna, Sassenach.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” he pointed out. “Before. We were wed three years, and I wanted ye as much on the last day as the first. More, maybe,” he added softly, thinking, as I was, of the last time we had made love before he sent me through the stones.
I leaned down and kissed him. He tasted clean and fresh, faintly scented with the pungency of sex.
“I did, too.”
“Then dinna trouble yourself about it, Sassenach, and neither will I.” He stroked my hair, smoothing damp curls off my forehead. “I could know ye all my life, I think, and always love you. And often as I’ve lain wi’ you, ye still surprise me mightily sometimes, like ye did tonight.”
“I do? Why, what have I done?” I stared down at him, surprised myself.
“Oh … well. I didna mean … that is—”
He sounded suddenly shy, and there was an unaccustomed stiffness in his body.
“Mm?” I kissed the tip of his ear.
“Ah … when I came upon you … what ye were doing … I mean—were ye doing what I thought?”
I smiled against his shoulder in the darkness.
“I suppose that depends what you thought, doesn’t it?”
He lifted up on one elbow, his skin coming away from mine with a small sucking noise. The damp spot where he had adhered was suddenly cool. He rolled onto his side and grinned at me.
“Ye ken verra well what I thought, Sassenach.”
I touched his chin, shadowed with sprouting whiskers.
“I do. And you know perfectly well what I was doing, too, so why are you asking?”
“Well, I—I didna think women did that, is all.”
The moon was bright enough for me to see his half-cocked eyebrow.
“Well, men do,” I pointed out. “Or you do, at least. You told me so—when you were in prison, you said you—”
“That was different!” I could see his mouth twist as he tried to decide what