Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [169]
Arnold’s attention had been distracted for an instant by the spectacle on the ground, and an instant was more than long enough for the maddened Scotsman he held at bay. By the time I had gathered my wits sufficiently to wriggle out from under the defunct Harry, Arnold had joined his companion in death, throat neatly cut from ear to ear by the sgian dhu that Jamie carried in his stocking.
Jamie knelt beside me, pulling me out from under the corpse. We were both shaking with nerves and shock, and we clung together without speaking for minutes. Still without speaking, he picked me up and carried me away from the two bodies, to a grassy space behind a screen of aspen.
He lowered me to the ground and sat down awkwardly beside me, collapsing as though his knees had suddenly given way. I felt a chilly isolation, as though the winter wind blew through my bones, and reached for him. He raised his head from his knees, face haggard, and stared at me as though he had never seen me before. When I put my hands on his shoulders, he pulled me hard against his chest with a sound midway between a groan and a sob.
We took each other then, in a savage, urgent silence, thrusting fiercely and finishing within moments, driven by a compulsion I didn’t understand, but knew we must obey, or be lost to each other forever. It was not an act of love, but one of necessity, as though we knew that left alone, neither of us could stand. Our only strength lay in fusion, drowning the memories of death and near-rape in the flooding of the senses.
We clung together on the grass then, disheveled, blood-stained, and shivering in the sunshine. Jamie muttered something, his voice so low that I caught only the word “sorry.”
“Not your fault,” I muttered, stroking his hair. “It’s all right, we’re both all right.” I felt dreamlike, as though nothing whatever was real around me, and I dimly recognized the symptoms of delayed shock.
“Not that,” he said. “Not that. It was my fault.…So foolish to come here without taking proper heed. And to let you be…I didna mean that, though. I meant…I’m sorry for using ye as I did just now. To take you like that, so soon after…like some sort of animal. I’m sorry, Claire…I don’t know what…I couldna help it, but…Lord, you’re so cold, mo duinne, your hands are ice, Come then, let me warm ye.”
Shock, too, I thought fuzzily. Funny how it takes some people in talk. Others just shake quietly. Like me. I pressed his mouth against my shoulder to quiet him.
“It’s all right,” I said, over and over. “It’s all right.”
Suddenly a shadow fell across us, making us both jump. Dougal stood glowering down at us, arms folded. He courteously averted his eyes while I hastily did up my laces, frowning instead at Jamie.
“Now look ye, lad, takin’ your pleasure wi’ your wife is all verra weel, but when it comes to leavin’ us all waiting for more than an hour, and being so taen up wi’ each other that ye dinna even hear me comin’—that kind o’ behavior will get ye in trouble one day, laddie. Why, someone could come up behind ye and clap a pistol to your head before ye knew—”
He stopped in his tirade to stare incredulously at me, rolling on the grass in hysterics. Jamie, red as a beetroot, led Dougal to the other side of the aspen screen, explaining in a subdued voice. I continued to whoop and giggle uncontrollably, finally stuffing a handkerchief in my mouth to muffle the noise. The sudden release of emotions, coupled with Dougal’s words, had evoked a picture of Jamie’s face, caught in the act as it were, that I found totally hilarious in my unhinged state. I laughed and moaned until my sides ached. Finally, I sat up, wiping my eyes on my kerchief, to see Dougal and Jamie standing over me, wearing identical expressions of disapproval. Jamie hoisted me to my feet and led me, still hiccuping and snorting occasionally, to where the rest of the men were waiting with the horses.
* * *
Except for a lingering tendency to laugh hysterically over nothing, I seemed to suffer no ill