Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [388]
I reined up and stared at him for a moment, leaning on the pommel. “Your nose is blue,” I remarked conversationally. I glanced downward. “And so are your feet.”
He grinned and wiped his nose on the back of his hand.
“So are my balls. Want to warm them for me?” Cold or not, he was plainly in good spirits. I slid off the horse and stood in front of him, shaking my head.
“It’s no use at all, is it?” I asked.
“What isn’t?” He rubbed his hand on the ragged breeches.
“Being angry with you. You don’t care a bit whether you give yourself pneumonia, or get eaten by bears, or worry me half to death, do you?”
“Well, I’m no much worrit about the bears. They sleep in the winter, ye know.”
I lost my temper and swung my hand at him, intending to slap his ear through the side of his head. He caught my wrist and held it without difficulty, laughing at me. After a moment’s fruitless struggle, I gave up and laughed too.
“Are you coming back, now?” I asked. “Or have you got anything else to prove?”
He gestured back along the road with his chin. “Take the horse back to that big oak tree and wait for me there. I’ll walk that far. Alone.”
I bit my tongue to repress the several remarks I felt bubbling to the surface, and mounted. At the oak tree, I got off and looked down the road. After a moment, though, I found I couldn’t bear to watch his labored progress. When he fell the first time, I clutched the reins tight in my gloved hands, then resolutely turned my back, and waited.
We barely made it back to the guests’ wing, but managed, staggering through the corridor, his arm looped over my shoulder for support. I spotted Brother Roger, anxiously lurking in the hall, and sent him. scampering for a warming pan, while I steered my awkward burden into the chamber and dumped him onto the bed. He grunted at the impact, but lay still, eyes closed, as I proceeded to strip the filthy rags off him.
“All right; in you get.”
He rolled obediently under the covers I held back for him. I thrust the warming pan hastily between the sheets at the foot of the bed and shoved it back and forth. When I removed it, he stretched his long legs down and relaxed with a blissful sigh as his feet reached the pocket of warmth.
I went quietly about the room, picking up the discarded clothes, straightening the trifling disorder on the table, putting fresh charcoal in the brazier, adding a pinch of elecampane to sweeten the smoke. I thought he was asleep, and was startled when he spoke behind me.
“Claire.”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“Oh.” I was mildly surprised, but undeniably pleased. “I love you too.”
He sighed, and opened his eyes halfway.
“Randall,” he said. “Toward the end. That’s what he wanted.” I was even more startled by this, and replied cautiously.
“Oh?”
“Aye.” His eyes were fixed on the open window, where the snow clouds filled the space with a deep, even grey.
“I was lying on the floor, and he was lying next to me. He was naked by then, too, and both of us were smeared with blood—and other things. I remember trying to lift my head, and feeling my cheek stuck to the stone of the floor with dried blood.” He frowned, a distant look in his eyes as he conjured the memory.
“I was far gone by then; so far that I didna even feel much pain—I was just terribly tired, and everything seemed far away and not very real.”
“Just as well,” I said, with some asperity, and he smiled briefly.
“Aye, just as well. I was drifting a bit, half-fainted, I expect, so I don’t know how long we both lay there, but I came awake to find him holding me and pressing himself against me.” He hesitated, as though the next part were difficult to say.
“I’d not fought him ’til then. But I was so tired, and I thought I couldna bear it again.…anyway, I started to squirm away from him, not really fighting, just pulling back. He had his arms round my neck, and he pulled on me, and buried his face in my shoulder, and I could feel he was crying. I couldna tell what he was saying for a bit, and then I could; he was saying ‘I love you, I