The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [129]
He shifted a bit, clearly uncomfortable.
“Aye, well,” he said, looking away. “I just—I mean—well, I had a wee thing I meant to give ye, only I lost it, but then you seemed to think it a sweet thing that wee Roger had plucked a few gowans for Brianna, and I—” He broke off, muttering something that sounded like “Ifrinn!” under his breath.
I wanted very much to laugh. Instead, I lifted his hand and kissed his knuckles, lightly. He looked embarrassed, but pleased. His thumb traced the edge of a half-healed blister on my palm, left by a hot kettle.
“Here, Sassenach, ye need a bit of this, too. Let me,” he said, and leaned to take a dab of the green ointment. He engulfed my hand in his, warm and still slippery with the oil and beeswax mixture.
I resisted for a moment, but then let him take my hand, making deep slow circles on my palm that made me want to close my eyes and melt quietly. I gave a small sigh of pleasure, and must have closed my eyes after all, because I didn’t see him move in close to kiss me; just felt the brief soft touch of his mouth.
I raised my other hand, lazily, and he took it, too, his fingers smoothing mine. I let my fingers twine with his, thumbs jousting gently, the heels of our hands lightly rubbing. He stood close enough that I felt the warmth of him, and the delicate brush of the sun-bleached hairs on his arm as he reached past my hip for more of the ointment.
He paused, kissing me lightly once more in passing. Flames hissed on the hearth like shifting tides, and the firelight flickered dimly on the whitewashed walls, like light dancing on the surface of water far above. We might have been alone together at the bottom of the sea.
“Roger wasn’t being strictly romantic, you know,” I said. “Or maybe he was—depending how one wants to look at it.”
Jamie looked quizzical, as he took my hand again. Our fingers locked and twined, moving slowly, and I sighed with pleasure.
“Aye?”
“Bree asked me about birth control, and I told her what methods there are now—which are frankly not all that good, though better than nothing. But old Grannie Bacon gave me some seeds that she says the Indians use for contraception; supposed to be very effective.”
Jamie’s face underwent the most comical change, from drowsy pleasure to wide-eyed astonishment.
“Birth con—what? She—ye mean he—those clatty weeds—”
“Well, yes. Or at least I think they may help prevent pregnancy.”
“Mmphm.” The movement of his fingers slowed, and his brows drew together—more in concern than disapproval, I thought. Then he returned to the job of massaging my hands, enveloping them in his much larger grasp with a decided movement that obliged me to yield to him.
He was quiet for a few moments, working the ointment into my fingers more in the businesslike way of a man rubbing saddle soap into harness than one making tender love to his wife’s devoted hands. I shifted slightly, and he seemed to realize what he was doing, for he stopped, frowning, then squeezed my hands lightly and let his face relax. He lifted my hand to his lips, kissed it, then resumed his massage, much more slowly.
“Do ye think—” he began, and stopped.
“What?”
“Mmphm. It’s only—does it not seem a bit strange to ye, Sassenach? That a young woman newly wed should be thinking of such a thing?”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said, rather sharply. “It seems entirely sensible to me. And they aren’t all that newly wed—they’ve been . . . I mean, they have got a child already.”
His nostrils flared in soundless disagreement.
“She has a child,” he said. “That’s what I mean, Sassenach. It seems to me that a young woman well-suited with her man wouldna be thinking first thing how not to bear his child. Are ye sure all is well between them?”
I paused, frowning as I considered the notion.
“I think so,” I said at last, slowly. “Remember, Jamie—Bree comes from a time where women can decide whether or when to have babies, with a fair amount of certainty. She’d feel that such a thing was her right.”
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