The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [131]
I had thought about it. And had come very close indeed to asking a surgeon friend to perform the sterilization for me. Cold blood and clear head had argued for it; no sense in taking chances. And yet . . . there was no guarantee that I would survive the journey, would reach the right time or place, would find him again. Still less, a chance that I might conceive again at my age.
And yet, gone from him for so long, not knowing if I might find him—I could not bring myself to destroy any possibility between us. I did not want another child. But if I found him, and he should want it . . . then I would risk it for him.
I touched him, lightly, and he made a small sound in his throat and laid his face against my hair, holding me tight. Our lovemaking was always risk and promise—for if he held my life in his hands when he lay with me, I held his soul, and knew it.
“I thought . . . I thought you’d never see Brianna. And I didn’t know about Willie. It wasn’t right for me to take away any chance of your having another child—not without telling you.”
You are Blood of my blood, I had said to him, Bone of my bone. That was true, and always would be, whether children came of it or not.
“I dinna want another child,” he whispered. “I want you.”
His hand rose, as though by itself, touched my breast with a fingertip, left a shimmer of the scented ointment on my skin. I wrapped my hand, slippery and green-scented, round him, and stepped backward, bringing him with me toward the bed. I had just enough presence of mind left to extinguish the candle.
“Don’t worry for Bree,” I said, reaching up to touch him as he rose over me, looming black against the firelight. “Roger picked the weeds for her. He knows what she wants.”
He gave a deep sigh, the breath of a laugh, that caught in his throat as he came to me, and ended in a small groan of pleasure and completion as he slid between my legs, well-oiled and ready.
“I ken what I want, too,” he said, voice muffled in my hair. “I shall pick ye another posy, tomorrow.”
DRUGGED WITH FATIGUE, languid with love, and lulled by the comforts of a soft, clean bed, I slept like the dead.
Somewhere toward dawn, I began to dream—pleasant dreams of touch and color, without form. Small hands touched my hair, patted my face; I turned on my side, half-conscious, dreaming of nursing a child in my sleep. Tiny soft fingers kneaded my breast, and my hand came up to cup the child’s head. It bit me.
I shrieked, shot bolt upright in bed, and saw a gray form race across the quilt and disappear over the end of the bed. I shrieked again, louder.
Jamie shot sideways out of bed, rolled on the floor, and came up standing, shoulders braced and fists half-clenched.
“What?” he demanded, glaring wildly round in search of marauders. “Who? What?”
“A rat!” I said, pointing a trembling finger at the spot where the gray shape had vanished into the crevice between bed-foot and wall.
“Oh.” His shoulders relaxed. He scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair, blinking. “A rat, aye?”
“A rat in our bed,” I said, not disposed to view the event with any degree of calm. “It bit me!” I peered closely at my injured breast. No blood to speak of; only a couple of tiny puncture marks that stung slightly. I thought of rabies, though, and my blood ran cold.
“Dinna fash yourself, Sassenach. I’ll deal with it.” Squaring his shoulders once more, Jamie picked up the poker from the hearth and advanced purposefully on the bed-foot. The footboard was solid; there was a space of only a few inches between it and the wall. The rat must be trapped, unless it had managed to escape in the scant seconds between my scream and Jamie’s eruption from the quilts.
I got up onto my knees, ready to leap off the bed if necessary. Scowling in concentration, Jamie raised the poker, reached out with his free hand, and flipped the hanging coverlid out of the way.
He whipped the poker down with great force—and jerked it aside, smashing into the wall.
“What?” I said.
“What?