The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [331]
He saw Gerald Forbes’s eyes rest on her, alight with speculation, and he moved at once by reflex, interposing himself neatly between his wife and the lawyer. He felt the man’s eyes slap against his back, and smiled grimly to himself. Mine, corbie, he thought to himself.
“Can ye not decide where to begin, Sassenach?” He reached down and took the empty wineglass from her hand, taking advantage of the movement to come close against her back, feeling the warmth of her through his clothes.
She laughed, and swayed back against him, leaning on his arm. She smelled faintly of rice powder and warm skin, with the scent of rose hips in her hair.
“I’m not even terribly hungry. I was just counting the jellies and preserves. There are thirty-seven different ones—unless I’ve missed my count.”
He spared a glance for the table, which did indeed hold a bewildering array of silver dishes, porcelain bowls, and wooden platters, groaning with more food than would feed a Highland village for a month. He wasn’t hungry, either, though. At least not for puddings and savories.
“Well, Ulysses will have seen to that; he wouldna have my aunt’s hospitality put to shame.”
“No fear of that,” she assured him. “Did you see the barbecue pit out back? There are no fewer than three whole oxen roasting on spits out there, and at least a dozen pigs. I didn’t even try to count the chickens and ducks. Do you think it’s just hospitality, or is your aunt meaning to make a show of what a good job Duncan’s done—showing off how profitable River Run is under his management, I mean?”
“I suppose she might,” he said, though privately he thought it unlikely that Jocasta’s motives were either so thoughtful or so generous in nature. He considered that the lavishness of the present celebration was much more likely owing to her desire to wipe Farquard Campbell’s eye, overshadowing the fete he had held at Green River in December, to celebrate his most recent marriage.
And speaking of marriage . . .
“Here, Sassenach.” He deposited her empty glass on a passing tray borne by a servant, and took a full one in return, which he set in her hand.
“Oh, I’m not—” she began, but he forestalled her, taking another glass from the proffered tray and lifting it to her in salute. Her cheeks flushed deeper, and her eyes glowed amber.
“To beauty,” he said softly, smiling.
I FELT PLEASANTLY liquid inside, as though belly and limbs were filled with quicksilver. It wasn’t all to do with the wine, though that was very good. More the release of tension, after all the worries and conflicts of the day.
It had been a quiet, tender wedding, and while the evening’s celebration was likely to be noisy in the extreme—I had heard a number of the younger men plotting vulgar hilarities for the later festivities—I needn’t worry about any of that. My own intent had been to enjoy the delightful supper that had been laid on, perhaps take a glass or two more of the excellent wine . . . and then find Jamie and go to investigate the romantic potential of the stone bench beneath the willows.
Jamie had appeared a trifle prematurely in the program, insofar as I had not yet eaten anything, but I had no objection to rearranging my priorities. There would be plenty of leftovers, after all.
The torchlight burnished him, making hair and brows and skin glow like copper. The evening breeze had come up, flapping tablecloths and pulling the torch flames into fiery tongues, and it nipped strands of hair from his queue and lashed them across his face. He raised his glass, smiling at me across the rim.
“To beauty,” he said softly, then drank, not taking his eyes off me.
The quicksilver shifted, quivering through my hips and down the backs of my legs.
“To . . . ah . . . privacy,” I replied, with a slight lift of my own glass. Feeling pleasantly reckless, I reached slowly up, and deliberately pulled the ornamented lace from my hair. Half-unpinned, curls fell loose down my back, and I heard