The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [344]
“Wha—?” said Jemima next to me, in woozy astonishment. “Whozat?”
Receiving no answer, she flounced, muttered, and at last lay down again, to fall promptly fast asleep.
I did not.
49
IN VINO VERITAS
I LAY SLEEPLESS for quite a long time, listening to the peaceful snores and rustlings of my bedmates, and to the agitated thump of my own heart. Every nerve in my body felt as though it were sticking out through my skin, and when Jemima Hatfield rolled unconsciously into me, I jabbed her viciously in the ribs with my elbow, so that she uttered a startled “Whoof?” and sat halfway up, blinking and muttering, before collapsing slowly back into the communal sea of sleep.
As for me, my small bark of consciousness was adrift on the flood, spinning rudderless, but without the slightest chance of being pulled under.
I simply couldn’t decide how to feel. On the one hand, I was aroused—unwillingly, to be sure, but still most definitely aroused. Whoever my nocturnal visitor had been, he knew his way around a woman’s body.
That would argue for its being Jamie, I thought. Still, I had no idea how experienced Phillip Wylie might be in the arts of love—I had spurned his approaches in the stable so promptly that he had had no chance of demonstrating any skills he might possess in that direction.
But my midnight visitor had not used any caress that I could positively identify as being in Jamie’s repertoire. Now, if he had used his mouth . . . I shied away from that line of thought like a spooked horse, and Jemima gave a muffled grunt as I convulsed slightly, my skin rippling in involuntary response to the images it evoked.
I didn’t know whether to feel amused or outraged, seduced or violated. I was extremely angry; I was sure of that much, at least, and the surety gave me some small anchor in the maelstrom of emotion. Still, I had no idea as to the correct target of my anger, and with nowhere to aim that particularly destructive emotion, it was simply crashing round inside me, knocking things down and leaving dents.
“Oof,” said Jemima, in a pointed—and quite conscious—tone of voice. Evidently I wasn’t the only one being dented by my emotions.
“Mmmm?” I murmured, feigning half-sleep. “Glrgl. Bzg.”
There was a small tinge of guilt in the mix, as well.
If I were sure it had been Jamie, would I be angry?
The worst of it was, I realized, that there was absolutely nothing I could do to find out who it had been. I could scarcely ask Jamie whether he had crept in and fondled me in the darkness—because if he hadn’t, his immediate response would certainly be to assassinate Phillip Wylie bare-handed.
I felt as though tiny electric eels were squirming under my skin. I stretched as hard as I could, alternately tensed and relaxed every muscle—and still could find no way to keep still.
At last, I slid cautiously off the bed, and made my way to the door, with a glance at my erstwhile bedmates, who lay slumbering peacefully under the quilts like a row of perfumed sausages. Moving with great stealth, I eased the door open and peeked out into the hallway. It was either very late or very early; the tall window at the end of the corridor had gone to gray, but the last of the stars still showed, vanishing pinpoints on the charcoal satin of the sky.
It was cold in the hall, away from the contained body heat of the women, but I welcomed the chill; the blood was pulsing just under my skin, and I bloomed with heat and agitation. A nice cooldown was exactly what I wanted. I made my way quietly to the back stairs, meaning to go down and outside for a breath of air.
I stopped dead at the top of the staircase. A man stood at the foot of the stair, a silhouette tall and black against the panes of the double French doors. I didn’t think I had made any sound, but he turned at once, face lifted toward me. Even in the poor light, I knew at once that it was Jamie.
He was still clad in the clothes