The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [347]
The sound of voices coming toward the stable galvanized me into motion, though. I sat up abruptly, yanked my shift up over my shoulders, and began to brush straw from my hair. Jamie rolled up onto his knees, his back to me, and began hastily to tuck in his shirttail.
The voices outside stopped abruptly, and we both froze. There was a brief, charged silence, and then the sound of footsteps, delicately retreating. I let out the breath I had been holding, feeling my racing heart begin to slow. The stable was filled with the rustlings and whickers of the horses, who had heard the voices and footsteps, too. They were getting hungry.
“So you won,” I said to Jamie’s back. My voice sounded strange to me, as though I hadn’t used it in a long time.
“I promised ye I would.” He spoke softly, head bent as he rearranged the folds of his plaid.
I stood up, feeling mildly dizzy, and leaned against the wall to keep my balance as I brushed sand and straw from my feet. The rough feel of the bricks behind me was a vivid reminder, and I spread my hands out against them, bracing myself against the rush of recalled sensation.
“Are ye all right, Sassenach?” He turned his head sharply to look up at me, sensing my movement.
“Yes. Yes,” I repeated. “Fine. Just . . . I’m fine. And you?”
He looked pale and scruffy, his face stubbled and hollow with strain, eyes smudged black from a long and sleepless night. He met my eyes for a moment, then glanced away. A hint of color showed on his cheekbones, and he swallowed audibly.
“I—” he began, then stopped. He got to his feet and stood before me. His formal queue had come undone, and the tails of his hair splayed over his shoulder, glimmering redly as the bar of light from the door lit him.
“Ye dinna hate me?” he asked abruptly. Taken by surprise, I laughed.
“No,” I said. “Do you think I should?”
His mouth twitched a little, and he rubbed his knuckles across it, scraping on the stubble of his beard.
“Well, maybe so,” he said, “but I’m glad if ye don’t.”
He took my hands gently in his own, his thumb rubbing lightly across the interlaced pattern of my silver ring. His hands were cold, chilled by the dawn.
“Whyever do you think I might hate you?” I asked. “Because of the rings, do you mean?” Granted, I would have been upset and furious with him, had he lost either one. Since he hadn’t . . . Of course, he had caused me to worry all night about where he was and what he was doing, to say nothing of sneaking into my room and making improper advances to my feet. Perhaps I ought to be annoyed with him, after all.
“Well, starting wi’ that,” he said dryly. “I havena let my pride get the better of me in some time, but I couldna seem to stop myself, what with wee Phillip Wylie preenin’ about, smirkin’ at your breasts, and—”
“He was?” I hadn’t noticed that part.
“He was,” Jamie said, glowering momentarily at the thought. Then he dismissed Phillip Wylie, returning to the catalogue of his own sins.
“And then, draggin’ ye out of the house in your shift and going after ye like a ravening beast—” He gently touched my neck, where I could still feel the tingling soreness of a bite mark.
“Oh. Well, I quite liked that part, actually.”
“You did?” His eyes flicked wide and blue in momentary startlement.
“Yes. Though I rather think I have bruises on my bottom.”
“Oh.” He looked down, apparently abashed, though the corner of his mouth twitched slightly. “I’m sorry for that. When I’d finished—at the whist, I mean—I couldna think of anything but finding ye, Sassenach. I went up and down that stair a dozen times, going to your door, and back away again.”
“Oh, you did?” I was pleased to hear this, as it seemed to increase the odds that he had in fact been my midnight visitor.
He picked up a hank of my rumpled hair and ran his fingers gently through it.
“I kent I couldna sleep, and thought, well, I shall go out and walk in the night for a time, and I would, but then I should find myself again outside your room, not knowing how I’d come there, but only trying to think how I might get to ye—trying to will ye to