The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [611]
“Did he explode?” Germain asked, interested.
Mrs. Bug shook briefly with laughter.
“No, that he didna, laddie. Though I did hear as how it was a near thing.”
“What was it finally shifted him, then?” Jamie asked.
“She finally said she’d marry me, and not the other fellow.” Mr. Bug, who had been dozing in the corner of the settle through the evening, stood up and stretched himself, then put a hand on his wife’s shoulder, smiling tenderly down at her upturned face. “’Twas a great relief, to be sure.”
IT WAS LATE when we went to bed, after a convivial evening that ended with Fergus singing the prostitute’s ballad in its lengthy entirety to general applause, Jamie and German beating time on the table with their hands.
Jamie lay back against the pillow, hands crossed behind his head, chuckling to himself now and then as bits of the song came back to him. It was cold enough that the windowpanes were misted with our breath, but he wore no nightshirt, and I admired the sight of him as I sat brushing my hair.
He had recovered well from the snakebite, but was still thinner than usual, so that the graceful arch of his collarbone was visible, and the long muscles of his arms roped from bone to bone, distinct beneath his skin. The skin of his chest was bronze where his shirt usually lay open, but the tender skin on the underside of his arms was white as milk, a tracery of blue veins showing. The light shadowed the prominent bones of his face and glimmered from his hair, cinnamon and amber where it lay across his shoulders, dark auburn and red-gold where it dusted his bared body.
“The candlelight becomes ye, Sassenach,” he said, smiling, and I saw that he was watching me, blue eyes the color of bottomless ocean.
“I was just thinking the same of you,” I said, standing up and putting aside my brush. My hair floated in a cloud round my shoulders, clean, soft, and shining. It smelled of marigolds and sunflowers and so did my skin. Bathing and shampooing in winter was a major undertaking, but I had been determined not to go to bed smelling of pig shit.
“Let it burn, then,” he said, reaching out to stop me as I bent to blow the candle out. His hand curled round my wrist, urging me toward him.
“Come to bed, and let me watch ye. I like the way the light moves in your eyes; like whisky, when ye pour it on a haggis, and then set it on fire.”
“How poetic,” I murmured, but made no demur as he made room for me, pulled loose the drawstring of my shift, and slipped it off me. The air of the room was cold enough to make my nipples draw up tight, but the skin of his chest was delightfully warm on my breasts as he gathered me into him, sighing with pleasure.
“It’s Fergus’s song inspiring me, I expect,” he said, cupping one of my breasts in his hand and weighing it with a nice balance between admiration and appraisal. “God, ye’ve the loveliest breasts. Ye recall that one verse, where he says the lady’s tits were so enormous, she could wrap them round his ears? Yours aren’t so big as that, of course, but d’ye think ye maybe could wrap them round—”
“I don’t think they need to be enormous to do that,” I assured him. “Move up. Besides, I don’t believe it’s actually wrapping round, so much as it is squashing together, and they’re certainly large enough for . . . see?”
“Oh,” he said, sounding deeply gratified and a little breathless. “Aye, ye’re right. That’s . . . oh, that looks verra beautiful, Sassenach—at least from here.”
“It looks very interesting from here, too,” I assured him, trying neither to laugh nor go cross-eyed. “Which one of us moves, do you think?”
“Me, for now. I’m no chafing ye, Sassenach?” he inquired.
“Well, just a bit. Wait, though—” I reached out a hand, feeling blindly over the table by the bed. I got hold of the little pot of creamy almond ointment I used