Voyager - Diana Gabaldon [162]
I tried to smile at him, but my lips trembled.
“What about you? How do you know what I’m like? You don’t know what I’ve been doing for the last twenty years, either. I might be a horrible person, for all you know!”
The smile on his lips moved into his eyes, lighting them with humor. “I suppose ye might, at that. But, d’ye know, Sassenach—I dinna think I care?”
I stood looking at him for another minute, then heaved a deep sigh that popped a few more stitches in my gown.
“Neither do I.”
It seemed absurd to be shy with him, but shy I was. The adventures of the evening, and his words to me, had opened up the chasm of reality—those twenty unshared years that gaped between us, and the unknown future that lay beyond. Now we had come to the place where we would begin to know each other again, and discover whether we were in fact the same two who had once existed as one flesh—and whether we might be one again.
A knock at the door broke the tension. It was a small servingmaid, with a tray of supper. She bobbed shyly to me, smiled at Jamie, and laid both supper—cold meat, hot broth, and warm oatbread with butter—and the fire with a quick and practiced hand, then left us with a murmured “Good e’en to ye.”
We ate slowly, talking carefully only of neutral things; I told him how I had made my way from Craigh na Dun to Inverness, and made him laugh with stories of Mr. Graham and Master Georgie. He in turn told me about Mr. Willoughby; how he had found the little Chinese, half-starved and dead drunk, lying behind a row of casks on the docks at Burntisland, one of the shipping ports near Edinburgh.
We said nothing much of ourselves, but as we ate, I became increasingly conscious of his body, watching his fine, long hands as he poured wine and cut meat, seeing the twist of his powerful torso under his shirt, and the graceful line of neck and shoulder as he stooped to retrieve a fallen napkin. Once or twice, I thought I saw his gaze linger on me in the same way—a sort of hesitant avidity—but he quickly glanced away each time, hooding his eyes so that I could not tell what he saw or felt.
As the supper concluded, the same thought was uppermost in both our minds. It could scarcely be otherwise, considering the place in which we found ourselves. A tremor of mingled fear and anticipation shot through me.
At last, he drained his wineglass, set it down, and met my eyes directly.
“Will ye…” He stopped, the flush deepening on his features, but met my eyes, swallowed once, and went on. “Will ye come to bed wi’ me, then? I mean,” he hurried on, “it’s cold, and we’re both damp, and—”
“And there aren’t any chairs,” I finished for him. “All right.” I pulled my hand loose from his, and turned toward the bed, feeling a queer mix of excitement and hesitance that made my breath come short.
He pulled off his breeches and stockings quickly, then glanced at me.
“I’m sorry, Sassenach; I should have thought ye’d need help wi’ your laces.”
So he didn’t undress women often, I thought, before I could stop myself, and my lips curved in a smile at the thought.
“Well, it’s not laces,” I murmured, “but if you’d give a hand in the back there…” I laid aside my cloak, and turned my back to him, lifting my hair to expose the neck of the dress.
There was a puzzled silence. Then I felt a finger sliding slowly down the groove of my backbone.
“What’s that?” he said, sounding startled.
“It’s called a zipper,” I said, smiling, though he couldn’t see me. “See the little tab at the top? Just take hold of that, and pull it straight down.”
The zipper teeth parted with a muted ripping noise, and the remnants of Jessica Gutenburg sagged free. I pulled my arms out of the sleeves and let the dress drop heavily around my feet, turning to face Jamie before I lost my nerve.
He jerked back, startled by this sudden chrysalis-shedding. Then he blinked, and stared at me.
I stood in front of him in nothing but my shoes and gartered rose-silk stockings. I had an overwhelming urge to snatch the dress back up, but