ON THE NIGHT THAT OUR WEDDING IS ON US 3 страница
“No, she’ll always have it, poor thing. All I can do is try to lessen the severity of the attacks, and keep them from coming too often. It’s in her blood, you see.”
He pulled off the thong that bound back his hair, and shook out the ruddy locks, leaving them ruffled round his head like a mane.
“That doesna make any sense,” he objected, rising to unfasten his breeks. “Ye told me that when a person had the measles, if he lived, he’d not get it again, because it stayed in the blood. And so I couldna catch pox or measles now, because I’d had them both as a child—they’re in my blood.”
“Well, it’s not quite the same thing,” I said, rather lamely. The thought of trying to explain the differences among active immunity, passive immunity, acquired immunity, antibodies, and parasitic infection was more of a challenge than I felt up to, after a long day’s ride.
I dipped the sponge into the basin, let it take up water, then squeezed it out, enjoying the oddly silky, fibrous texture. A fine mist of sand floated out of the pores and settled to the bottom of the china basin. The sponge was softening as it took up water, but I could still feel a hard spot at one edge.
“Speaking of riding—”
Jamie looked mildly startled.
“Were we speaking of riding?”
“Well, no, but I was thinking of it.” I waved a hand, dismissing the inconsequent distinction. “In any case, what do you mean to do about Gideon?”
“Oh.” Jamie dropped his breeks in a puddle on the floor and stretched himself, considering. “Well, I canna afford just to shoot him, I suppose. And he’s a braw enough fellow. I’ll cut him, to start. That may settle his mind a bit.”
“Cut him? Oh, castrate him, you mean. Yes, I suppose that would get his attention, though it seems a bit drastic.” I hesitated a moment, reluctant. “Do you want me to do it?”
He stared at me in amazement, then burst out laughing.
“Nay, Sassenach, I dinna think cutting an eighteen-hand stallion is a job for a woman, surgeon or no. It doesna really require the delicate touch, aye?”
I was just as pleased to hear this. I had been working at the sponge with my thumb; it loosened a bit, and a tiny shell popped suddenly out of a large pore. It floated down through the water, a perfect miniature spiral, tinted pink and purple.
“Oh, look,” I said, delighted.
“What a bonnie wee thing.” Jamie leaned over my shoulder, a big forefinger gently touching the shell at the bottom of the basin. “How did it get into your sponge, I wonder?”
“I expect the sponge ate it by mistake.”
“Ate it?” One ruddy eyebrow shot up at that.
“Sponges are animals,” I explained. “Or to be more exact, stomachs. They suck in water, and just absorb everything edible as it passes through.”
“Ah, so that’s why Bree called the bairn a wee sponge. They do that.” He smiled at the thought of Jemmy.
“Indeed they do.” I sat down and slipped the shift off my shoulders, letting the garment fall to my waist. The fire had taken the chill off the room, but it was still cold enough that the skin of my breasts and arms bloomed into gooseflesh.
Jamie picked up his belt and carefully removed the assorted impedimenta it held, laying out pistol, cartridge box, dirk, and pewter flask on top of the small bureau. He lifted the flask and raised an inquiring eyebrow in my direction.
I nodded enthusiastically, and he turned to find a cup amid the rubble of oddments. With so many people and their belongings stuffed into the house, all of our own saddlebags, plus the bundles and bits acquired at the Gathering, had been carried up and dumped in our room; the humped shadows of the luggage flickering on the wall gave the chamber the odd look of a grotto, lined with lumpy boulders.
Jamie was as much a sponge as his grandson, I reflected, watching him rootle about, completely naked and totally unconcerned about it. He took in everything, and seemed able to deal with whatever came his way, no matter how familiar or foreign to his experience. Maniac stallions, kidnapped priests, marriageable maidservants, headstrong daughters, and heathen sons-in-law . . . Anything he could not defeat, outwit, or alter, he simply accepted—rather like the sponge and its embedded shell.
Pursuing the analogy further, I supposed I was the shell. Snatched out of my own small niche by an unexpected strong current, taken in and surrounded by Jamie and his life. Caught forever among the strange currents that pulsed through this outlandish environment.
The thought gave me a sudden queer feeling. The shell lay still at the bottom of the basin—delicate, beautiful . . . but empty. Rather slowly, I raised the sponge to the back of my neck and squeezed, feeling the tickle of warm water down my back.
For the most part, I felt no regrets. I had chosen to be here; I wanted to be here. And yet now and then small things like our conversation about immunity made me realize just how much had been lost—of what I had had, of what I had been. It was undeniable that some of my soft parts had been digested away, and the thought did make me feel a trifle hollow now and then.
Jamie bent to dig in one of the saddlebags, and the sight of his bare buttocks, turned toward me in all innocence, did much to dispel the momentary sense of disquiet. They were gracefully shaped, rounded with muscle—and pleasingly dusted with a red-gold fuzz that caught the light of fire and candle. The long, pale columns of his thighs framed the shadow of his scrotum, dark and barely visible between them.
He had found a cup at last, and poured it half full. He turned and handed it to me, lifting his eyes from the surface of the dark liquid, startled to find me staring at him.
“What is it?” he said. “Is there something the matter, Sassenach?”
“No,” I said, but I must have sounded rather doubtful, for his brows drew momentarily together.
“No,” I said, more positively. I took the cup from him and smiled, lifting it slightly in acknowledgment. “Only thinking.”
An answering smile touched his lips.
“Aye? Well, ye dinna want to do too much of that late at night, Sassenach. It will give ye the nightmare.”
“Daresay you’re right about that.” I sipped from the cup; rather to my surprise, it was wine—and very good wine. “Where did you get this?”
“From Father Kenneth. It’s sacramental wine—but not consecrated, aye? He said the Sheriff’s men would take it; he would as soon it went with me.”
A slight shadow crossed his face at mention of the priest.
“Do you think he’ll be all right?” I asked. The Sheriff’s men had not struck me as civilized enforcers of an abstruse regulation, but rather as thugs whose prejudice was momentarily constrained by fear—of Jamie.
“I hope so.” Jamie turned aside, restless. “I told the Sheriff that if the Father were misused, he and his men would answer for it.”
I nodded silently, sipping. If Jamie learned of any harm done to Father Donahue, he would indeed make the Sheriff answer for it. The thought made me a trifle uneasy; this wasn’t a good time to make enemies, and the Sheriff of Orange County wasn’t a good enemy to have.
I looked up to find Jamie’s eyes still fixed on me, though now with a look of deep appreciation.
“You’re in good flesh these days, Sassenach,” he observed, tilting his head to one side.
“Flatterer,” I said, giving him a cold look as I picked up the sponge again.
“Ye must have gained a stone, at least, since the spring,” he said with approval, disregarding the look and circling round me to inspect. “It’s been a good fat summer, aye?”
I turned round and flung the wet sponge at his head.
He caught it neatly, grinning.
“I didna realize how well ye’d filled out, Sassenach, so bundled as ye’ve been these last weeks. I havena seen ye naked in a month, at least.” He was still eyeing me with an air of appraisal, as though I were a prime entrant in the Silver Medalist Round at the Shropshire Fat Pigs Show.
“Enjoy it,” I advised him, my cheeks flushed with annoyance. “You may not see it again for quite some time!” I snatched the top of the chemise up again, covering my—undeniably rather full—breasts.
His eyebrows rose in surprise at my tone.
“You’re never angry wi’ me, Sassenach?”
“Certainly not,” I said. “Whatever gives you an idea like that?”
He smiled, rubbing the sponge absently over his chest as his eyes traveled over me. His nipples puckered at the chill, dark and stiff among the ruddy, curling hairs, and the damp gleamed on his skin.
“I like ye fat, Sassenach,” he said softly. “Fat and juicy as a plump wee hen. I like it fine.”
I might have considered this a simple attempt to remove his foot from his mouth, were it not for the fact that naked men are conveniently equipped with sexual lie detectors. He did like it fine.
“Oh,” I said. Rather slowly, I lowered the chemise. “Well, then.”
He lifted his chin, gesturing. I hesitated for a moment, then stood up and let the chemise fall on the floor, joining his breeks. I reached across and took the sponge from his hand.
“I’ll . . . um . . . just finish washing, shall I?” I murmured. I turned my back, put a foot on the stool to wash, and heard an encouraging rumble of appreciation behind me. I smiled to myself, and took my time. The room was getting warmer; by the time I had finished my ablutions, my skin was pink and smooth, with only a slight chill in fingers and toes.
I turned round at last, to see Jamie still watching me, though he still rubbed at his wrist, frowning slightly.
“Did you wash?” I asked. “Even if it doesn’t trouble you, if you have oil from the poison ivy on your skin, it can get on things you touch—and I’m not immune to the stuff.”
“I scrubbed my hands with lye soap,” he assured me, putting them on my shoulders in illustration. Sure enough, he smelled strongly of the acrid soft soap we made from suet and wood-ash—it wasn’t perfumed toilet soap, but it did get things clean. Things like floorboards and iron pots. No wonder he’d been scratching; it wasn’t easy on the skin, and his hands were rough and cracked.
I bent my head and kissed his knuckles, then reached across to the small box where I kept my personal bits and pieces, and took out the jar of skin balm. Made of walnut oil, beeswax, and purified lanolin from boiled sheep’s wool, it was pleasantly soothing, green-scented with the essences of chamomile, comfrey, yarrow, and elderflowers.
I scooped out a bit with my thumbnail, and rubbed it between my hands; it was nearly solid to begin with, but liquefied nicely when warmed.
“Here,” I said, and took one of his hands between my own, rubbing the ointment into the creases of his knuckles, massaging his callused palms. Slowly, he relaxed, letting me stretch each finger as I worked my way down the joints and rubbed more ointment into the tiny scrapes and cuts. There were still marks on his hands where he had kept the leather reins wrapped tightly.
“The posy’s lovely, Jamie,” I said, nodding at the little bouquet in its cup. “Whatever made you do it, though?” While in his own way quite romantic, Jamie was thoroughly practical as well; I didn’t think he had ever given me a completely frivolous present, and he was not a man to see value in any vegetation that could not be eaten, taken medicinally, or brewed into beer.
He shifted a bit, clearly uncomfortable.
“Aye, well,” he said, looking away. “I just—I mean—well, I had a wee thing I meant to give ye, only I lost it, but then you seemed to think it a sweet thing that wee Roger had plucked a few gowans for Brianna, and I—” He broke off, muttering something that sounded like “Ifrinn!” under his breath.
I wanted very much to laugh. Instead, I lifted his hand and kissed his knuckles, lightly. He looked embarrassed, but pleased. His thumb traced the edge of a half-healed blister on my palm, left by a hot kettle.
“Here, Sassenach, ye need a bit of this, too. Let me,” he said, and leaned to take a dab of the green ointment. He engulfed my hand in his, warm and still slippery with the oil and beeswax mixture.
I resisted for a moment, but then let him take my hand, making deep slow circles on my palm that made me want to close my eyes and melt quietly. I gave a small sigh of pleasure, and must have closed my eyes after all, because I didn’t see him move in close to kiss me; just felt the brief soft touch of his mouth.
I raised my other hand, lazily, and he took it, too, his fingers smoothing mine. I let my fingers twine with his, thumbs jousting gently, the heels of our hands lightly rubbing. He stood close enough that I felt the warmth of him, and the delicate brush of the sun-bleached hairs on his arm as he reached past my hip for more of the ointment.
He paused, kissing me lightly once more in passing. Flames hissed on the hearth like shifting tides, and the firelight flickered dimly on the whitewashed walls, like light dancing on the surface of water far above. We might have been alone together at the bottom of the sea.
“Roger wasn’t being strictly romantic, you know,” I said. “Or maybe he was—depending how one wants to look at it.”
Jamie looked quizzical, as he took my hand again. Our fingers locked and twined, moving slowly, and I sighed with pleasure.
“Aye?”
“Bree asked me about birth control, and I told her what methods there are now—which are frankly not all that good, though better than nothing. But old Grannie Bacon gave me some seeds that she says the Indians use for contraception; supposed to be very effective.”
Jamie’s face underwent the most comical change, from drowsy pleasure to wide-eyed astonishment.
“Birth con—what? She—ye mean he—those clatty weeds—”
“Well, yes. Or at least I think they may help prevent pregnancy.”
“Mmphm.” The movement of his fingers slowed, and his brows drew together—more in concern than disapproval, I thought. Then he returned to the job of massaging my hands, enveloping them in his much larger grasp with a decided movement that obliged me to yield to him.
He was quiet for a few moments, working the ointment into my fingers more in the businesslike way of a man rubbing saddle soap into harness than one making tender love to his wife’s devoted hands. I shifted slightly, and he seemed to realize what he was doing, for he stopped, frowning, then squeezed my hands lightly and let his face relax. He lifted my hand to his lips, kissed it, then resumed his massage, much more slowly.
“Do ye think—” he began, and stopped.
“What?”
“Mmphm. It’s only—does it not seem a bit strange to ye, Sassenach? That a young woman newly wed should be thinking of such a thing?”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said, rather sharply. “It seems entirely sensible to me. And they aren’t all that newly wed—they’ve been . . . I mean, they have got a child already.”
His nostrils flared in soundless disagreement.
“She has a child,” he said. “That’s what I mean, Sassenach. It seems to me that a young woman well-suited with her man wouldna be thinking first thing how not to bear his child. Are ye sure all is well between them?”
I paused, frowning as I considered the notion.
“I think so,” I said at last, slowly. “Remember, Jamie—Bree comes from a time where women can decide whether or when to have babies, with a fair amount of certainty. She’d feel that such a thing was her right.”
The wide mouth moved, pursed in thought; I could see him struggling with the notion—one entirely contrary to his own experience.
“That’s the way of it, then?” he asked, finally. “A woman can say, I will, or I won’t—and the man has no say in it?” His voice was filled with astonishment—and disapproval.
I laughed a little.
“Well, it’s not exactly like that. Or not all the time. I mean, there are accidents. And ignorance and foolishness; a lot of women just let things happen. And most women would certainly care what their men thought about it. But yes . . . I suppose if you come right down to it, that’s right.”
He grunted slightly.
“But MacKenzie’s from that time, too. So he’ll think nothing odd of it?”
“He picked the weeds for her,” I pointed out.
“So he did.” The line stayed between his brows, but the frown eased somewhat.
It was growing late, and the muffled rumble of talk and laughter was dying down in the house below. The growing quiet of the house was pierced suddenly by a baby’s wail. Both of us stood still, listening—then relaxed as the murmur of the mother’s voice reached us through the closed door.
“Besides, it’s not so unusual for a young woman to think of such a thing—Marsali came and asked me about it, before she married Fergus.”
“Oh, did she?” One eyebrow went up. “Did ye not tell her, then?”
“Of course I did!”
“Whatever ye told her didna work all that well, did it?” One corner of his mouth curled up in a cynic smile; Germain had been born approximately ten months following his parents’ marriage, and Marsali had become pregnant with Joan within days of weaning him.
I felt a flush rising in my cheeks.
“Nothing works all the time—not even modern methods. And for that matter—nothing works at all if you don’t use it.” In fact, Marsali had wanted contraception not because she didn’t want a baby—but only because she had feared that pregnancy would interfere with the intimacy of her relationship with Fergus. When we get to the prick part, I want to like it had been her words on that memorable occasion, and my own mouth curled at the memory.
My equally cynical guess was that she had liked it fine, and had decided that pregnancy was unlikely to diminish her appreciation of Fergus’s finer points. But that rather came back to Jamie’s fears about Brianna—for surely her intimacy with Roger was well established. Still, that was hardly . . .
One of Jamie’s hands remained entwined with mine; the other left my fingers and reached elsewhere—very lightly.
“Oh,” I said, beginning to lose my train of thought.
“Pills, ye said.” His face was quite close, eyes hooded in thought as he worked. “That’s how it’s done—then?”
“Um . . . oh. Yes.”
“Ye didna bring any with you,” he said. “When ye came back.”
I breathed deep and let it out, feeling as though I were beginning to dissolve.
“No,” I said, a little faintly.
He paused a moment, hand cupped lightly.
“Why not?” he asked quietly.
“I . . . well, I . . . I actually—I thought—you have to keep taking them. I couldn’t have brought enough. There’s a permanent way, a small operation. It’s fairly simple, and it makes one permanently . . . barren.” I swallowed. Viewing the prospect of coming back to the past, I had in fact thought seriously about the possibilities of pregnancy—and the risks. I thought the possibility very low indeed, given both my age and previous history, but the risk . . .
Jamie stood stock-still, looking down.
“For God’s sake, Claire,” he said at last, low-voiced. “Tell me that ye did it.”
I took a deep breath, and squeezed his hand, my fingers slipping a little.
“Jamie,” I said softly, “if I’d done it, I would have told you.” I swallowed again. “You . . . would have wanted me to?”
He was still holding my hand. His other hand left me, touched my back, pressed me—very gently—to him. His skin was warm on mine.
We stood close together, touching, not moving, for several minutes. He sighed then, chest rising under my ear.
“I’ve bairns enough,” he said quietly. “I’ve only the one life—and that’s you, mo chridhe.”
I reached up and touched his face. It was furrowed with tiredness, rough with whiskers; he hadn’t shaved in days.
I had thought about it. And had come very close indeed to asking a surgeon friend to perform the sterilization for me. Cold blood and clear head had argued for it; no sense in taking chances. And yet . . . there was no guarantee that I would survive the journey, would reach the right time or place, would find him again. Still less, a chance that I might conceive again at my age.
And yet, gone from him for so long, not knowing if I might find him—I could not bring myself to destroy any possibility between us. I did not want another child. But if I found him, and he should want it . . . then I would risk it for him.
I touched him, lightly, and he made a small sound in his throat and laid his face against my hair, holding me tight. Our lovemaking was always risk and promise—for if he held my life in his hands when he lay with me, I held his soul, and knew it.
“I thought . . . I thought you’d never see Brianna. And I didn’t know about Willie. It wasn’t right for me to take away any chance of your having another child—not without telling you.”
You are Blood of my blood, I had said to him, Bone of my bone. That was true, and always would be, whether children came of it or not.
“I dinna want another child,” he whispered. “I want you.”
His hand rose, as though by itself, touched my breast with a fingertip, left a shimmer of the scented ointment on my skin. I wrapped my hand, slippery and green-scented, round him, and stepped backward, bringing him with me toward the bed. I had just enough presence of mind left to extinguish the candle.
“Don’t worry for Bree,” I said, reaching up to touch him as he rose over me, looming black against the firelight. “Roger picked the weeds for her. He knows what she wants.”
He gave a deep sigh, the breath of a laugh, that caught in his throat as he came to me, and ended in a small groan of pleasure and completion as he slid between my legs, well-oiled and ready.
“I ken what I want, too,” he said, voice muffled in my hair. “I shall pick ye another posy, tomorrow.”
DRUGGED WITH FATIGUE, languid with love, and lulled by the comforts of a soft, clean bed, I slept like the dead.
Somewhere toward dawn, I began to dream—pleasant dreams of touch and color, without form. Small hands touched my hair, patted my face; I turned on my side, half-conscious, dreaming of nursing a child in my sleep. Tiny soft fingers kneaded my breast, and my hand came up to cup the child’s head. It bit me.
I shrieked, shot bolt upright in bed, and saw a gray form race across the quilt and disappear over the end of the bed. I shrieked again, louder.
Jamie shot sideways out of bed, rolled on the floor, and came up standing, shoulders braced and fists half-clenched.
“What?” he demanded, glaring wildly round in search of marauders. “Who? What?”
“A rat!” I said, pointing a trembling finger at the spot where the gray shape had vanished into the crevice between bed-foot and wall.
“Oh.” His shoulders relaxed. He scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair, blinking. “A rat, aye?”
“A rat in our bed,” I said, not disposed to view the event with any degree of calm. “It bit me!” I peered closely at my injured breast. No blood to speak of; only a couple of tiny puncture marks that stung slightly. I thought of rabies, though, and my blood ran cold.
“Dinna fash yourself, Sassenach. I’ll deal with it.” Squaring his shoulders once more, Jamie picked up the poker from the hearth and advanced purposefully on the bed-foot. The footboard was solid; there was a space of only a few inches between it and the wall. The rat must be trapped, unless it had managed to escape in the scant seconds between my scream and Jamie’s eruption from the quilts.
I got up onto my knees, ready to leap off the bed if necessary. Scowling in concentration, Jamie raised the poker, reached out with his free hand, and flipped the hanging coverlid out of the way.
He whipped the poker down with great force—and jerked it aside, smashing into the wall.
“What?” I said.
“What?” he echoed, in a disbelieving tone. He bent closer, squinting in the dim light, then started to laugh. He dropped the poker, squatted on the floor, and reached slowly into the space between the bed-foot and wall, making a small chirping noise through his teeth. It sounded like birds feeding in a distant bush.
“Are you talking to the rat?” I began to crawl toward the foot of the bed, but he motioned me back, shaking his head, while still making the chirping sound.
I waited, with some impatience. Within a minute, he made a grab, evidently catching whatever it was, for he gave a small exclamation of satisfaction. He stood up, smiling, a gray, furry shape clutched by the nape, dangling like a tiny purse from his fingers.
“Here’s your wee ratten, Sassenach,” he said, and gently deposited a ball of gray fur on the coverlet. Huge eyes of a pale celadon green stared up at me, unblinking.
“Well, goodness,” I said. “Wherever did you come from?” I extended a finger, very slowly. The kitten didn’t move. I touched the edge of a tiny gray-silk jaw, and the big green eyes disappeared, going to slits as it rubbed against my finger. A surprisingly deep purr rumbled through its miniature frame.
“That,” Jamie said, with immense satisfaction, “is the present I meant to give ye, Sassenach. He’ll keep the vermin from your surgery.”
“Well, possibly very small vermin,” I said, examining my new present dubiously. “I think a large cockroach could carry him—is it a him?—off to its lair, let alone a mouse.”
“He’ll grow,” Jamie assured me. “Look at his feet.”
He—yes, it was a he—had rolled onto his back and was doing an imitation of a dead bug, paws in the air. Each paw was roughly the size of a broad copper penny, small enough by themselves, but enormous by contrast with the tiny body. I touched the minuscule pads, an immaculate pink in their thicket of soft gray fur, and the kitten writhed in ecstasy.
A discreet knock came at the door, and I snatched the sheet up over my bosom as the door opened and Mr. Wemyss’s head poked in, his hair sticking up like a pile of wheat straw.
“Er . . . I hope all is well, sir?” he asked, blinking shortsightedly. “My lass woke me, sayin’ as she thought there was a skelloch, like, and then we heard a bit of a bang, like—” His eyes, hastily averted from me, went to the scar of raw wood in the whitewashed wall, left by Jamie’s poker.
“Aye, it’s fine, Joseph,” Jamie assured him. “Only a wee cat.”
“Oh, aye?” Mr. Wemyss squinted toward the bed, his thin face breaking into a smile as he made out the blot of gray fur. “A cheetie, is it? Well, and he’ll be a fine help i’ the kitchen, I’ve nae doubt.”
“Aye. Speakin’ of kitchens, Joseph—d’ye think your lassie might bring up a dish of cream for the baudrons here?”
Mr. Wemyss nodded and disappeared, with a final avuncular smile at the kitten.
Jamie stretched, yawned, and scrubbed both hands vigorously through his hair, which was behaving with even more reckless abandon than usual. I eyed him, with a certain amount of purely aesthetic appreciation.
“You look like a woolly mammoth,” I said.
“Oh? And what is a mammoth, besides big?”
“A sort of prehistoric elephant—you know, the animals with the long trunks?”
He squinted down the length of his body, then looked at me quizzically.
“Well, I thank ye for the compliment, Sassenach,” he said. “Mammoth, is it?” He thrust his arms upward and stretched again, casually arching his back, which—quite inadvertently, I didn’t think—enhanced any incidental resemblances that one might note between the half-engorged morning anatomy of a man, and the facial adornments of a pachyderm.
I laughed.
“That’s not precisely what I meant,” I said. “Stop waggling; Lizzie’s coming in any minute. You’d better put your shirt on or get back in bed.”
The sound of footsteps on the landing sent him diving under the quilts, and sent the little cat scampering up the sheet in fright. In the event, it was Mr. Wemyss himself who had brought the dish of cream, sparing his daughter a possible sight of Himself in the altogether.
The weather being fine, we had left the shutters open the night before. The sky outside was the color of fresh oysters, moist and pearly gray. Mr. Wemyss glanced at it, blinked and nodded at Jamie’s thanks, and toddled back to his bed, thankful for a last half hour’s sleep before the dawn.
I disentangled the kitten, who had taken refuge in my hair, and set him down by the bowl of cream. I didn’t suppose he could ever have seen a bowl of cream in his life, but the smell was enough—in moments, he was whisker-deep, lapping for all he was worth.
“He’s a fine thrum to him,” Jamie remarked approvingly. “I can hear him from here.”
“He’s lovely; wherever did you get him?” I nestled into the curve of Jamie’s body, enjoying his warmth; the fire had burned far down during the night, and the air in the room was chilly, sour with ash.
“Found him in the wood.” Jamie yawned widely, and relaxed, propping his head on my shoulder to watch the tiny cat, who had abandoned himself to an ecstasy of gluttony. “I thought I’d lost him when Gideon bolted—I suppose he’d crept into one of the saddlebags, and came up wi’ the other things.”