“How was yer first time, Jamie? Did ye bleed?” shouted Rupert’s easily recognized gravel-pit voice.
“Nay, but ye will, ye auld bugger, if ye dinna clapper yer face,” came Jamie’s spiked tones in broad Scots reply. Howls of delight greeted this sally, and the raillery continued, following Jamie down the hall to the kitchen and back up the stairs.
I pushed open the door a crack to admit Jamie, face red as the fire below and hands piled high with food and drink. He sidled in, followed by a final burst of hilarity from below. I choked it off with a decisive slam of the door, and shot the bolt to.
“I brought enough we’ll no need to go out again for a bit,” Jamie said, laying out dishes on the table, carefully not looking at me. “Will ye have a bite?”
I reached past him for the bottle of wine. “Not just yet. What I need is a drink.”
There was a powerful urgency in him that roused me to response despite his awkwardness. Not wanting to lecture nor yet to highlight my own experience, I let him do what he would, only offering an occasional suggestion, such as that he might carry his weight on his elbows and not my chest.
As yet too hungry and too clumsy for tenderness, still he made love with a sort of unflagging joy that made me think that male virginity might be a highly underrated commodity. He exhibited a concern for my safety, though, that I found at once endearing and irritating.
Sometime in our third encounter, I arched tightly against him and cried out. He drew back at once, startled and apologetic.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didna mean to hurt ye.”
“You didn’t.” I stretched languorously, feeling dreamily wonderful.
“Are you sure?” he said, inspecting me for damage. Suddenly it dawned on me that a few of the finer points had likely been left out of his hasty education at the hands of Murtagh and Rupert.
“Does it happen every time?” he asked, fascinated, once I had enlightened him. I felt rather like the Wife of Bath, or a Japanese geisha. I had never envisioned myself as an instructress in the arts of love, but I had to admit to myself that the role held certain attractions.
“No, not every time,” I said, amused. “Only if the man is a good lover.”
“Oh.” His ears turned faintly pink. I was slightly alarmed to see the look of frank interest being replaced with one of growing determination.
“Will you tell me what I should do next time?” he asked.
“You don’t need to do anything special,” I assured him. “Just go slowly and pay attention. Why wait, though? You’re still ready.”
He was surprised. “You don’t need to wait? I canna do it again right away after-”
“Well, women are different.”
“Aye, I noticed,” he muttered.
He circled my wrist with thumb and index finger. “It’s just… you’re so small; I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you.”
“You are not going to hurt me,” I said impatiently. “And if you did, I wouldn’t mind.” Seeing puzzled incomprehension on his face, I decided to show him what I meant.
“What are you doing?” he asked, shocked.
“Just what it looks like. Hold still.” After a few moments, I began to use my teeth, pressing progressively harder until he drew in his breath with a sharp hiss. I stopped.
“Did I hurt you?” I asked.
“Yes. A little.” He sounded half-strangled.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No!”
I went on, being deliberately rough, until he suddenly convulsed, with a groan that sounded as though I had torn his heart out by the roots. He lay back, quivering and breathing heavily. He muttered something in Gaelic, eyes closed.
“What did you say?”
“I said,” he answered, opening his eyes, “I thought my heart was going to burst.”
I grinned, pleased with myself. “Oh, Murtagh and company didn’t tell you about that, either?”
“Aye, they did. That was one of the things I didn’t believe.”
I laughed. “In that case, maybe you’d better not tell me what else they told you. Do you see what I meant, though, about not minding if you’re rough?”
“Aye.” He drew a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “If I did that to you, would it feel the same?”
“Well, you know,” I said, slowly, “I don’t really know.” I had been doing my best to keep my thoughts of Frank at bay, feeling that there should really be no more than two people in a marriage bed, regardless of how they got there. Jamie was very different from Frank, both in body and mind, but there are in fact only a limited number of ways in which two bodies can meet, and we had not yet established that territory of intimacy in which the act of love takes on infinite variety. The echoes of the flesh were unavoidable, but there were a few territories still unexplored.
Jamie’s brows were tilted in an expression of mocking threat. “Oh, so there’s something you don’t know? Well, we’ll find out then, won’t we? As soon as I’ve the strength for it.” He closed his eyes again. “Next week, sometime.”
I woke in the hours before dawn, shivering and rigid with terror. I could not recall the dream that woke me, but the abrupt plunge into reality was equally frightening. It had been possible to forget my situation for a time the night before, lost in the pleasures of newfound intimacy. Now I was alone, next to a sleeping stranger with whom my life was inextricably linked, adrift in a place filled with unseen threat.
I must have made some sound of distress, for there was a sudden upheaval of bedclothes as the stranger in my bed vaulted to the floor with the heartstopping suddenness of a pheasant rising underfoot. He came to rest in a crouch near the door of the chamber, barely visible in the pre-dawn light.
Pausing to listen carefully at the door, he made a rapid inspection of the room, gliding soundlessly from door to window to bed. The angle of his arm told me that he held a weapon of some sort, though I could not see what it was in the darkness. Sitting down next to me, satisfied that all was secure, he slid the knife or whatever it was back into its hiding place above the headboard.
“Are you all right?” he whispered. His fingers brushed my wet cheek.
“Yes. I’m sorry to wake you. I had a nightmare. What on earth-” I started to ask what it was that had made him spring so abruptly to the alert.
A large warm hand ran down my bare arm, interrupting my question. “No wonder; you’re frozen.” The hand urged me under the pile of quilts and into the warm space recently vacated. “My fault,” he murmured. “I’ve taken all the quilts. I’m afraid I’m no accustomed yet to share a bed.” He wrapped the quilts comfortably around us and lay back beside me. A moment later, he reached again to touch my face.
“Is it me?” he asked quietly. “Can ye not bear me?”
I gave a short hiccupping laugh, not quite a sob. “No, it isn’t you.” I reached out in the dark, groping for a hand to press reassuringly. My fingers met a tangle of quilts and warm flesh, but at last I found the hand I had been seeking. We lay side by side, looking up at the low beamed ceiling.
“What if I said I couldn’t bear you?” I asked suddenly. “What on earth could you do?” The bed creaked as he shrugged.
“Tell Dougal you wanted an annulment on grounds of nonconsummation, I suppose.”
This time I laughed outright. “Nonconsummation! With all those witnesses?”
The room was growing light enough to see the smile on the face turned toward me. “Aye well, witnesses or no, it’s only you and me that can say for sure, isn’t it? And I’d rather be embarrassed than wed to someone that hated me.”
I turned toward him. “I don’t hate you.”
“I don’t hate you, either. And there’s many good marriages have started wi’ less than that.” Gently, he turned me away from him and fitted himself to my back so we lay nested together. His hand cupped my breast, not in invitation or demand, but because it seemed to belong there.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered into my
hair. “There’s the two of us now.” I felt warm, soothed, and safe for the first time in many days. It was only as I drifted into sleep under the first rays of daylight that I remembered the knife above my head, and wondered again, what threat would make a man sleep armed and watchful in his bridal chamber?
Chapter 16. ONE FINE DAY
The hard-won intimacy of the night seemed to have evaporated with the dew, and there was considerable constraint between us in the morning. After a mostly silent breakfast taken in our room, we climbed the small hillock behind the inn, exchanging rather strained politenesses from time to time.
At the crest, I settled on a log to rest, while Jamie sat on the ground, back against a pine sapling, a few feet away. Some bird was active in the bush behind me, a siskin, I supposed, or possibly a thrush. I listened to its dilatory rustlings, watched the small fluffy clouds float by, and pondered the etiquette of the situation.
The silence was becoming really too heavy to bear, when Jamie suddenly said, “I hope-” then stopped and blushed. Though I rather felt it should be me blushing, I was glad that at least one of us was able to do it.
“What?” I said as encouragingly as possible.
He shook his head, still pink. “It doesna matter.”
“Go ahead.” I reached out a foot and nudged his leg with a tentative toe. “Honesty, remember?” It was unfair, but I really couldn’t stand any more nervous throat-clearing and eye-twitching.
His clasped hands tightened around his knees, and he rocked back a bit, but fixed his gaze directly on me.
“I was going to say,” he said softly, “that I hoped the man who had the honor to lie first wi’ you was as generous as you were with me.” He smiled, a little shyly. “But on second thought, that didna sound quite right. What I meant… well, all I wanted was to say thank you.”
“Generosity had nothing to do with it!” I snapped, looking down and brushing energetically at a nonexistent spot on my dress. A large boot pushed into my downcast field of vision and nudged my ankle.
“Honesty, is it?” he echoed, and I looked up to meet a derisively raised pair of eyebrows above a wide grin.
“Well,” I said defensively, “not after the first time, anyway.” He laughed, and I discovered to my horror that I was not beyond blushing after all.
A cool shadow fell over my heated face and a large pair of hands took firm hold of mine and pulled me to my feet. Jamie took my place on the log, and patted his knee invitingly.
“Sit,” he said.
I reluctantly obliged, keeping my face turned away. He settled me comfortably against his chest and wrapped his arms about my waist. I felt the steady thump of his heart against my back.
“Now then,” he said. “If we canna talk easy yet without touching, we’ll touch for a bit. Tell me when you’re accustomed to me again.” He leaned back so that we were in the shade of an oak, and held me close without speaking, just breathing slowly, so that I felt the rise and fall of his chest and the stir of his breath in my hair.
“All right,” I said after a moment.
“Good.” He loosened his grip and turned me to face him. At close range, I could see the bristle of auburn stubble on cheek and chin. I brushed my fingers across it; it was like the plush on an old-fashioned sofa, stiff and soft at the same time.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I couldna shave this morning. Dougal gave me a razor before the wedding yesterday, but he took it back – in case I cut my throat after the wedding night, I expect.” He grinned down at me and I smiled back.
The reference to Dougal reminded me of our conversation of the night before.
“I wondered…” I said. “Last night, you said Dougal and his men met you at the coast when you came back from France. Why did you come back with him, instead of going to your own home, or the Fraser lands? I mean, the way Dougal’s treated you…” I trailed off, hesitant.
“Oh,” he said, shifting his legs to bear my weight more evenly. I could almost hear him thinking to himself. He made up his mind quite quickly.
“Well, it’s something ye should know, I suppose.” He frowned to himself. “I told ye why I’m outlawed. Well, for a time after – after I left the Fort, I didna care much… about anything. My father died about that time, and my sister…” He paused again, and I sensed some kind of struggle going on inside him. I twisted around to look at him. The normally cheerful face was shadowed with some strong emotion.
“Dougal told me,” he said slowly, “Dougal told me that-that my sister was wi’ child. By Randall.”
“Oh, dear.”
He glanced sideways at me, then away. His eyes were bright as sapphires and he blinked hastily once or twice.
“I… I couldna bring myself to go back,” he said, low-voiced. “To see her again, after what happened. And too” – he sighed, then set his lips firmly – “Dougal told me that she… that after the child was born, she… well, of course, she couldna help it; she was alone – damn it, I left her alone! He said she had taken up wi’ another English soldier, someone from the garrison, he didna know which one.”
He swallowed heavily, then went on more firmly. “I sent back what money I could, of course, but I could not… well, I couldna bring myself to write to her. What could I say?” He shrugged helplessly.
“Anyway, after a time I grew tired of soldiering in France. And I heard through my Uncle Alex that he’d had word of an English deserter, named Horrocks. The man had left the army and taken service wi’ Francis MacLean o’ Dunweary. He was in his cups one day and let out that he’d been stationed wi’ the garrison at Fort William when I escaped. And he’d seen the man who shot the sergeant-major that day.”
“So he could prove that it wasn’t you!” This sounded good news, and I said so. Jamie nodded.
“Well, yes. Though the word of a deserter would likely not count for much. Still, it’s a start. At least I’d know myself who it was. And while I… well, I dinna see how I can go back to Lallybroch; still it would be as well if I could walk the soil of Scotland without the risk of being hanged.”
“Yes, that seems a good idea,” I said dryly. “But where do the MacKenzies come into it?”
There followed a certain amount of complicated analysis of family relationships and clan alliances, but when the smoke cleared away, it appeared that Francis MacLean was some connection with the MacKenzie side, and had sent word of Horrocks to Colum, who had sent Dougal to make contact with Jamie.
“Which is how he came to be nearby when I was wounded,” Jamie finished up. He paused, squinting into the sun. “I wondered, afterward, ye know, whether perhaps he’d done it.”
“Hit you with an ax? Your own uncle? Why on earth!?”
He frowned as though weighing how much to tell me, then shrugged.
“I dinna ken how much ye know about the clan MacKenzie,” he said, “though I imagine ye canna have ridden wi’ old Ned Gowan for days without hearin’ something of it. He canna keep off the subject for long.”
He nodded at my answering smile. “Well, you’ve seen Colum for yourself. Anyone can see that he’ll not make old bones. And wee Hamish is barely eight; he’ll no be able to lead a clan for ten years yet. So what happens if Colum dies before Hamish is ready?” He looked at me, prompting.
“Well, Dougal would be laird, I suppose,” I said slowly, “at least until Hamish is old enough.”
“Aye, that’s true.” Jamie nodded. “But Dougal’s not the man Colum is, and there are those in the clan that wouldna follow him so gladly – if there were an alternative.”
“I see,” I said slowly, “and you are the alternative.”
I looked him over carefully, and had to admit that there was a certain amount of possibility there. He was old Jacob’s grandson; a MacKenzie by blood, if only on his mother’s side. A big, comely, well-made lad, plainly intelligent, and with the family knack for managing people. He had fought in France and proved his ability to lead men in battle; an important consideration. Even the price on h
is head might not be an insurmountable obstacle – if he were laird.
The English had enough trouble in the Highlands, between the constant small rebellions, the border raids and the warring clans, not to risk a major uprising by accusing the chieftain of a major clan of murder – which would seem no murder at all to the clansmen.
To hang an unimportant Fraser clansman was one thing; to storm Castle Leoch and drag out the laird of the clan MacKenzie to face English justice was something else again.
“Do you mean to be laird, if Colum dies?” It was one way out of his difficulties, after all, though I suspected it was a way hedged with its own considerable obstacles.
He smiled briefly at the thought. “No. Even if I felt myself entitled to it – which I don’t – it would split the clan, Dougal’s men against those that might follow me. I havena the taste for power at the cost of other men’s blood. But Dougal and Colum couldna be sure of that, could they? So they might think it safer just to kill me than to take the risk.”
My brow was furrowed, thinking it all out. “But surely you could tell Dougal and Colum that you don’t intend… oh.” I looked up at him with considerable respect. “But you did. At the oath-taking.”
I had thought already how well he had handled a dangerous situation there; now I saw just how dangerous it had been. The clansmen had certainly wanted him to take his oath; just as certainly Colum had not. To swear such an oath was to declare himself a member of the clan MacKenzie, and as such, a potential candidate for chieftain of the clan. He risked open violence or death for refusal; he risked the same – more privately – for compliance.
Seeing the danger, he had taken the prudent course of staying away from the ceremony. And when I, by my botched escape attempt, had led him straight back to the edge of the abyss, he had set a sure and certain foot on a very narrow tightrope, and walked it to the other side. Je suis prest, indeed.
He nodded, seeing the thoughts cross my face.
Outlander aka Cross Stitch Page 31