Dragonfly In Amber

“Seventeen forty-three,” he said, as though to himself. He shook his head, marveling. “And I thought it was a man you’d met here, in 1945. God, I would never have thought – well, Christ, who would?”

I was surprised. “You knew? About Bria

He nodded at the clippings in Bria

“Then those men whose names you gave me, the ones who fought at Culloden – you knew them?”

I relaxed, ever so slightly. “Yes, I knew them.” There was a grumble of thunder to the east, and the rain broke in a spatter against the long windows that lined the study from floor to ceiling on one side. Bria

“And you were in France,” Roger murmured as though to himself, still studying me closely. The shock in his face was fading into surmise, and a kind of excitement. “I don’t suppose you knew…”

“Yes, I did,” I told him. “That’s why we went to Paris. I’d told Jamie about Culloden – the ’45, and what would happen. We went to Paris to try to stop Charles Stuart.”

PART TWO

The Pretenders

Le Havre, France

February 1744

6 MAKING WAVES

“Bread,” I muttered feebly, keeping my eyes tightly closed. There was no response from the large, warm object next to me, other than the faint sigh of his breathing.

“Bread!” I said, a little louder. There was a sudden startled heave of the bedclothes, and I grasped the edge of the mattress and tightened all my muscles, hoping to stabilize the pitch and yaw of my internal organs.

Fumbling noises came from the far side of the bed, followed by the sliding of a drawer, a muffled exclamation in Gaelic, the soft thud of a bare foot stamping planks, and then the sinking of the mattress under the weight of a heavy body.

“Here, Sassenach,” said an anxious voice, and I felt the touch of a dry bread crust against my lower lip. Groping blindly without opening my eyes, I grasped it and began to chew gingerly, forcing each choking bite down a parched throat. I knew better than to ask for water.

The dessicated wads of bread crumbs gradually made their way down my throat and took up residence in my stomach, where they lay like small heaps of ballast. The nauseating roll of my i

“Ak!” I said, startled.

“All right, then?” he asked. When I nodded and feebly began to sit up, he put an arm around my back to help me. Sitting down beside me on the rough i

“Poor love,” he said. “Would a bit of wine help? There’s a flask of hock in my saddlebag.”

“No. No, thank you.” I shuddered briefly at the thought of drinking hock – I seemed to smell the dark, fruity fumes, just at the mention of it – and pushed myself upright.

“I’ll be fine in a moment,” I said, with forced cheerfulness. “Don’t worry, it’s quite normal for pregnant women to feel sick in the morning.”

With a dubious look at me, Jamie rose and went to retrieve his clothes from the stool near the window. France in February is cold as hell frozen over, and the bubbled-glass panes of the window were coated thick with frost.

He was naked, and a ripple of gooseflesh brushed his shoulders and raised the red-gold hairs on his arms and legs. Accustomed to cold, though, he neither shivered nor hurried as he pulled on stockings and shirt. Pausing in his dressing, he came back to the bed and hugged me briefly.

“Go back to bed,” he suggested. “I’ll send up the chambermaid to light the fire. Perhaps ye can rest a bit, now you’ve eaten. You won’t be sick now?” I wasn’t entirely sure, but nodded reassuringly.

“I don’t think so.” I cast an eye back at the bed; the quilts, like most coverings supplied by public i

“Um, perhaps I will just lie down a moment,” I murmured, pulling my feet off the freezing floor and thrusting them under the quilts, in search of the last remnants of warmth. My stomach seemed to have settled sufficiently to risk a sip of water, and I poured a cupful from the cracked bedroom ewer.

“What were you stamping on?” I asked, sipping carefully. “There aren’t spiders up here, are there?”

Fastening his kilt about his waist, Jamie shook his head.

“Och, no,” he said. Hands busy, he tilted his head toward the table. “Just a rat. After the bread, I expect.”

Glancing down, I saw the limp gray form on the floor, a small pearl of blood glistening on the snout. I made it out of bed just in time.

“It’s all right,” I said faintly, a bit later. “There isn’t anything left to throw up.”

“Rinse your mouth, Sassenach, but don’t swallow, for God’s sake.” Jamie held the cup for me, wiped my mouth with a cloth as though I were a small and messy child, then lifted me and laid me carefully back in the bed. He frowned worriedly down at me.

“Perhaps I’d better stay here,” he said. “I could send word.”

“No, no, I’m all right,” I said. And I was. Fight as I would to keep from vomiting in the mornings, I could hold nothing down for long. Yet once the bout was over, I felt entirely restored. Aside from a sour taste in my mouth, and a slight soreness in the abdominal muscles, I felt quite my normal self. I threw back the covers and stood up, to demonstrate.

“See? I’ll be fine. And you have to go; it wouldn’t do to keep your cousin waiting, after all.”

I was begi

“Brrr,” I said. “How on earth can you be warm as toast, dressed in nothing but a kilt?”

“I’ve a shirt on as well,” he protested, smiling down at me.

We clung together for a bit, enjoying each other’s warmth in the quiet cold of the early French morning. In the corridor, the clash and shuffle of the chambermaid with her scuttle of kindling grew nearer.

Jamie shifted a bit, pressing against me. Because of the difficulties of traveling in the winter, we had been nearly a week on the road from Ste. A

“Come to bed with me?” I invited, softly.

He hesitated. The strength of his desire was obvious through the fabric of his kilt, and his hands were warm on the cool flesh of my own, but he didn’t move to take me in his arms.

“Well…” he said doubtfully.

“You want to, don’t you?” I said, sliding a chilly hand under his kilt to make sure.

“Oh! er… aye. Aye, I do.” The evidence at hand bore out this statement. He groaned faintly as I cupped my hand between his legs. “Oh, Lord. Don’t do that, Sassenach; I ca

He did hug me then, wrapping long arms about me and pulling my face into the snowy tucks of his shirt, smelling faintly of the laundry starch Brother Alfonse used at the Abbey.