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He had seen battlefields before, at Preston and Falkirk, though neither had had so many bodies. One dead man was much like another, though, and within a short time, he was no longer bothered by their presence.
He had grown so numb, in fact, that he was barely startled when one of the soldiers shouted, “Hey, Cheeky! Got one for you!” His cold-slowed mind had not had time to interpret this before he found himself face-to-face with the man, the Scot.
He had vaguely supposed that everyone on the field was unconscious, if not dead; execution would be no more than a matter of kneel by the body, place the pistol, pull the trigger, step back and reload.
This man sat bolt upright in the heather, weight braced on the heels of his hands, the smashed leg that had prevented his escape twisted in front of him, streaked with blood. He was staring at Grey, dark eyes lively and watchful. He was young, perhaps Hector’s age. The eyes went from Grey’s face to the gun in his hand, then back to his face. The man lifted his chin, setting his mouth hard.
Behind the ear will answer well enough, if you find you can’t bear the eyes.
How? How was he to reach behind the ear, with him sitting like that? Grey lifted the pistol awkwardly, and stepped to the side, crouching a bit. The man’s head turned, eyes following him.
Grey stopped—but he couldn’t stop, the soldiers were watching.
“H-head, or heart?” he asked, trying to keep his voice steady. His hands were shaking; it was cold, though, so very cold.
The dark eyes closed for an instant, opened again, piercing through him.
“Christ, do I care?”
He lifted the pistol, the muzzle wavering a little, and pointed it carefully at the center of the man’s body. The Scot’s mouth compressed, and he shifted his weight to one hand. Before Grey could jerk away, he had lifted his free hand to seize Grey’s wrist.
Startled, Grey made no move to pull away. Breathing hard with effort, teeth gritted against the pain, the Scot guided the barrel so it came to rest against his forehead, just between the eyes. And stared at him.
And what Grey recalled most clearly was not the eyes, but the feel of the fingers, colder even than his own chilled flesh, curling gently round his wrist. There was no strength left now in the touch, but it stilled his shaking. The fingers squeezed, very gently. Offering mercy.
An hour later, they had gone back in darkness, and he had learned of Hector’s death.
The candle had been guttering for some time. There was another on the table, but he made no move to reach for it. Instead, he lay staring as the flame went out, and went on drinking wine in the musky dark.
He woke with a splitting head, somewhere in the dark hours before dawn. The candle had gone out, and for a disorienting moment, he had no idea where he was—or with whom. A warm, moist weight was curled against him, and his hand rested on bare flesh.
Possibilities erupted in his mind like a flight of startled quail, then disappeared as he took a deep breath and smelt cheap scent, expensive wine, and female musk. Girl. Yes, of course. The Scottish whore.
He lay still for a moment, muddled, trying to gain his bearings in the unfamiliar dark. There—a thin line of gray marked the shuttered window, a shade lighter than the night inside. Door . . . where was the door? He turned his head and saw a faint flicker of light across the floorboards, the exhausted glow of a guttering candle in the hallway. He vaguely remembered some uproar, singing and stamping from below, but that had ceased now. The brothel had subsided into quiet, though it was an odd, uneasy hush, like the troubled sleep of a drunken man. Speaking of which . . . he worked his tongue, trying to muster enough saliva from his parched and sticky membranes to swallow. His heart was beating with an unpleasant insistence that seemed to cause his eyeballs to protrude, bulging painfully with each throb of the organ. He hastily closed his eyes, but it didn’t help.
It was warm and close in the room, but a faint stirring of air from the shuttered window touched his body, a cool finger raising the hairs of chest and leg. He was naked, but didn’t recall undressing.
She was lying on his arm. Moving slowly, he disengaged himself from the girl, taking care not to rouse her. He sat for a moment on the bed, clutching his head in a soundless moan, then rose to his feet, taking great care lest it fall off.
Christ! What had he been about, to drink so much of that ungodly swill? It would have been better to swive the girl and have done with it, he thought, feeling his way across the room through bursts of brilliant white light that lit up the inside of his skull like fireworks on the Thames. His probing foot struck the table leg, and he felt blindly about beneath it until he found the chamber pot.
Somewhat relieved, but still desperately thirsty, he put it down and groped for the ewer and basin. The water in the pitcher was warm and tasted faintly of metal, but he drank it greedily, spilling it down his chin and chest, gulping until his guts began to protest the tepid onslaught.
He wiped a hand down his face and smeared the wetness across his chest, then loosened the shutters, taking deep, shuddering breaths of the cool gray air. Better.
He turned to look for his clothes, but realized belatedly that he couldn’t leave without Quarry. The thought of searching the house for his friend, flinging open doors and surprising sleep-sodden whores and their customers, was more than he could countenance in his present condition. Well, the madam would rout Harry out in short order, come daybreak. Nothing for it but wait.
Since he must wait, he might as well do it lying down; his i
The girl was naked, too. She lay curled on her side, back to him, smooth and pale as a smelt on a fishmonger’s slab. He crawled cautiously onto the bed and eased himself down beside her. She shifted and murmured, but didn’t wake.
The air was much cooler now, with dawn coming on and the shutters ajar. He would have covered himself, but the girl was lying on the rumpled sheet. She shifted again, and he saw the gooseflesh prickling over her skin. She was thi
He turned on his side and drew her against him, fumbling with one hand to disentangle the damp sheet and draw it over them both—as much to cover her ski
Her loosened hair was thick and curly, soft against his face. The feel of it disturbed him, though it was a moment before he realized why. She’d had hair like that—the Woman. Fraser’s wife. Grey knew her name—Fraser had told him—and yet he stubbornly refused to think of her as anything but “the Woman.” As though it were her fault—and the fault of her sex alone, at that.
But that was in another country, he thought, pulling the scrawny whore closer to him, and besides, the wench is dead.Fraser had said so.
He’d seen the look in Jamie Fraser’s eyes, though. Fraser had not ceased to love his wife merely because she was dead—no more than Grey could or would cease to love Hector. Memory was one thing, though, and flesh another; the body had no conscience.
He wrapped one arm over the girl’s fine-boned form, holding her tight against him. Nearly breastless, and narrow-arsed as a boy, he thought, and felt a tiny flame of desire, wine-fueled, lick up the insides of his thighs. Why not? he thought. He was paying for it, after all.
But, I’m a person, no?she’d said. And she was neither of the persons he longed for.
He closed his eyes, and kissed the shoulder near his face, very gently. Then he slept again, drifting on the troubled clouds of her hair.