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“Have you hurt your back?” I asked, frowning as I saw the care with which he sat down.
“What did happen?” he asked, ignoring the question. Politely, but with a distinct edge.
I took a deep breath, then blew out my cheeks in a helpless gesture.
He growled. I glanced at him, startled, having never heard such a noise from him before—at least, not aimed at me. Apparently it was somewhat more than important.
“Er …” I said cautiously, sitting down beside him. “What did John say, exactly? After telling you about the carnal knowledge, I mean?”
“He desired me to kill him. And if ye tell me ye want me to kill you rather than tell me what happened, I warn ye, I willna be responsible for what happens next.”
I looked at him narrowly. He seemed self-possessed, but there was an undeniable tension in his posture.
“Well … I remember how it began, at least… .”
“Start there,” he suggested, the edge more pronounced.
“I was sitting in my room, drinking plum brandy and trying to justify killing myself, if you must know,” I said, with an edge of my own. I stared at him, daring him to say something, but he merely cocked his head at me in a “Go on, then” gesture.
“I ran out of brandy and was trying to decide whether I might walk downstairs to look for more without breaking my neck, or whether I’d had enough not to feel guilty about drinking the whole bottle of laudanum instead. And then John came in.” I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry and sticky, as it had been that night.
“He did say there was drink taken,” Jamie observed.
“Lots. He seemed nearly as drunk as I was, save that he was still on his feet.” I could see John’s face in memory, white as bone save for his eyes, which were so red and swollen that they might have been sandpapered. And the expression in those eyes. “He looked the way a man looks just before he throws himself off a cliff,” I said quietly, eyes on my folded hands. I took another breath.
“He had a fresh decanter in his hand. He put it down on the dressing table beside me, glared at me, and said, ‘I will not mourn him alone tonight.’” A deep quiver ran through me at the memory of those words.
“And … ?”
“And he didn’t,” I said, a little sharply. “I told him to sit down and he did, and he poured out more brandy and we drank it, and I have not one single notion what we said, but we were talking about you. And then he stood up, and I stood up. And … I couldn’t bear to be alone and I couldn’t bear for him to be alone and I more or less flung myself at him because I very much needed someone to touch me just then.”
“And he obliged ye, I take it.”
The tone of this was distinctly cynical, and I felt a flush rise in my cheeks, not of embarrassment but of anger.
“Did he bugger you?”
I looked at him for a good long minute. He meant it.
“You absolute bastard,” I said, as much in astonishment as anger. Then a thought occurred to me. “You said he desired you to kill him,” I said slowly. “You … didn’t, did you?”
He held my eyes, his own steady as a rifle barrel.
“Would ye mind if I did?” he asked softly.
“Yes, I bloody well would,” I said, with what spirit I could summon up amongst the growing confusion of my feelings. “But you didn’t—I know you didn’t.”
“No,” he said, even more softly. “Ye don’t know that.”
Despite my conviction that he was bluffing, a small chill prickled the hairs on my forearms.
“I should have been within my rights,” he said.
“You would not,” I said, chill fading into crossness. “You didn’t have any rights. You were bloody dead.” Despite the crossness, my voice broke a bit on the word “dead,” and his face changed at once.
“What?” I said, turning my own face away. “Did you think it didn’t matter?”
“No,” he said, and took my mud-stained hand in his. “But I didna ken it mattered quite that much.” His own voice was husky now, and when I turned back to him, I saw that tears stood in his eyes. With an incoherent noise, I flung myself into his arms and clung to him, making foolish hiccuping sobs.
He held me tight, his breath warm on the top of my head, and when I stopped at last, he put me away a little and cupped my face in his hands.
“I have loved ye since I saw you, Sassenach,” he said very quietly, holding my eyes with his own, bloodshot and lined with tiredness but very blue. “I will love ye forever. It doesna matter if ye sleep with the whole English army—well, no,” he corrected himself, “it would matter, but it wouldna stop me loving you.”
“I didn’t think it would.” I sniffed and he pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and handed it to me. It was worn white cambric and had the initial “P” embroidered awkwardly in one corner in blue thread. I couldn’t imagine where he’d got such a thing but didn’t bother asking, under the circumstances.
The bench was not very large, and his knee was within an inch or two of mine. He didn’t touch me again, though, and my heart rate was begi
“It was my impression that he told me because he was sure that you would tell me,” he said carefully.
“So I would have,” I said promptly, wiping my nose. “Though I might possibly have waited ’til you’d got home, had a bath, and been fed supper. If there’s one thing I know about men, it’s that you don’t break things like this to them on an empty stomach. When did you last eat?”
“This morning. Sausages. Di
“You understand?” I echoed, sounding surprised even to my own ears. I hoped he did understand, but his ma
“Well, I di
“You do?”
“I do,” he said, eyeing me. “Ye both thought I was dead. And I ken what ye’re like when you’re drunk, Sassenach.”
I slapped him, so fast and so hard that he hadn’t time to duck and lurched back from the impact.
“You—you—” I said, unable to articulate anything bad enough to suit the violence of my feelings. “How bloody dare you!”
He touched his cheek gingerly. His mouth was twitching.
“I … uh … didna quite mean that the way it sounded, Sassenach,” he said. “Besides, am I no the aggrieved party here?”
“No, you bloody aren’t!” I snapped. “You go off and get—get drowned, and leave me all alone in the m-midst of spies and s-soldiers and with children—you and Fergus both, you bastards! Leave me and Marsali to-to—” I was so choked with emotion that I couldn’t go on. I was damned if I’d cry, though, damned if I’d cry any more in front of him.
He reached out carefully and took my hand again. I let him, and let him draw me closer, close enough to see the faint dusting of his beard stubble, to smell the road dust and dried sweat in his clothes, to feel the radiant heat from his body.
I sat quivering, making small huffing sounds in lieu of speech. He ignored this, spreading my fingers out between his own, gently stroking the palm of my hand with a large, callused thumb.
“I didna mean to imply that I think ye a drunkard, Sassenach,” he said, making an obvious effort to be conciliatory. “It’s only that ye think wi’ your body, Claire; ye always have.”
With a tremendous effort of my own, I found words.
“So I’m a—a—what are you calling me now? A loose woman? A trollop? A strumpet? And you think that’s better than calling me a drunkard?!?”