Outlander (28 page)

We emerged then, onto the top of a small dun, and the hills sloped away in a breathtaking fall of rocks and green on all sides. Most places in the Highlands gave me a feeling of being surrounded by trees or rocks or mountains, but here we were exposed to the fresh drafts of the wind and the rays of the sun, which had come out as though in celebration of our unorthodox marriage.

I experienced a heady sense of freedom at being out from under Dougal's influence and the claustrophobic company of so many men. I was tempted to urge Jamie to run away, and to take me with him, but common sense prevailed. We had neither of us any money nor any food beyond the bit of lunch that he carried in his sporran. We would certainly be pursued if we did not return to the inn by sundown. And while Jamie could plainly climb rocks all day without breaking a sweat or getting out of breath, I was in no such training. Noticing my red face, he led me to a rock and sat beside me, contentedly gazing out over the hills while he waited for me to regain my breath. We were certainly safe here.

Thinking of the Watch, I laid a hand impulsively on Jamie's arm.

"I'm awfully glad you're not worth very much," I said.

He regarded me for a moment, rubbing his nose, which was beginning to redden.

"Well, I might take that several ways, Sassenach, but under the circumstances," he said, "thank you."

"I should thank
you
," I said, "for marrying me. I must say that I'd rather be here than in Fort William."

"I thank ye for the compliment, lady," he said, with a slight bow. "So would I. And while we're busy thanking each other," he added, "I should thank you for marrying me, as well."

"Er, well…" I blushed once more.

"Not only for that, Sassenach," he said, his grin widening. "Though certainly for that as well. But I imagine you've also saved my life for me, at least so far as the MacKenzies are concerned."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Being half MacKenzie is one thing," he explained. "Being half MacKenzie wi' an English wife is quite another. There isna much chance of a Sassenach wench ever becoming lady of Leoch, whatever the clansmen might think of me alone. That's why Dougal picked me to wed ye to, ye ken."

He lifted one brow, reddish-gold in the morning sun. "I hope ye wouldna have preferred Rupert, after all?"

"No, I wouldn't," I said with emphasis.

He laughed and got up, brushing pine needles from his kilts.

"Well, my mother told me I'd be some lassie's choice one fine day." He reached down a hand and helped me up.

"I told her," he continued, "that I thought it was the man's part to choose."

"And what did she say to that?" I asked.

"She rolled her eyes and said 'You'll find out, my fine wee cockerel, you'll find out.'  " He laughed. "And so I have."

He looked upward, to where the sun was now seeping through the pine needles in lemon threads.

"And it is a fine day, at that. Come along, Sassenach. I'll take ye fishin'."

We went further up into the hills. This time Jamie turned to the north, and over a jumble of stone and through a crevice, into the head of a tiny glen, rock-walled and leafy, filled with the gurgling of water from the burn that spilled from a dozen wee falls among the rocks and plunged roistering down the length of the canyon into a series of rills and pools below.

We dangled our feet in the water, moving from shade to sun and back to shade as we grew too warm, talking of this and that and not much of anything, both aware of each other's smallest movement, both content to wait until chance should bring us to that moment when a glance should linger, and a touch should signal more.

Above one dark speckled pool, Jamie showed me how to tickle trout. Crouched to avoid the low-growing branches overhead, he duck-walked along an overhanging ledge, arms outstretched for balance. Halfway along, he turned carefully on the rock and stretched out his hand, urging me to follow.

I had my skirts tucked up already, for walking through rough country, and managed well enough. We stretched full-length on the cool rock, head to head, peering down into the water, willow branches brushing our backs.

"All it is," he said, "is to pick a good spot, and then wait." He dipped one hand below the surface, smoothly, no splashing, and let it lie on the sandy bottom, just outside the line of shadow made by the rocky overhang. The long fingers curled delicately toward the palm, distorted by the water so that they seemed to wave gently to and fro in unison, like the leaves of a water plant, though I saw from the still muscling of his forearm that he was not moving his hand at all. The column of his arm bent abruptly at the surface, seeming as disjointed as it had been when I had met him, little more than a month—my God, only a month?—before.

Met one month, married one day. Bound by vows and by blood. And by friendship as well. When the time came to leave, I hoped that I would not hurt him too badly. I found myself glad that for the moment, I need not think about it; we were far from Craigh na Dun, and not a chance in the world of escape from Dougal for the present.

"There he is." Jamie's voice was low, hardly more than a breath; he had told me that trout have sensitive ears.

From my angle of view, the trout was little more than a stirring of the speckled sand. Deep in the rock shadow, there was no telltale gleam of scales. Speckles moved on speckles, shifted by the fanning of transparent fins, invisible but for their motion. The minnows that had gathered to pluck curiously at the hairs on Jamie's wrist fled away into the brightness of the pool.

One finger bent slowly, so slowly it was hard to see the movement. I could tell it moved only by its changing position, relative to the other fingers. Another finger, slowly bent. And after a long, long moment, another.

I scarcely dared breathe, and my heart beat against the cold rock with a rhythm faster than the breathing of the fish. Sluggishly the fingers bent back, lying open, one by one, and the slow hypnotic wave began again, one finger, one finger, one finger more, the movement a smooth ripple like the edge of a fish's fin.

As though drawn by the slow-motion beckoning, the trout's nose pressed outward, a delicate gasping of mouth and gills, busy in the rhythm of breathing, pink lining showing, not showing, showing, not showing, as the opercula beat like a heart.

The chewing mouth groped and bit water. Most of the body was clear of the rock now, hanging weightless in the water, still in the shadow. I could see one eye, twitching to and fro in a blank, directionless stare.

An inch more would bring the flapping gill-covers right over the treacherous beckoning fingers. I found that I was gripping the rock with both hands, pressing my cheek hard against the granite, as though I could make myself still more inconspicuous.

There was a sudden explosion of motion. Everything happened so fast I couldn't see what actually
did
take place. There was a heavy splatter of water that sluiced across the rock an inch from my face, and a flurry of plaid as Jamie rolled across the rock above me, and a heavy splat as the fish's body sailed through the air and struck the leaf-strewn bank.

Jamie surged off the ledge and into the shallows of the side pool, splashing across to retrieve his prize before the stunned fish could succeed in flapping its way back to the sanctuary of the water. Seizing it by the tail, he slapped it expertly against a rock, killing it at once, then waded back to show it to me.

"A good size," he said proudly, holding out a solid fourteen-incher. "Do nicely for breakfast." He grinned up at me, wet to the thighs, hair hanging in his face, shirt splotched with water and dead leaves. "I told you I'd not let ye go hungry."

He wrapped the trout in layers of burdock leaves and cool mud. Then he rinsed his fingers in the cold water of the burn, and clambering up onto the rock, handed me the neatly wrapped parcel.

"An odd wedding present, maybe," he nodded at the trout, "but not without precedent, as Ned Gowan might say."

"There are precedents for giving a new wife a fish?" I asked, entertained.

He stripped off his stockings to dry and laid them on the rock to lie in the sun. His long, bare toes wiggled in enjoyment of the warmth.

"It's an old love song, from the Isles. D'ye want to hear it?"

"Yes, of course. Er, in English, if you can," I added.

"Oh, aye. I've no voice for music, but I'll give you the words." And fingering the hair back out of his eyes, he recited,

"Thou daughter of the King of bright-lit mansions On the night that our wedding is on us, If living man I be in Duntulm, I will go bounding to thee with gifts. Thou wilt get a hundred badgers, dwellers in banks, A hundred brown otters, natives of streams, A hundred silver trout, rising from their pools…"

And on through a remarkable list of the flora and fauna of the Isles. I had time, watching him declaim, to reflect on the oddity of sitting on a rock in a Scottish pool, listening to Gaelic love songs, with a large dead fish in my lap. And the greater oddity that I was enjoying myself very much indeed.

When he finished, I applauded, keeping hold of the trout by gripping it between my knees.

"Oh, I like that one! Especially the 'I will go bounding to thee with gifts.' He sounds a most enthusiastic lover."

Eyes closed against the sun, Jamie laughed. "I suppose I could add a line for myself—'I will leap into pools for thy sake.'  "

We both laughed, and then were quiet for a time, basking in the warm sun of the early summer. It was very peaceful there, with no sound but the rushing of water beyond our still pool. Jamie's breathing had calmed. I was very conscious of the slow rise and fall of his breast, and the slow beat of the pulse in his neck. He had a small triangular scar, just there at the base of his throat.

I could feel the shyness and constraint beginning to creep back. I reached out a hand and grasped his tightly, hoping that the touch would reestablish the ease between us as it had before. He slid an arm about my shoulders, but it only made me aware of the hard lines of his body beneath the thin shirt. I pulled away, under the pretext of plucking a bunch of pink-flowered storksbill that grew from a crack in the rock.

"Good for headache," I explained, tucking them into my belt.

"It troubles you," he said, tilting his head to look at me intently. "Not headache, I don't mean. Frank. You're thinking of him, and so it troubles you when I touch you, because ye canna hold us both in your mind. Is that it?"

"You're very perceptive," I said, surprised. He smiled, but made no move to touch me again.

"No great task to puzzle that out, lass. I knew when we married that you couldna help but have him often in your mind, did ye want to or no."

I didn't, at the moment, but he was right; I couldn't help it.

"Am I much like him?" he asked suddenly.

"No."

In fact, it would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast. Frank was slender, lithe and dark, where Jamie was large, powerful and fair as a ruddy sunbeam. While both men had the compact grace of athletes, Frank's was the build of a tennis player, Jamie's the body of a warrior, shaped—and battered—by the abrasion of sheer physical adversity. Frank stood a scant four inches above my own five foot six. Face-to-face with Jamie, my nose fitted comfortably into the small hollow in the center of his chest, and his chin could rest easily on top of my head.

Nor was the physical the only dimension where the two men varied. There was nearly fifteen years' difference in their ages, for one thing, which likely accounted for some of the difference between Frank's urbane reserve and Jamie's frank openness. As a lover, Frank was polished, sophisticated, considerate, and skilled. Lacking experience or the pretense of it, Jamie simply gave me all of himself, without reservation. And the depth of my response to that unsettled me completely.

Jamie was watching my struggle, not without sympathy.

"Well, then, it would seem I have two choices in the matter," he said. "I can let you brood about it, or…"

He leaned down and gently fitted his mouth over mine. I had kissed my share of men, particularly during the war years, when flirtation and instant romance were the light-minded companions of death and uncertainty. Jamie, though, was something different. His extreme gentleness was in no way tentative; rather it was a promise of power known and held in leash; a challenge and a provocation the more remarkable for its lack of demand. I am yours, it said. And if you will have me, then…

I would, and my mouth opened beneath his, wholeheartedly accepting both promise and challenge without consulting me. After a long moment, he lifted his head and smiled down at me.

"Or, I can try to distract ye from your thoughts," he finished.

He pressed my head against his shoulder, stroking my hair and smoothing the leaping curls around my ears.

"I do not know if it will help," he said, quietly, "but I will tell you this: it is a gift and a wonder to me, to know that I can please you—that your body can rouse to mine. I hadna thought of such a thing—beforehand."

I drew a long breath before replying. "Yes," I said. "It helps. I think."

We were silent again for what seemed a long time. At last Jamie drew away and looked down at me, smiling. "I told ye I've neither money nor property, Sassenach?"

I nodded, wondering what he intended.

"I should have warned ye before that we'd likely end up sleeping in haystacks, wi' naught but heather ale and drammach for food."

"I don't mind," I said.

He nodded toward an opening in the trees, not taking his eyes off me.

"I havena got a haystack about me, but there's a fair patch of fresh bracken yonder. If ye'd care to practice, just to get the way of it…?"

A little later, I stroked his back, damp with exertion and the juice of crushed ferns.

"If you say 'thank you' once more, I will slap you," I said.

Instead, I was answered with a gentle snore. An overhanging fern brushed his cheek, and an inquisitive ant crawled across his hand, making the long fingers twitch in his sleep.

I brushed it away and leaned back on one elbow, watching him. His lashes were long, seen thus with his eyes closed, and thick. Oddly colored, though; dark auburn at the tips, they were very light, almost blond at the roots.

The firm line of his mouth had relaxed in sleep. While it kept a faintly humorous curl at the corner, his lower lip now eased into a fuller curve that seemed both sensual and innocent.

"Damn," I said softly to myself.

I had been fighting it for some time. Even before this ridiculous marriage, I had been more than conscious of his attraction. It had happened before, as it doubtless happens to almost everyone. A sudden sensitivity to the presence, the appearance, of a particular man—or woman, I suppose. The urge to follow him with my eyes, to arrange for small "inadvertent" meetings, to watch him unawares as he went about his work, an exquisite sensitivity to the small details of his body—the shoulder-blades beneath the cloth of his shirt, the lumpy bones of his wrists, the soft place underneath his jaw, where the first prickles of his beard begin to show.

Infatuation. It was common, among the nurses and the doctors, the nurses and the patients, among any gathering of people thrown for long periods into one another's company.

Some acted on it, and brief, intense affairs were frequent. If they were lucky, the affair flamed out within a few months and nothing resulted from it. If they were not… well. Pregnancy, divorce, here and there the odd case of venereal disease. Dangerous thing, infatuation.

I had felt it, several times, but had had the good sense not to act on it. And as it always does, after a time the attraction had lessened, and the man lost his golden aura and resumed his usual place in my life, with no harm done to him, to me, or to Frank.

And now. Now I had been forced to act on it. And God only knew what harm might be done by that action. But there was no turning back from this point.

He lay at ease, sprawled on his stomach. The sun glinted off his red mane and lit the tiny soft hairs that crested his spine, running down to the reddish-gold fuzz that dusted his buttocks and thighs, and deepened into the thicket of soft auburn curls that showed briefly between his spread legs.

I sat up, admiring the long legs, with the smooth line of muscling that indented the thigh from hip to knee, and another that ran from knee to long, elegant foot. The bottoms of his feet were smooth and pink, slightly callused from going barefoot.

My fingers ached, wanting to trace the line of his small, neat ear and the blunt angle of his jaw. Well, I thought, the action
had
been taken, and it was far past the time for restraint. Nothing I did now could make matters worse, for either of us. I reached out and gently touched him.

He slept very lightly. With a suddenness that made me jump, he flipped over, bracing himself on his elbows as though to leap to his feet. Seeing me, he relaxed, smiling.

"Madam, you have me at a disadvantage."

He made a very creditable courtly bow, for a man stretched at full length in a patch of ferns, wearing nothing but a few dappled splotches of sunlight, and I laughed. The smile stayed on his face, but it altered as he looked at me, naked in the ferns. His voice was suddenly husky.

"In fact, Madam, you have me at your mercy."

"Have I, then?" I said softly.

He didn't move, as I reached out once more and drew my hand slowly down his cheek and neck, over the gleaming slope of his shoulder, and down. He didn't move, but he closed his eyes.

"Dear Holy Lord," he said.

He drew his breath in sharply.

"Don't worry," I said. "It doesn't have to be rough."

"Thank God for small mercies."

"Keep still."

His fingers dug deeply into the crumbling earth, but he obeyed.

"Please," he said after a time. Glancing up, I could see that his eyes were open now.

"No," I said, enjoying myself. He closed his eyes again.

"You'll pay for this," he said a short time later. A fine dew of sweat shone on the straight bridge of his nose.

"Really?" I said. "What are you going to do?"

The tendons stood out in his forearms as he pressed his palms against the earth, and he spoke with an effort, as though his teeth were clenched.

"I don't know, but… by Christ and St. Agnes… I will… th-think of s-something! God! Please!"

"All right," I said, releasing him.

And I uttered a small shriek as he rolled onto me, pinning me against the ferns.

"Your turn," he said, with considerable satisfaction.