"I can't say I'm not glad." I sighed, pressing my cheek against the glass in search of a moment's coolness. The legacy of yesterday's chill rain was a blanketing humidity that made hair and clothes cling to my skin, itching and damp. "Do you think it's safe, though? I mean, will Charles give up, now that the Comte is dead, and the money from Manzetti lost?"
Jamie frowned, rubbing his hand along the edge of his jaw to judge the growth of the stubble.
"I wish I knew whether he'd had a letter from Rome in the last two weeks," he said, "and if so, what was in it. But aye, I think we've managed. No banker in Europe will advance anyone of the name of Stuart a brass centime, that's for sure. Philip of Spain has other fish to fry, and Louis—" He shrugged, his mouth twisting wryly. "Between Monsieur Duverney and the Duke of Sandringham, I'd say Charles's expectations in that direction are somewhat less than poor. Shall I shave, d'ye think?"
"Not on my account," I said. The casual intimacy of the question made me suddenly shy. We had shared a bed the night before, but we had both been exhausted, and the delicate web woven between us in the arbor had seemed too fragile to support the stress of attempting to make love. I had spent the night in a terrible consciousness of his warm proximity, but thought I must, under the circumstances, leave the first move to him.
Now I caught the play of light across his shoulders as he turned to find his shirt, and was seized with the desire to touch him; to feel him, smooth and hard and eager against me once more.
His head popped through the neck of his shirt, and his eyes met mine, suddenly and unguarded. He paused for a moment, looking at me, but not speaking. The morning sounds of the château were clearly audible, outside the bubble of silence that surrounded us; the bustling of servants, the high thin sound of Louise's voice, raised in some sort of altercation.
Not here, Jamie's eyes said. Not in the midst of so many people.
He looked down, carefully fastening his shirt buttons. "Does Louise keep horses for riding?" he asked, eyes on his task. "There are some cliffs a few miles away; I thought perhaps we might ride there—the air may be cooler."
"I think she does," I said. "I'll ask."
We reached the cliffs just before noon. Not cliffs so much as jutting pillars and ridges of limestone that sat among the yellowing grass of the surrounding hills like the ruins of an ancient city. The pale ridges were split and fissured from time and weather, spattered with thousands of strange, tiny plants that had found a foothold in the merest scrape of eroded soil.
We left the horses hobbled in the grass, and climbed on foot to a wide, flat shelf of limestone covered with tufts of rough grass, just below the highest tumble of stone. There was little shade from the scruffy bushes, but up this high, there was a small breeze.
"God, it's hot!" Jamie said. He flipped loose the buckle of his kilt, so it fell around his feet, and started to wriggle out of his shirt.
"What are you doing, Jamie?" I said, half-laughing.
"Stripping," he replied, matter-of-factly. "Why don't ye do the same, Sassenach? You're more soaked than I am, and there's none here to see."
After a moment's hesitation, I did as he suggested. It was entirely isolated here; too craggy and rocky for sheep, the chance of even a stray shepherd coming upon us was remote. And alone, nak*d together, away from Louise and her throngs of intrusive servants…Jamie spread his plaid on the rough ground as I peeled out of my sweat-clinging garments.
He stretched lazily and settled back, arms behind his head, completely oblivious to curious ants, stray bits of gravel and the stubs of prickly vegetation.
"You must have the hide of a goat," I remarked. "How can you lie on the bare ground like that?" As bare as he, I reposed more comfortably on a thick fold of the plaid he had thoughtfully spread out for me.
He shrugged, eyes closed against the warm afternoon sun. The light gilded him in the hollow where he lay, making him glow red-gold against the dark of the rough grass beneath him.
"I'll do," he said comfortably, and lapsed into silence, the sound of his breathing near enough to reach me over the faint whine of the wind that crossed the ridges above us.
I rolled onto my belly and laid my chin on my crossed forearms, watching him. He was wide at the shoulder and narrow at the hip, with long, powerful haunches slightly dented by muscles held taut even as he relaxed. The small, warm breeze stirred the drying tufts of soft cinnamon hair beneath his arms, and ruffled the copper and gold that waved gently over his wrists, where they braced his head. The slight breeze was welcome, for the early autumn sun was still hot on my shoulders and calves.
"I love you," I said softly, not meaning him to hear me, but only for the pleasure of saying it.
He did hear, though, for the hint of a smile curved the wide mouth. After a moment, he rolled over onto his belly on the plaid beside me. A few blades of grass clung to his back and buttocks. I brushed one lightly away, and his skin shivered briefly at my touch.
I leaned to kiss his shoulder, enjoying the warm scent of his skin and the faint salty taste of him.
Instead of kissing me back, though, he pulled away a bit, and lay propped on one elbow, looking at me. There was something in his expression that I didn't understand, and it made me faintly uneasy.
"Penny for your thoughts," I said, running a finger down the deep groove of his backbone. He moved just far enough to avoid my touch, and took a deep breath.
"Well, I was wondering—" he began, and then stopped. He was looking down, fiddling with a tiny flower that sprang out of the grass.
"You were wondering what?"
"What it was like…with Louis."
I thought my heart had stopped for a moment. I knew all the blood had left my face, because I could feel the numbness of my lips as I forced the words out.
"What…it…was like?"
He looked up then, making only a passing-fair attempt at a lopsided smile.
"Well," he said. "He is a king. You'd think it would be…different, somehow. You know…special, maybe?"
The smile was slipping, and his face had gone as white as my own. He looked down again, avoiding my stricken gaze.
"I suppose all I was wondering," he murmured, "was…was he…was he different from me?" I saw him bite his lip as though wishing the words unsaid, but it was far too late for that.
"How in hell did you know?" I said. I felt dizzy and exposed, and rolled onto my stomach, pressing myself hard to the short turf.
He shook his head, teeth still clenched in his lower lip. When he finally released it, a deep red mark showed where he had bitten it.
"Claire," he said softly. "Oh, Claire. You gave me all yourself from the first time, and held nothing back from me. You never did. When I asked ye for honesty, I told ye then that it isna in you to lie. When I touched ye so—" His hand moved, cupping my buttock, and I flinched, not expecting it.
"How long have I loved you?" he asked, very quietly. "A year? Since the moment I saw you. And loved your body how often—half a thousand times or more?" One finger touched me then, gently as a moth's foot, tracing the line of arm and shoulder, gliding down my rib cage 'til I shivered at the touch and rolled away, facing him now.
"You never shrank from my touch," he said, eyes intent on the path his finger took, dipping down to follow the curve of my breast. "Not even at the first, when ye might have done so, and no surprise to me if ye had. But you didn't. You gave me everything from the very first time; held nothing back, denied me no part of you."
"But now…" he said, drawing back his hand. "I thought at first it was only that you'd lost the child, and maybe were shy of me, or feeling strange after so long apart. But then I knew that wasn't it."
There was a very long silence, then. I could feel the steady, painful thudding of my heart against the cold ground, and hear the conversation of the wind in the pines down below. Small birds called, far away. I wished I were one. Or far away, at any rate.
"Why?" he asked softly. "Why lie to me? When I had come to you thinking I knew, anyway?"
I stared down at my hands, linked beneath my chin, and swallowed.
"If…" I began, and swallowed again. "If I told you that I had let Louis…you would have asked about it. I thought you couldn't forget…maybe you could forgive me, but you'd never forget, and it would always be there between us." I swallowed once more, hard. My hands were cold despite the heat, and I felt a ball of ice in my stomach. But if I was telling him the truth now, I must tell him all of it.
"If you'd asked—and you did, Jamie, you did! I would have had to talk about it, live it over, and I was afraid…" I trailed off, unable to speak, but he wasn't going to let me off.
"Afraid of what?" he prodded.
I turned my head slightly, not meeting his eye, but enough to see his outline dark against the sun, looming through the sun-sparked curtain of my hair.
"Afraid I'd tell you why I did it," I said softly. "Jamie…I had to, to get you freed from the Bastille—I would have done worse, if I'd had to. But then…and afterward…I half-hoped someone would tell you, that you'd find out. I was so angry, Jamie—for the duel, and the baby. And because you'd forced me to do it…to go to Louis. I wanted to do something to drive you away, to make sure I never saw you again. I did it…partly…because I wanted to hurt you," I whispered.
A muscle contracted near the corner of his mouth, but he went on staring downward at his clasped hands. The chasm between us, so perilously bridged, gaped yawning and impassable once more.
"Aye. Well, you did."
His mouth clamped shut in a tight line, and he didn't speak for some time. Finally he turned his head and looked directly at me. I would have liked to avoid his eyes, but couldn't.
"Claire," he said softly. "What did ye feel—when I gave my body to Jack Randall? When I let him take me, at Wentworth?"
A tiny shock ran through me, from scalp to toenails. It was the last question I had expected to hear. I opened and closed my mouth several times before finding an answer.
"I…don't know," I said weakly. "I hadn't thought. Angry, of course. I was furious—outraged. And sick. And frightened for you. And…sorry for you."
"Were ye jealous? When I told you about it later—that he'd roused me, though I didna want it?"
I drew a deep breath, feeling the grass tickle my br**sts.
"No. At least I don't think so; I didn't think so then. After all, it wasn't as though you'd…wanted to do it." I bit my lip, looking down. His voice was quiet and matter-of-fact at my shoulder.
"I dinna think you wanted to bed Louis—did you?"
"No!"
"Aye, well," he said. He put his thumbs together on either side of a blade of grass, and concentrated on pulling it up slowly by the roots. "I was angry, too. And sick and sorry." The grass blade came free of its sheath with a tiny squeaking sound.
"When it was me," he went on, almost whispering, "I thought you could not bear the thought of it, and I would not have blamed you. I knew ye must turn from me, and I tried to send you away, so I wouldna have to see the disgust and the hurt in your face." He closed his eyes and raised the grass blade between his thumbs, barely brushing his lips.
"But you wouldna go. You took me to your breast and cherished me. You healed me, instead. You loved me, in spite of it." He took a deep, unsteady breath and turned his head to me again. His eyes were bright with tears, but no wetness escaped to slide down his cheeks.
"I thought, maybe, that I could bring myself to do that for you, as you did it for me. And that is why I came to Fontainebleau, at last."
He blinked once, hard, and his eyes cleared.
"Then when ye told me that nothing had happened—for a bit, I believed you, because I wanted to so much. But then…I could tell, Claire. I couldna hide it from myself, and I knew you had lied to me. I thought you wouldna trust me to love you, or…that you had wanted him, and were afraid to let me see it."
He dropped the grass, and his head sank forward to rest on his knuckles.
"Ye said you wanted to hurt me. Well, the thought of you lying with the King hurt worse than the brand on my breast, or the cut of the lash on my nak*d back. But the knowledge that ye thought ye couldna trust me to love you is like waking from the hangman's noose to feel the gutting knife sunk in my belly. Claire—" His mouth opened soundlessly, then closed tight for a moment, until he found the strength to go on.
"I do not know if the wound is mortal, but Claire—I do feel my heart's blood leave me, when I look at you."
The silence between us grew and deepened. The small buzz of an insect calling in the rocks vibrated in the air.
Jamie was still as a rock, his face blank as he stared down at the ground below him. I couldn't bear that blank face, and the thought of what must lie concealed behind it. I had seen a hint of his despairing fury in the arbor, and my heart felt hollow at the thought of that rage, mastered at such fearful cost, now held under an iron control that kept in not only rage, but trust and joy.
I wished desperately for some way to break the silence that parted us; some act that could restore the lost truth between us. Jamie sat up then, arms folded tight about his thighs, and turned away as he gazed out over the peaceful valley.
Better violence, I thought, than silence. I reached across the chasm between us and laid a hand on his arm. It was warm from the sun, live to my touch.
"Jamie," I whispered. "Please."
His head turned slowly toward me. His face seemed still calm, though the cat-eyes narrowed further as he looked at me in silence. He reached out, finally, and one hand gripped me by the wrist.
"Do ye wish me to beat you, then?" he said softly. His grasp tightened hard, so that I jerked unconsciously, trying to pull away from him. He pulled back, yanking me across the rough grass, bringing my body against him.
I felt myself trembling, and gooseflesh lifted the hairs on my forearms, but I managed to speak.
"Yes," I said.
His expression was unfathomable. Still holding my eyes with his own, he reached out his free hand, fumbling over the rocks until he touched a bunch of nettles. He drew in his breath as his fingers touched the prickly stems, but his jaw clenched; he closed his fist and ripped the plants up by the roots.
"The peasants of Gascony beat a faithless wife wi' nettles," he said. He lowered the spiky bunch of leaves and brushed the flower heads lightly across one breast. I gasped from the sudden sting, and a faint red blotch appeared as though by magic on my skin.
"Will ye have me do so?" he asked. "Shall I punish you that way?"
"If you…if you like." My lips were trembling so hard I could barely get out the words. A few crumbs of earth from the nettles' roots had fallen between my br**sts; one rolled down the slope of my ribs, dislodged by my pounding heart, I imagined. The welt on my breast burned like fire. I closed my eyes, imagining in vivid detail exactly what being thrashed with a bunch of nettles would feel like.
Suddenly the viselike grip on my wrist relaxed. I opened my eyes to find Jamie sitting cross-legged by me, the plants thrown aside and scattered on the ground. He had a faint, rueful smile on his lips.
"I beat you once in justice, Sassenach, and ye threatened to disembowel me with my own dirk. Now you'll ask me to whip ye wi' nettles?" He shook his head slowly, wondering, and his hand reached as though by its own volition to cup my cheek. "Is my pride worth so much to you, then?"
"Yes! Yes, it bloody is!" I sat up myself, and grasped him by the shoulders, taking both of us by surprise as I kissed him hard and awkwardly.
I felt his first involuntary start, and then he pulled me to him, arm tight around my back, mouth answering mine. Then he had me pressed flat to the earth, his weight holding me immobile beneath him. His shoulders darkened the bright sky above, and his hands held my arms against my sides, keeping me prisoner.
"All right," he whispered. His eyes bored into mine, daring me to close them, forcing me to hold his gaze. "All right. And ye wish it, I shall punish you." He moved his h*ps against me in imperious command, and I felt my legs open for him, my gates thrown wide to welcome ravishment.
"Never," he whispered to me. "Never. Never another but me! Look at me! Tell me! Look at me, Claire!" He moved in me, strongly, and I moaned and would have turned my head, but he held my face between his hands, forcing me to meet his eyes, to see his wide, sweet mouth, twisted in pain.
"Never," he said, more softly. "For you are mine. My wife, my heart, my soul." The weight of him held me still, like a boulder on my chest, but the friction of our flesh made me thrust against him, wanting more. And more.
"My body," he said, gasping for breath as he gave me what I sought. I bucked beneath him as though I wanted to escape, my back arching like a bow, pressing me into him. He lay then at full length on me, scarcely moving, so that our most intimate connection seemed barely closer than the marriage of our skins.
The grass was harsh and prickly under me, the pungence of crushed stems sharp as the smell of the man who took me. My br**sts were flattened under him, and I felt the small tickle of the hairs on his chest as we rubbed together, back and forth. I squirmed, urging him to violence, feeling the swell of his thighs as he pressed me down.
"Never," he whispered to me, face only inches from mine.
"Never," I said, and turned my head, closing my eyes to escape the intensity of his gaze.
A gentle, inexorable pressure turned me back to face him, as the small, rhythmic movements went on.
"No, my Sassenach," he said softly. "Open your eyes. Look at me. For that is your punishment, as it is mine. See what you have done to me, as I know what I have done to you. Look at me."
And I looked, held prisoner, bound to him. Looked, as he dropped the last of his masks, and showed me the depths of himself, and the wounds of his soul. I would have wept for his hurt, and for mine, had I been able. But his eyes held mine, tearless and open, boundless as the salt sea. His body held mine captive, driving me before his strength, like the west wind in the sails of a bark.
And I voyaged into him, as he into me, so that when the last small storms of love began to shake me, he cried out, and we rode the waves together as one flesh, and saw ourselves in each other's eyes.
The afternoon sun was hot on the white limestone rocks, casting deep shadows into the clefts and hollows. I found what I was looking for at last, growing from a narrow crack in a giant boulder, in g*y defiance of the lack of soil. I broke a stalk of aloe from its clump, split the fleshy leaf, and spread the cool green gel inside across the welts on Jamie's palm.
