“He does?” Dottie looked surprised but rather pleased. “Oh. I wouldn’t, thee knows. Ought I to tell him?”
“Not until he says, ‘Oh, God, oh, God,’ for thee,” Rachel said, succumbing to a giggle.
“I wouldn’t worry,” I said. “If a man says, ‘Oh, God,’ in that situation, he nearly always means it as a prayer.”
Dottie’s fair brows drew together in concentration.
“A prayer of desperation? Or gratitude?”
“Well . . . that’s up to you,” I said, and stifled a small belch of my own.
Approaching male voices outside the tent made us all glance self-consciously at the empty beer pitcher and sit up straight, poking at our slightly disheveled hair, but none of the gentlemen who came in were in any condition to cast stones.
Ian had found Denzell and Jamie, and somewhere along the way they had acquired a small, stout companion in a cocked hat, with his hair in a stumpy pigtail. All of them were flushed and, while certainly not staggering, were surrounded by a distinct haze of fermented barleycorn.
“There ye are, Sassenach!” Jamie brightened still further at seeing me, and I felt a small rush of delight at it. “Are ye—who’s this?” He had been advancing toward me, hand outstretched, but stopped abruptly at sight of Mrs. Peabody, who was lying with her arms flung out, mouth wide open.
“That’s the lady I told ye about, Uncle Jamie.” Ian wasn’t staggering, either, but was distinctly swaying and took hold of the tent pole to steady himself. “The one that’s . . . ehm . . .” He gestured with his free hand to the gentleman in the cocked hat. “She’s his wife.”
“Oh? Aye, I see.” He edged gingerly around Mrs. Peabody’s recumbent form. “She’s no dead, is she?”
“No,” I said. “I think I would have noticed.” He might have been somewhat inebriated, but still caught the faint dubious emphasis I’d placed on “think.” He knelt down carefully and put a hand in front of her open mouth.
“Nay, only drunk,” he said cheerfully. “Shall we lend ye a hand to take her home, Mr. Peabody?”
“Better lend him a wheelbarrow,” Dottie whispered to Rachel, beside me, but luckily no one noticed.
“That would be kindly of you, sir.” Surprisingly, Mr. Peabody appeared to be the only sober one of the lot. He knelt and smoothed the damp hair tenderly off his wife’s brow. “Lulu? Wake up, darling. Time to be going now.”
To my surprise, she opened her eyes and, after blinking several times in confusion, appeared to fix her gaze on her husband.
“There you are, Simon!” she said, and, with a rapturous smile, fell soundly back asleep.
Jamie rose slowly, and I could hear the small bones in his back pop as he eased himself. He was still flushed and smiling, but Ian had been right—he was dead tired. I could see the deep lines of weariness in his face and the hollows under his bones.
Ian saw them, too.
“Auntie Claire’s in need of her bed, Uncle Jamie,” he said, squeezing Jamie’s shoulder and giving me a meaning look. “It’s been a long night for her. Take her along, aye? Denny and I can help Mr. Peabody.”
Jamie gave his nephew a sharp look and then turned the same look on me, but I obligingly yawned widely enough to make my jaw crack—no great effort—and with a final quick look at Mrs. Peabody to be sure she was neither dying nor going into labor, I took his arm and towed him determinedly outside, waving briefly in farewell.
Outside, we both drew deep breaths of fresh air, sighed in unison, and laughed.
“It has been rather a long night, hasn’t it?” I put my forehead against his chest and my arms around him, slowly rubbing the knobs of his vertebrae through his coat. “What happened?”
He sighed again and kissed the top of my head.
“I’ve command of ten companies of mixed militia from Pennyslvania and New Jersey; the marquis has command of a thousand men—including mine—and is in charge of a plan to go and bite the British army in the arse.”
“Sounds like fun.” The racket of the camp had died down considerably, but the thick air still held the vibrations of many men, awake or uneasily asleep. I thought I could feel that same expectant vibration pass through Jamie, in spite of his obvious tiredness. “You need sleep, then.”
His arm tightened round me and his free hand traveled slowly down my back. I’d left Denny’s apron in the tent, and my cloak was over my arm; the thin muslin of my shift might as well have not existed.
“Oh, God,” he said, and his big, warm hand cupped my buttock with a sudden urgency. “I need you, Sassenach. I need ye bad.”
The shift was just as thin in front as in back; I could feel his waistcoat buttons—and a few other things—through it. He did want me bad.
“Do you mind doing it in a crypt that smells of wee?” I asked, thinking of the Chenowyths’ back bedroom.
“I’ve taken ye in worse places, Sassenach.”
Before I could say, “Name three,” the tent flap opened to disgorge a small procession, this consisting of Denzell, Dottie, Rachel, and Ian, each couple carrying one end of a canvas sheet on which lay the protuberant form of Mrs. Peabody. Mr. Peabody led the way, lantern held high.
We were standing in shadow, and they passed without noticing us, the girls giggling at the occasional stumble, the young men grunting with effort, and Mr. Peabody calling out encouragement as they made their laborious way through the darkness, presumably heading for the Peabody abode.