His breath rose in a faint cloud as he turned back the quilt and spread the front of the nightdress to expose my br**sts. Bending his head, he kissed each one, touching the nipple delicately with his tongue, so it rose as though by magic, a swelling dark pink against the white skin of my breast.
"God, they're so lovely," he murmured, repeating the process on the other side. He cupped both br**sts, admiring them.
"They're heavier," he said, "just a bit. And the ni**les are darker, too." One forefinger traced the springing curve of a single fine hair that rose near the dark areola, silver in the frosted light of the morning.
Lifting the quilt, he rolled next to me and I turned into his arms, clasping the solid curves of his back, letting my hands cup the firm rounds of his bu**ocks. His bare flesh was chilled by the morning air, but the goose bumps smoothed away under the warmth of my touch.
I tried to bring him to me at once, but he resisted me gently, forcing me down onto the pillow as he nibbled the edges of neck and ear. One hand slid up my thigh, the thin material of the nightgown gliding in waves before it.
His head dipped lower, and his hands gently spread my thighs apart. I shivered momentarily as the cold air hit the bare skin of my legs, then relaxed completely into the warm demand of his mouth.
His hair was loose, not yet laced back for the day, and the soft red tickle of it brushed my thighs. The solid weight of his body rested comfortably between my legs, broad hands cupped on the roundness of my hips.
"Mmmm?" came a interrogative sound from below.
I arched my hips slightly in response, and a brief chuckle grazed my skin with warmth.
The hands slid beneath my hips and raised me, and I relaxed into deliquescence as the tiny shudder grew and spread, rising in seconds to a fulfillment that left me limp and gasping, Jamie's head resting on my thigh. He waited a moment for me to recover, caressing the slope of my leg, before returning to his self-appointed task.
I smoothed the tumbled hair back, caressing those ears, so incongruously small and neat for such a large, blunt man. The upper curve glowed with a faint, translucent pink, and I ran my thumb along the edge of the curve.
"They're pointed at the tips," I said. "Just a bit. Like a faun's."
"Oh, aye?" he said, interrupting his labors for a moment. "Like a small deer, ye mean, or the things ye see in classical paintings wi' goat's legs, chasing naked women?"
I lifted my head and peered down across the roil of bedclothes, nightgown, and naked flesh, to the deep blue cat-eyes, gleaming above damp curls of brown hair.
"If the shoe fits," I said, "wear it." And let my head fall back on the pillow as the resultant muffled laugh vibrated against my all too sensitive flesh.
"Oh," I said, straining upward. "Oh, my. Jamie, come here."
"Not yet," he said, doing something with the tip of his tongue that made me squirm uncontrollably.
"Now," I said.
He didn't bother to reply, and I had no more breath to speak with.
"Oh," I said, a bit later. "That's…"
"Mmmm?"
"Good," I murmured. "Come here."
"No, I'll do," he said, face invisible behind the tangle of roan and cinnamon. "Would ye like it if I…"
"Jamie," I said. "I want you. Come here."
Sighing in resignation, he rose to his knees and let me pull him upward, settling at last with his weight balanced on his elbows, but comfortingly solid on top of me, belly to belly and lips to lips. He opened his mouth to protest further, but I promptly kissed him, and he slid between my thighs before he could stop himself. He moaned slightly in involuntary pleasure as he entered me, muscles tensing as he gripped my shoulders.
He was gentle and slow, pausing now and then to kiss me deeply, moving again only at my silent urging. I ran my hands softly down the slope of his back, careful not to press on the healing ridges of the fresh scars. The long muscles of his thigh trembled briefly against my own, but he held back, unwilling to move as quickly as he needed to.
I moved my hips against him, to bring him deeper.
He closed his eyes, and his brow furrowed slightly in concentration. His mouth was open, and his breath came hard.
"I can't…" he said. "Oh, God, I canna help it." His bu**ocks clenched suddenly, taut beneath my hands.
I sighed with deep satisfaction, and pulled him hard against me.
"You're all right?" he asked, a few moments later.
"I won't break, you know," I said, smiling into his eyes.
He laughed huskily. "Maybe not, Sassenach, but I may." He gathered me close against him, his cheek pressed against my hair. I flipped the quilt up and tucked it around his shoulders, sealing us in a pocket of warmth. The heat of the fire had not yet reached the bed, but the ice on the window was thawing, the crusted edge of the rime melted into glowing diamonds.
We lay quiet for a time, listening to the occasional crack of the burning applewood in the hearth and the faint sounds of the inn as the guests stirred to life. There were callings to and fro from the balconies across the courtyard, the swish and clop of hooves on the slushy stones outside, and the odd squeal now and then from below, from the piglets the landlady was raising in the kitchen behind the stove.
"Très français, n'est-ce pas?" I said, smiling at the sounds of an altercation drifting up through the floorboards, an amiable settling of accounts between the innkeeper's wife and the local vintner.
"Diseased son of a pox-ridden whore," the female voice remarked. "The brandy from last week tasted like horse-piss."
I didn't need to see the reply to imagine the one-shouldered shrug that went with it.
"How would you know, Madame? After the sixth glass, it all tastes the same, is it not so?"
The bed shook slightly as Jamie laughed with me. He lifted his head from the pillow and sniffed appreciatively at the scent of frying ham that filtered through the drafty chinks of the floorboards.
"Aye, it's France," he agreed. "Food, and drink—and love." He patted my bare hip before tugging the wrinkled gown down over it.
"Jamie," I said softly, "are you happy about it? About the baby?" Outlawed in Scotland, barred from his own home, and with only vague prospects in France, he could pardonably have been less than enthused about acquiring an additional obligation.
He was silent for a moment, only hugging me harder, then sighed briefly before answering.
"Aye, Sassenach." His hand strayed downward, gently rubbing my belly. "I'm happy. And proud as a stallion. But I am most awfully afraid, too."
"About the birth? I'll be all right." I could hardly blame him for apprehension; his own mother had died in childbirth, and birth and its complications were the leading cause of death for women in these times. Still, I knew a thing or two myself, and I had no intention whatever of exposing myself to what passed for medical care here.
"Aye, that—and everything," he said softly. "I want to protect ye, Sassenach—spread myself over ye like a cloak and shield you and the child wi' my body." His voice was soft and husky, with a slight catch in it. "I would do anything for ye…and yet…there's nothing I can do. It doesna matter how strong I am, or how willing; I canna go with you where ye must go…nor even help ye at all. And to think of the things that might happen, and me helpless to stop them…aye, I'm afraid, Sassenach.
"And yet"—he turned me toward him, hand closing gently over one breast—"yet when I think of you wi' my child at your breast…then I feel as though I've gone hollow as a soap bubble, and perhaps I shall burst with joy."
He pressed me tight against his chest, and I hugged him with all my might.
"Oh, Claire, ye do break my heart wi' loving you."
I slept for some time, and woke slowly, hearing the clang of a church bell ringing in the nearby square. Fresh from the Abbey of Ste. Anne, where all the day's activities took place to the rhythm of bells, I automatically glanced at the window, to gauge the intensity of the light and guess the time of day. Bright, clear light, and a window free of ice. The bells rang for the Angelus then, and it was noon.
I stretched, enjoying the blissful knowledge that I needn't get up at once. Early pregnancy made me tired, and the strain of travel had added to my fatigue, making the long rest doubly welcome.
It had rained and snowed unceasingly on the journey as the winter storms battered the French coast. Still, it could have been worse. We had originally intended to go to Rome, not Le Havre. That would have been three or four weeks' travel, in this weather.
Faced with the prospect of earning a living abroad, Jamie had obtained a recommendation as a translator to James Francis Edward Stuart, exiled King of Scotland—or merely the Chevalier St. George, Pretender to the Throne, depending on your loyalties—and we had determined to join the Pretender's court near Rome.
It had been a near thing, at that; we had been on the point of leaving for Italy, when Jamie's uncle Alexander, Abbot of Ste. Anne's, had summoned us to his study.
"I have heard from His Majesty," he announced without preamble.
"Which one?" Jamie asked. The slight family resemblance between the two men was exaggerated by their posture—both sat bolt upright in their chairs, shoulders squared. On the abbot's part, the posture was due to natural asceticism; on Jamie's, to reluctance to let the newly healed scars on his back contact the wood of the chair.