56
TURTLE SOUP
When I woke again, in the late afternoon, I ached all over. I had thrown off the covers in my sleep, and lay sprawled in my shift, my skin hot and dry in the soft air. My arm ached abominably, and I could feel each of Mr. Willoughby’s forty-three elegant stitches like red-hot safety pins stuck through my flesh.
No help for it; I was going to have to use the penicillin. I might be proof against smallpox, typhoid, and the common cold in its eighteenth-century incarnation, but I wasn’t immortal, and God only knew what insanitary substances the Portuguese had been employing his cutlass on before applying it to me.
The short trip across the room to the cupboard where my clothes hung left me sweating and shivering, and I had to sit down quite suddenly, the skirt clutched to my bosom, in order to avoid falling.
“Sassenach! Are ye all right?” Jamie poked his head through the low doorway, looking worried.
“No,” I said. “Come here a minute, will you? I need you to do something.”
“Wine? A biscuit? Murphy’s made a wee broth for ye, special.” He was beside me in a moment, the back of his hand cool against my flushed cheek. “God, you’re burning!”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “Don’t worry, though; I have medicine for it.”
I fumbled one-handed in the pocket of the skirt, and pulled out the case containing the syringes and ampules. My right arm was sore enough that any movement made me clench my teeth.
“Your turn,” I said wryly, shoving the case across the table toward Jamie. “Here’s your chance for revenge, if you want it.”
He looked blankly at the case, then at me.
“What?” he said. “Ye want me to stab ye with one of these spikes?”
“I wish you wouldn’t put it quite that way, but yes,” I said.
“In the bum?” His lips twitched.
“Yes, damn you!”
He looked at me for a moment, one corner of his mouth curling slightly upward. Then he bowed his head over the case, red hair glowing in the shaft of sun from the window.
“Tell me what to do, then,” he said.
I directed him carefully, guiding him through the preparation and filling of the syringe, and then took it myself, checking for air bubbles, clumsily left-handed. By the time I had given it back to him and arranged myself on the berth, he had ceased to find anything faintly funny about the situation.
“Are ye sure ye want me to do it?” he said doubtfully. “I’m no verra good with my hands.”
That made me laugh, in spite of my throbbing arm. I had seen him do everything with those hands, from delivering foals and building walls, to skinning deer and setting type, all with the same light and dextrous touch.
“Well, aye,” he said, when I said as much. “But it’s no quite the same, is it? The closest thing I’ve done to this is to dirk a man in the wame, and it feels a bit strange to think of doin’ such a thing to you, Sassenach.”
I glanced back over my shoulder, to find him gnawing dubiously on his lower lip, the brandy-soaked pad in one hand, the syringe held gingerly in the other.
“Look,” I said. “I did it to you; you know what it feels like. It wasn’t that bad, was it?” He was beginning to make me rather nervous.
“Mmphm.” Pressing his lips together, he knelt down by the bed and gently wiped a spot on my backside with the cool, wet pad. “Is this all right?”
“That’s fine. Press the point in at a bit of an angle, not straight in—you see how the point of the needle’s cut at an angle? Push it in about a quarter-inch—don’t be afraid to jab a bit, skin’s tougher than you think to get through—and then push down the plunger very slowly, you don’t want to do it too fast.”
I closed my eyes and waited. After a moment, I opened them and looked back. He was pale, and a faint sheen of sweat glimmered over his cheekbones.
“Never mind.” I heaved myself upright, bracing against the wave of dizziness. “Here, give me that.” I snatched the pad from his hand and swiped a patch across the top of my thigh. My hand trembled slightly from the fever.
“But—”
“Shut up!” I took the syringe and aimed it as well as I could, left-handed, then plunged it into the muscle. It hurt. It hurt more when I pressed down on the plunger, and my thumb slipped off.
Then Jamie’s hands were there, one steadying my leg, the other on the needle, slowly pressing down until the last of the white liquid had vanished from the tube. I took one quick, deep breath when he pulled it out.
“Thanks,” I said, after a moment.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, a minute later. His hand came behind my back, easing me down.
“It’s all right.” My eyes were closed, and there were little colored patterns on the inside of my eyelids. They reminded me of the lining of a doll’s suitcase I had had as a child; tiny pink and silver stars on a dark background. “I’d forgotten; it’s hard to do it the first few times. I suppose sticking a dirk in someone is easier,” I added. “You aren’t worried about hurting them, after all.”
He didn’t say anything, but exhaled rather strongly through his nose. I could hear him moving about the room, putting the case of syringes away and hanging up my skirt. The site of the injection felt like a knot under my skin.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Well, ye should,” he said evenly. “It is easier to kill someone to save your own life than it is to hurt someone to save theirs. Ye’re a deal braver than I am, and I dinna mind your saying so.”
I opened my eyes and looked at him.
“The hell you don’t.”
He stared down at me, blue eyes narrowed. The corner of his mouth turned up.
“The hell I don’t,” he agreed.
I laughed, but it hurt my arm.
“I’m not, and you aren’t, and I didn’t mean it that way, anyway,” I said, and closed my eyes again.
“Mmphm.”
I could hear the thump of feet on the deck above, and Mr. Warren’s voice, raised in organized impatience. We had passed Great Abaco and Eleuthera in the night, and were now headed south toward Jamaica, with the wind behind us.
“I wouldn’t risk being shot and hacked at, and arrested and hanged, if there were any choice about it,” I said.
“Neither would I,” he said dryly.
“But you—” I began, and then stopped. I looked at him curiously. “You really think that,” I said slowly. “That you don’t have a choice about it. Don’t you?”
He was turned slightly away from me, eyes fixed on the port. The sun shone on the bridge of his long, straight nose and he rubbed a finger slowly up and down it. The broad shoulders rose slightly, and fell.
“I’m a man, Sassenach,” he said, very softly. “If I thought there was a choice…then I maybe couldna do it. Ye dinna need to be so brave about things if ye ken ye canna help it, aye?” He looked at me then, with a faint smile. “Like a woman in childbirth, aye? Ye must do it, and it makes no difference if you’re afraid—ye’ll do it. It’s only when ye ken ye can say no that it takes courage.”
I lay quiet for a bit, watching him. He had closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair, auburn lashes long and absurdly childish against his cheeks. They contrasted strangely with the smudges beneath his eyes and the deeper lines at the corners. He was tired; he’d barely slept since the sighting of the pirate vessel.
“I haven’t told you about Graham Menzies, have I?” I said at last. The blue eyes opened at once.
“No. Who was he?”
“A patient. At the hospital in Boston.”
Graham had been in his late sixties when I knew him; a Scottish immigrant who hadn’t lost his burr, despite nearly forty years in Boston. He was a fisherman, or had been; when I knew him he owned several lobster boats, and let others do the fishing for him.
He was a lot like the Scottish soldiers I had known at Prestonpans and Falkirk; stoic and humorous at once, willing to joke about anything that was too painful to suffer in silence.
“You’ll be careful, now, lassie,” was the last thing he said to me as I watched the anesthetist set up the intravenous drip that would maintain him while I amputated his cancerous left leg. “Be sure ye’re takin’ off the right one, now.”
“Don’t worry,” I assured him, patting the weathered hand that lay on the sheet. “I’ll get the right one.”
“Ye will?” His eyes widened in simulated horror. “I thought ’twas the left one was bad!” He was still chuckling asthmatically as the gas mask came down over his face.
The amputation had gone well, and Graham had recovered and gone home, but I was not really surprised to see him back again, six months later. The lab report on the original tumor had been dubious, and the doubts were now substantiated; metastasis to the lymph nodes in the groin.
I removed the cancerous nodes. Radiation treatment was applied. Cobalt. I removed the spleen, to which the disease had spread, knowing that the surgery was entirely in vain, but not willing to give up.
“It’s a lot easier not to give up, when it isn’t you that’s sick,” I said, staring up at the timbers overhead.
“Did he give up, then?” Jamie asked.
“I don’t think I’d call it that, exactly.”
“I have been thinking,” Graham announced. The sound of his voice echoed tinnily through the earpieces of my stethoscope.
“Have you?” I said. “Well, don’t do it out loud ’til I’ve finished here, that’s a good lad.”
He gave a brief snort of laughter, but lay quietly as I auscultated his chest, moving the disc of the stethoscope swiftly from ribs to sternum.
“All right,” I said at last, slipping the tubes out of my ears and letting them fall over my shoulders. “What have you been thinking about?”
“Killing myself.”
His eyes met mine straight on, with just a hint of challenge. I glanced behind me, to be sure that the nurse had left, then pulled up the blue plastic visitor’s chair and sat down next to him.
“Pain getting bad?” I asked. “There are things we can do, you know. You only need to ask.” I hesitated before adding the last; he never had asked. Even when it was obvious that he needed medication, he never mentioned his discomfort. To mention it myself seemed an invasion of his privacy; I saw the small tightening at the corners of his mouth.
“I’ve a daughter,” he said. “And two grandsons; bonny lads. But I’m forgetting; you’ll have seen them last week, aye?”
I had. They came at least twice a week to see him, bringing scribbled school papers and autographed baseballs to show their grandpa.
“And there’s my mother, living up to the rest home on Canterbury,” he said thoughtfully. “It costs dearly, that place, but it’s clean, and the food’s good enough she enjoys complainin’ about it while she eats.”
He glanced dispassionately at the flat bedsheet, and lifted his stump.
“A month, d’ye think? Four? Three?”
“Maybe three,” I said. “With luck,” I added idiotically.
He snorted at me, and jerked his head at the IV drip above him.
“Tcha! And worse luck I wouldna wish on a beggar.” He looked around at all the paraphernalia; the automatic respirator, the blinking cardiac monitor, the litter of medical technology. “Nearly a hundred dollars a day it’s costing, to keep me here,” he said. “Three months, that would be—great heavens, ten thousand dollars!” He shook his head, frowning.
“A bad bargain, I call that. Not worth it.” His pale gray eyes twinkled suddenly up at me. “I’m Scots, ye know. Born thrifty, and not likely to get over it now.”
“So I did it for him,” I said, still staring upward. “Or rather, we did it together. He was prescribed morphia for the pain—that’s like laudanum, only much stronger. I drew off half of each ampule and replaced the missing bit with water. It meant he didn’t get the relief of a full dose for nearly twenty-four hours, but that was the safest way to get a big dose with no risk of being found out.
“We talked about using one of the botanical medicines I was studying; I knew enough to make up something fatal, but I wasn’t sure of it being painless, and he didn’t want to risk me being accused, if anyone got suspicious and did a forensic examination.” I saw Jamie’s eyebrow lift, and flapped a hand. “It doesn’t matter; it’s a way of finding out how someone died.”
“Ah. Like a coroner’s court?”
“A bit. Anyway, he’d be supposed to have morphia in his blood; that wouldn’t prove anything. So that’s what we did.”
I drew a deep breath.
“There would have been no trouble, if I’d given him the injection, and left. That’s what he’d asked me to do.”
Jamie was quiet, eyes fixed intently on me.
“I couldn’t do it, though.” I looked at my left hand, seeing not my own smooth flesh, but the big, swollen knuckles of a commercial fisherman, and the fat green veins that crossed his wrist.
“I got the needle in,” I said. I rubbed a finger over the spot on the wrist, where a large vein crosses the distal head of the radius. “But I couldn’t press down the plunger.”
In memory, I saw Graham Menzies’s other hand rise from his side, trailing tubes, and close over my own. He hadn’t much strength, then, but enough.
“I sat there until he was gone, holding his hand.” I felt it still, the steady beat of the wrist-pulse under my thumb, growing slower, and slower still, as I held his hand, and then waiting for a beat that did not come.
I looked up at Jamie, shaking off the memory.
“And then a nurse came in.” It had been one of the younger nurses—an excitable girl, with no discretion. She wasn’t very experienced, but knew enough to tell a dead man when she saw one. And me just sitting there, doing nothing—most undoctorlike conduct. And the empty morphia syringe, lying on the table beside me.
“She talked, of course,” I said.
“I expect she would.”
“I had the presence of mind to drop the syringe into the incinerator chute after she left, though. It was her word against mine, and the whole matter was just dismissed.”
My mouth twisted wryly. “Except that the next week, they offered me a job as head of the whole department. Very important. A lovely office on the sixth floor of the hospital—safely away from the patients, where I couldn’t murder anyone else.”
My finger was still rubbing absently across my wrist. Jamie reached out and stopped it by laying his own hand over mine.
“When was this, Sassenach?” he asked, his voice very gentle.
“Just before I took Bree and went to Scotland. That’s why I went, in fact; they gave me an extended leave—said I’d been working too hard, and deserved a nice vacation.” I didn’t try to keep the irony out of my voice.
“I see.” His hand was warm on mine, despite the heat of my fever. “If it hadna been for that, for losing your work—would ye have come, Sassenach? Not just to Scotland. To me?”
I looked up at him and squeezed his hand, taking a deep breath.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I really don’t. If I hadn’t come to Scotland, met Roger Wakefield, found out that you—” I stopped and swallowed, overwhelmed. “It was Graham who sent me to Scotland,” I said at last, feeling slightly choked. “He asked me to go someday—and say hello to Aberdeen for him.” I glanced up at Jamie suddenly.
“I didn’t! I never did go to Aberdeen.”
“Dinna trouble yourself, Sassenach.” Jamie squeezed my hand. “I’ll take ye there myself—when we go back. Not,” he added practically, “that there’s anything to see there.”
* * *
It was growing stuffy in the cabin. He rose and went to open one of the stern windows.
“Jamie,” I said, watching his back, “what do you want?”
He glanced around, frowning slightly in thought.
“Oh—an orange would be good,” he said. “There’s some in the desk, aye?” Without waiting for a reply, he rolled back the lid of the desk, revealing a small bowl of oranges, bright among the litter of quills and papers. “D’ye want one, too?”
“All right,” I said, smiling. “That wasn’t really what I meant, though. I meant—what do you want to do, once we’ve found Ian?”
“Oh.” He sat down by the berth, an orange in his hands, and stared at it for a moment.
“D’ye know,” he said at last, “I dinna think anyone has ever asked me that—what it was I wanted to do.” He sounded mildly surprised.
“Not as though you very often had a choice about it, is it?” I said dryly. “Now you do, though.”
“Aye, that’s true.” He rolled the orange between his palms, head bent over the dimpled sphere. “I suppose it’s come to ye that we likely canna go back to Scotland—at least for a time?” he said. I had told him of Tompkins’s revelations about Sir Percival and his machinations, of course, but we had had little time to discuss the matter—or its implications.
“It has,” I said. “That’s why I asked.”
I was quiet then, letting him come to terms with it. He had lived as an outlaw for a good many years, hiding first physically, and then by means of secrecy and aliases, eluding the law by slipping from one identity to another. But now all these were known; there was no way for him to resume any of his former activities—or even to appear in public in Scotland.
His final refuge had always been Lallybroch. But even that avenue of retreat was lost to him now. Lallybroch would always be his home, but it was no longer his; there was a new laird now. I knew he would not begrudge the fact that Jenny’s family possessed the estate—but he must, if he were human, regret the loss of his heritage.
I could hear his faint snort, and thought he had probably reached the same point in his thinking that I had in mine.
“Not Jamaica or the English-owned islands, either,” he observed ruefully. “Tom Leonard and the Royal Navy may think us both dead for the moment, but they’ll be quick enough to notice otherwise if we stay for any length of time.”
“Have you thought of America?” I asked this delicately. “The Colonies, I mean.”
He rubbed his nose doubtfully.
“Well, no. I hadna really thought of it. It’s true we’d likely be safe from the Crown there, but…” He trailed off, frowning. He picked up his dirk and scored the orange, quickly and neatly, then began to peel it.
“No one would be hunting you there,” I pointed out. “Sir Percival hasn’t got any interest in you, unless you’re in Scotland, where arresting you would do him some good. The British Navy can’t very well follow you ashore, and the West Indian governors haven’t anything to say about what goes on in the Colonies, either.”
“That’s true,” he said slowly. “But the Colonies…” He took the peeled orange in one hand, and began to toss it lightly, a few inches in the air. “It’s verra primitive, Sassenach,” he said. “A wilderness, aye? I shouldna like to take ye into danger.”
That made me laugh, and he glanced sharply at me, then, catching my thought, relaxed into a half-rueful smile.
“Aye, well, I suppose draggin’ ye off to sea and letting ye be kidnapped and locked up in a plague ship is dangerous enough. But at least I havena let ye be eaten by cannibals, yet.”
I wanted to laugh again, but there was a bitter note to his voice that made me bite my lip instead.
“There aren’t any cannibals in America,” I said.
“There are!” he said heatedly. “I printed a book for a society of Catholic missionaries, that told all about the heathen Iroquois in the north. They tie up their captives and chop bits off of them, and then rip out their hearts and eat them before their eyes!”
“Eat the hearts first and then the eyes, do they?” I said, laughing in spite of myself. “All right,” I said, seeing his scowl, “I’m sorry. But for one thing, you can’t believe everything you read, and for another—”
I didn’t get to finish. He leaned forward and grasped my good arm, tight enough to make me squeak with surprise.
“Damn you, listen to me!” he said. “It’s no light matter!”
“Well…no, I suppose not,” I said, tentatively. “I didn’t mean to make fun of you—but, Jamie, I did live in Boston for nearly twenty years. You’ve never set foot in America!”
“That’s true,” he said evenly. “And d’ye think the place ye lived in is anything like what it’s like now, Sassenach?”
“Well—” I began, then paused. While I had seen any number of historic buildings near Boston Common, sporting little brass plaques attesting to their antiquity, the majority of them had been built later than 1770; many a lot later. And beyond a few buildings…
“Well, no,” I admitted. “It’s not; I know it’s not. But I don’t think it’s a complete wilderness. There are cities and towns now; I know that much.”
He let go of my arm and sat back. He still held the orange in his other hand.
“I suppose that’s so,” he said slowly. “Ye dinna hear so much of the towns—only that it’s such a wild savage place, though verra beautiful. But I’m no a fool, Sassenach.” His voice sharpened slightly, and he dug his thumb savagely into the orange, splitting it in half.
“I dinna believe something only because someone’s set words down in a book—for God’s sake, I print the damn things! I ken verra well just what charlatans and fools some writers are—I see them! And surely I ken the difference between a romance and a fact set down in cold blood!”
“All right,” I said. “Though I’m not sure it’s all that easy to tell the difference between romance and fact in print. But even if it’s dead true about the Iroquois, the whole continent isn’t swarming with bloodthirsty savages. I do know that much. It’s a very big place, you know,” I added, gently.
“Mmphm,” he said, plainly unconvinced. Still, he bent his attention to the orange, and began to divide it into segments.
“This is very funny,” I said ruefully. “When I made up my mind to come back, I read everything I could find about England and Scotland and France about this time, so I’d know as much as I could about what to expect. And here we end up in a place I know nothing about, because it never dawned on me we’d cross the ocean, with you being so seasick.”
That made him laugh, a little grudgingly.
“Aye, well, ye never ken what ye can do ’til ye have to. Believe me, Sassenach, once I’ve got Ian safely back, I shall never set foot on a filthy, godforsaken floating plank in my life again—except to go home to Scotland, when it’s safe,” he added, as an afterthought. He offered me an orange segment and I took it, token of a peace offering.
“Speaking of Scotland, you still have your printing press there, safe in Edinburgh,” I said. “We could have it sent over, maybe—if we settled in one of the larger American cities.”
He looked up at that, startled.
“D’ye think it would be possible to earn a living, printing? There are that many people? It takes a fair-sized city, ye ken, to need a printer or bookseller.”
“I’m sure you could. Boston, Philadelphia…not New York yet, I don’t think. Williamsburg, maybe? I don’t know which ones, but there are several places big enough to need printing—the shipping ports, certainly.” I remembered the flapping posters, advertising dates of embarkation and arrival, sales of goods and recruitment of seamen, that decorated the walls of every seaside tavern in Le Havre.
“Mmphm.” This one was a thoughtful noise. “Aye, well, if we might do that…”
He poked a piece of fruit into his mouth and ate it slowly.
“What about you?” he said abruptly.
I glanced at him, startled.
“What about me?”
His eyes were fixed intently on me, reading my face.
“Would it suit ye to go to such a place?” He looked down then, carefully separating the other half of the fruit. “I mean—you’ve your work to do as well, aye?” He looked up and smiled, wryly.
“I learned in Paris that I couldna stop ye doing it. And ye said yourself, ye might not have come, had Menzies’s death not stopped you, where ye were. Can ye be a healer in the Colonies, d’ye think?”
“I expect I can,” I said slowly. “There are people sick and injured, almost anywhere you go, after all.” I looked at him, curious.
“You’re a very odd man, Jamie Fraser.”
He laughed at that, and swallowed the rest of his orange.
“Oh, I am, aye? And what d’ye mean by that?”
“Frank loved me,” I said slowly. “But there were…pieces of me, that he didn’t know what to do with. Things about me that he didn’t understand, or maybe that frightened him.” I glanced at Jamie. “Not you.”
His head was bent over a second orange, hands moving swiftly as he scored it with his dirk, but I could see the faint smile in the corner of his mouth.
“No, Sassenach, ye dinna frighten me. Or rather ye do, but only when I think ye may kill yourself from carelessness.”
I snorted briefly.
“You scare me, for the same reason, but I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do about it.”
His chuckle was deep and easy.
“And ye think I canna do anything about it, either, so I shouldna be worrit?”
“I didn’t say you shouldn’t worry—do you think I don’t worry? But no, you probably can’t do anything about me.”
I saw him opening his mouth to disagree. Then he changed his mind, and laughed again. He reached out and popped an orange segment into my mouth.
“Well, maybe no, Sassenach, and maybe so. But I’ve lived a long enough time now to think it maybe doesna matter so much—so long as I can love you.”
Speechless with orange juice, I stared at him in surprise.
“And I do,” he said softly. He leaned into the berth and kissed me, his mouth warm and sweet. Then he drew back, and gently touched my cheek.
“Rest now,” he said firmly. “I’ll bring ye some broth, in a bit.”
* * *
I slept for several hours, and woke up still feverish, but hungry. Jamie brought me some of Murphy’s broth—a rich green concoction, swimming in butter and reeking with sherry—and insisted, despite my protests, on feeding it to me with a spoon.
“I have a perfectly good hand,” I said crossly.
“Aye, and I’ve seen ye use it, too,” he replied, deftly gagging me with the spoon. “If ye’re clumsy with a spoon as wi’ that needle, you’ll have this all spilt down your bosom and wasted, and Murphy will brain me wi’ the ladle. Here, open up.”
I did, my resentment gradually melting into a sort of warm and glowing stupor as I ate. I hadn’t taken anything for the pain in my arm, but as my empty stomach expanded in grateful relief, I more or less quit noticing it.
“Will ye have another bowl?” Jamie asked, as I swallowed the last spoonful. “Ye’ll need your strength kept up.” Not waiting for an answer, he uncovered the small tureen Murphy had sent, and refilled the bowl.
“Where’s Ishmael?” I asked, during the brief hiatus.
“On the after deck. He didna seem comfortable belowdecks—and I canna say I blame him, having seen the slavers at Bridgetown. I had Maitland sling him a hammock.”
“Do you think it’s safe to leave him loose like that? What kind of soup is this?” The last spoonful had left a delightful, lingering taste on my tongue; the next revived the full flavor.
“Turtle; Stern took a big hawksbill last night. He sent word he’s saving ye the shell to make combs of, for your hair.” Jamie frowned slightly, whether at the thought of Lawrence Stern’s gallantry or Ishmael’s presence, I couldn’t tell. “As for the black, he’s not loose—Fergus is watching him.”
“Fergus is on his honeymoon,” I protested. “You shouldn’t make him do it. Is this really turtle soup? I’ve never had it before. It’s marvelous.”
Jamie was unmoved by contemplation of Fergus’s tender state.
“Aye, well, he’ll be wed a long time,” he said callously. “Do him no harm to keep his breeches on for one night. And they do say that abstinence makes the heart grow firmer, no?”
“Absence,” I said, dodging the spoon for a moment. “And fonder. If anything’s growing firmer from abstinence, it wouldn’t be his heart.”
“That’s verra bawdy talk for a respectable marrit woman,” Jamie said reprovingly, sticking the spoon in my mouth. “And inconsiderate, forbye.”
I swallowed. “Inconsiderate?”
“I’m a wee bit firm myself at the moment,” he replied evenly, dipping and spooning. “What wi’ you sitting there wi’ your hair loose and your nipples starin’ me in the eye, the size of cherries.”
I glanced down involuntarily, and the next spoonful bumped my nose. Jamie clicked his tongue, and picking up a cloth, briskly blotted my bosom with it. It was quite true that my shift was made of thin cotton, and even when dry, reasonably easy to see through.
“It’s not as though you haven’t seen them before,” I said, amused.
He laid down the cloth and raised his brows.
“I have drunk water every day since I was weaned,” he pointed out. “It doesna mean I canna be thirsty, still.” He picked up the spoon. “You’ll have a wee bit more?”
“No, thanks,” I said, dodging the oncoming spoon. “I want to hear more about this firmness of yours.”
“No, ye don’t; you’re ill.”
“I feel much better,” I assured him. “Shall I have a look at it?” He was wearing the loose petticoat breeches the sailors wore, in which he could easily have concealed three or four dead mullet, let alone a fugitive firmness.
“You shall not,” he said, looking slightly shocked. “Someone might come in. And I canna think your looking at it would help a bit.”
“Well, you can’t tell that until I have looked at it, can you?” I said. “Besides, you can bolt the door.”
“Bolt the door? What d’ye think I’m going to do? Do I look the sort of man would take advantage of a woman who’s not only wounded and boiling wi’ fever, but drunk as well?” he demanded. He stood up, nonetheless.
“I am not drunk,” I said indignantly. “You can’t get drunk on turtle soup!” Nonetheless, I was conscious that the glowing warmth in my stomach seemed to have migrated somewhat lower, taking up residence between my thighs, and there was undeniably a slight lightness of head not strictly attributable to fever.
“You can if ye’ve been drinking turtle soup as made by Aloysius O’Shaughnessy Murphy,” he said. “By the smell of it, he’s put at least a full bottle o’ the sherry in it. A verra intemperate race, the Irish.”
“Well, I’m still not drunk.” I straightened up against the pillows as best I could. “You told me once that if you could still stand up, you weren’t drunk.”
“You aren’t standing up,” he pointed out.
“You are. And I could if I wanted to. Stop trying to change the subject. We were talking about your firmness.”
“Well, ye can just stop talking about it, because—” He broke off with a small yelp, as I made a fortunate grab with my left hand.
“Clumsy, am I?” I said, with considerable satisfaction. “Oh, my. Heavens, you do have a problem, don’t you?”
“Will ye leave go of me?” he hissed, looking frantically over his shoulder at the door. “Someone could come in any moment!”
“I told you you should have bolted the door,” I said, not letting go. Far from being a dead mullet, the object in my hand was exhibiting considerable liveliness.
He eyed me narrowly, breathing through his nose.
“I wouldna use force on a sick woman,” he said through his teeth, “but you’ve a damn healthy grip for someone with a fever, Sassenach. If you—”
“I told you I felt better,” I interrupted, “but I’ll make you a bargain; you bolt the door and I’ll prove I’m not drunk.” I rather regretfully let go, to indicate good faith. He stood staring at me for a moment, absentmindedly rubbing the site of my recent assault on his virtue. Then he lifted one ruddy eyebrow, turned, and went to bolt the door.
By the time he turned back, I had made it out of the berth and was standing—a trifle shakily, but still upright—against the frame. He eyed me critically.
“It’s no going to work, Sassenach,” he said, shaking his head. He looked rather regretful, himself. “We’ll never stay upright, wi’ a swell like there is underfoot tonight, and ye know I’ll not fit in that berth by myself, let alone wi’ you.”
There was a considerable swell; the lantern on its swivel-bracket hung steady and level, but the shelf above it tilted visibly back and forth as the Artemis rode the waves. I could feel the faint shudder of the boards under my bare feet, and knew Jamie was right. At least he was too absorbed in the discussion to be seasick.
“There’s always the floor,” I suggested hopefully. He glanced down at the limited floor space and frowned. “Aye, well. There is, but we’d have to do it like snakes, Sassenach, all twined round each other amongst the table legs.”
“I don’t mind.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “it would hurt your arm.” He rubbed a knuckle across his lower lip, thinking. His eyes passed absently across my body at about hip level, returned, fixed, and lost their focus. I thought the bloody shift must be more transparent than I realized.
Deciding to take matters into my own hands, I let go my hold on the frame of the berth and lurched the two paces necessary to reach him. The roll of the ship threw me into his arms, and he barely managed to keep his own balance, clutching me tightly round the waist.
“Jesus!” he said, staggered, and then, as much from reflex as from desire, bent his head and kissed me.
It was startling. I was accustomed to be surrounded by the warmth of his embrace; now it was I who was hot to the touch and he who was cool. From his reaction, he was enjoying the novelty as much as I was.
Light-headed, and reckless with it, I nipped the side of his neck with my teeth, feeling the waves of heat from my face pulsate against the column of his throat. He felt it, too.
“God, you’re like holding a hot coal!” His hands dropped lower and pressed me hard against him.
“Firm is it? Ha,” I said, getting my mouth free for a moment. “Take those baggy things off.” I slid down his length and onto my knees in front of him, fumbling mazily at his flies. He freed the laces with a quick jerk, and the petticoat breeches ballooned to the floor with a whiff of wind.
I didn’t wait for him to remove his shirt; just lifted it and took him. He made a strangled sound and his hands came down on my head as though he wanted to restrain me, but hadn’t the strength.
“Oh, Lord!” he said. His hands tightened in my hair, but he wasn’t trying to push me away. “This must be what it’s like to make love in Hell,” he whispered. “With a burning she-devil.”
I laughed, which was extremely difficult under the circumstances. I choked, and pulled back a moment, breathless.
“Is this what a succubus does, do you think?”
“I wouldna doubt it for a moment,” he assured me. His hands were still in my hair, urging me back.
A knock sounded on the door, and he froze. Confident that the door was indeed bolted, I didn’t.
“Aye? What is it?” he said, with a calmness rather remarkable for a man in his position.
“Fraser?” Lawrence Stern’s voice came through the door. “The Frenchman says the black is asleep, and may he have leave to go to bed now?”
“No,” said Jamie shortly. “Tell him to stay where he is; I’ll come along and relieve him in a bit.”
“Oh.” Stern’s voice sounded a little hesitant. “Surely. His…um, his wife seems…eager for him to come now.”
Jamie inhaled sharply.
“Tell her,” he said, a small note of strain becoming evident in his voice, “that he’ll be there…presently.”
“I will say so.” Stern sounded dubious about Marsali’s reception of this news, but then his voice brightened. “Ah…is Mrs. Fraser feeling somewhat improved?”
“Verra much,” said Jamie, with feeling.
“She enjoyed the turtle soup?”
“Greatly. I thank ye.” His hands on my head were trembling.
“Did you tell her that I’ve put aside the shell for her? It was a fine hawksbill turtle; a most elegant beast.”
“Aye. Aye, I did.” With an audible gasp, Jamie pulled away and reaching down, lifted me to my feet.
“Good night, Mr. Stern!” he called. He pulled me toward the berth; we struggled four-legged to keep from crashing into tables and chairs as the floor rose and fell beneath us.
“Oh.” Lawrence sounded faintly disappointed. “I suppose Mrs. Fraser is asleep, then?”
“Laugh, and I’ll throttle ye,” Jamie whispered fiercely in my ear. “She is, Mr. Stern,” he called through the door. “I shall give her your respects in the morning, aye?”
“I trust she will rest well. There seems to be a certain roughness to the sea this evening.”
“I…have noticed, Mr. Stern.” Pushing me to my knees in front of the berth, he knelt behind me, groping for the hem of my shift. A cool breeze from the open stern window blew over my naked buttocks, and a shiver ran down the backs of my thighs.
“Should you or Mrs. Fraser find yourselves discommoded by the motion, I have a most capital remedy to hand—a compound of mugwort, bat dung, and the fruit of the mangrove. You have only to ask, you know.”
Jamie didn’t answer for a moment.
“Oh, Christ!” he whispered. I took a sizable bite of the bedclothes.
“Mr. Fraser?”
“I said, ‘Thank you’!” Jamie replied, raising his voice.
“Well, I shall bid you a good evening, then.”
Jamie let out his breath in a long shudder that was not quite a moan.
“Mr. Fraser?”
“Good evening, Mr. Stern!” Jamie bellowed.
“Oh! Er…good evening.”
Stern’s footsteps receded down the companionway, lost in the sound of the waves that were now crashing loudly against the hull. I spit out the mouthful of quilt.
“Oh…my…God!”
His hands were large and hard and cool on my heated flesh.
“You’ve the roundest arse I’ve ever seen!”
A lurch by the Artemis here aiding his efforts to an untoward degree, I uttered a loud shriek.
“Shh!” He clasped a hand over my mouth, bending over me so that he lay over my back, the billowing linen of his shirt falling around me and the weight of him pressing me to the bed. My skin, crazed with fever, was sensitive to the slightest touch, and I shook in his arms, the heat inside me rushing outward as he moved within me.
His hands were under me then, clutching my breasts, the only anchor as I lost my boundaries and dissolved, conscious thought a displaced element in the chaos of sensations—the warm damp of tangled quilts beneath me, the cold sea wind and misty spray that wafted over us from the rough sea outside, the gasp and brush of Jamie’s warm breath on the back of my neck, and the sudden prickle and flood of cold and heat, as my fever broke in a dew of satisfied desire.
Jamie’s weight rested on my back, his thighs behind mine. It was warm, and comforting. After a long time, his breathing eased, and he rose off me. The thin cotton of my shift was damp, and the wind plucked it away from my skin, making me shiver.
Jamie closed the window with a snap, then bent and picked me up like a rag doll. He lowered me into the berth, and pulled the quilt up over me.
“How is your arm?” he said.
“What arm?” I murmured drowsily. I felt as though I had been melted and poured into a mold to set.
“Good,” he said, a smile in his voice. “Can ye stand up?”
“Not for all the tea in China.”
“I’ll tell Murphy ye liked the soup.” His hand rested for a moment on my cool forehead, passed down the curve of my cheek in a light caress, and then was gone. I didn’t hear him leave.