The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle (162 page)

“We sold the port to a broker there in Bilbao,” he said. “I sent Murtagh at once to Paris, to repay Monsieur Duverney’s loan—and then … I came here.”

He looked down at his hands, lying quiet in his lap. “I couldna decide,” he said softly. “To come or no. I walked, ye ken, to give myself time to think. I walked all the way from Paris to Fontainebleau. And nearly all the way back. I turned back half a dozen times, thinking myself a murderer and a fool, not knowing if I would rather kill myself or you …”

He sighed then, and looked up at me, eyes dark with reflections of the fluttering leaves.

“I had to come,” he said simply.

I didn’t say anything, but laid my hand over his and sat beside him. Fallen grapes littered the ground under the arbor, the pungent scent of their fermentation promising the forgetfulness of wine.

The cloud-streaked sun was setting, and a blur of gold silhouetted the respectful form of Hugo, looming black in the entrance to the arbor.

“Your pardon, Madame,” he said. “My mistress wishes to know—will
le seigneur
be staying for supper?”

I looked at Jamie. He sat still, waiting, the sun through the grape leaves streaking his hair with a tiger’s blaze, shadows falling across his face.

“I think you’d better,” I said. “You’re awfully thin.”

He looked me over with a half-smile. “So are you, Sassenach.”

He rose and offered me his arm. I took it and we went in together to supper, leaving the grape leaves to their muted conversation.

I lay next to Jamie, close against him, his hand resting on my thigh as he slept. I stared upward into the darkness of the bedroom, listening to the peaceful sigh of his sleeping breath, breathing myself the fresh-washed scent of the damp night air, tinged with the smell of wisteria.

The collapse of the Comte St. Germain had been the end of the evening, so far as all were concerned save Louis. As the company made to depart, murmuring excitedly among themselves, he took my arm, and led me out through the same small door by which I had entered. Good with words when required, he had no need of them here.

I was led to the green silk chaise, laid on my back and my skirts gently lifted before I could speak. He did not kiss me; he did not desire me. This was the ritual claiming of the payment agreed upon. Louis was a shrewd bargainer, and not one to forgive a debt he thought owed to him, whether the payment had value to him or not. And perhaps it did, after all; there was more than a hint of half-fearful excitement in his preparations—who but a king would dare to take La Dame Blanche in his embrace?

I was closed and dry, unready. Impatient, he seized a flagon of rose-scented oil from the table, and massaged it briefly between my legs. I lay unmoving, soundless, as the hastily probing finger withdrew, replaced at once by a member little larger, and—“suffered” is the wrong word, there was neither pain nor humiliation involved; it was a transaction—I waited, then, through the quick thrusting, and then he was on his feet, face flushed with excitement, hands fumbling to refasten his breeches over the small swelling within. He would not risk the possibility of a half-Royal, half-magic bastard; not with Madame de La Tourelle ready—a good deal readier than I, I hoped—and waiting in her own chambers down the hall.

I had given what was implicitly promised; now he could with honor accede to my request, feeling no
virtu
had gone forth from him. As for me, I met his courteous bow with my own, took my elbow from the grip with which he had gallantly escorted me to the door, and left the audience chamber only a few minutes after entering it, with the King’s assurance that the order for Jamie’s freedom would be given in the morning.

The Gentleman of the Bedchamber was standing in the hall, waiting. He bowed to me, and I bowed back, then followed him down the Hall of Mirrors, feeling the slipperiness of my oily thighs as they brushed each other, and smelling the strong scent of roses between my legs.

Hearing the gate of the palace shut behind me, I had closed my eyes and thought that I would never see Jamie again. And if by chance I did, I would rub his nose in the scent of roses, until his soul sickened and died.

But now instead I held his hand on my thigh, listening to his breathing, deep and even in the dark beside me. And I let the door close forever on His Majesty’s audience.

29

TO GRASP THE NETTLE

“Scotland.” I sighed, thinking of the cool brown streams and dark pines of Lallybroch, Jamie’s estate. “Can we really go home?”

“I expect we’ll have to,” he answered wryly. “The King’s pardon says I leave France by mid-September, or I’m back in the Bastille. Presumably, His Majesty has arranged a pardon as well from the English Crown, so I willna be hanged directly I get off the ship in Inverness.”

“I suppose we could go to Rome, or to Germany,” I suggested, tentatively. I wanted nothing more than to go home to Lallybroch, and heal in the quiet peace of the Scottish Highlands. My heart sank at the thought of royal courts and intrigue, the constant press of danger and insecurity. But if Jamie felt we must …

He shook his head, red hair falling over his face as he stooped to pull on his stockings.

“Nay, it’s Scotland or the Bastille,” he said. “Our passage is already booked, just to make sure.” He straightened and brushed the hair out of his eyes with a wry smile. “I imagine the Duke of Sandringham—and possibly King George—want me safe at home, where they can keep an eye on me. Not spying in Rome, or raising money in Germany. The three weeks’ grace, I gather, is a courtesy to Jared, giving him time to come home before I leave.”

I was sitting in the window seat of my bedroom, looking out over the tumbled green sea of the Fontainebleau woods. The hot, languid air of summer seemed to press down, sapping all energy.

“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, naked 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 breasts.

“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 naked 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.”