An echo in the bone - Gabaldon Diana. Страница 168

“Ye want to know what I was thinking, do ye?” he murmured in my ear.

“Mmp!”

“Well, I’ll tell ye, a nighean, but—” He paused in order to lick my earlobe.

“NNG!”

The hand tightened warningly over my mouth. The voices were near enough to make out words now: a small party of young militiamen, half drunk and in search of whores. Jamie’s teeth closed delicately on my ear, and he began to nibble thoughtfully, his breath warm and tickling. I wriggled madly, but he wasn’t budging.

He gave the same thorough treatment to the other ear before the men had moved out of earshot, then kissed the end of my nose, taking his hand off my mouth at last.

“Ah. Now, where was I? Oh, aye—ye wanted to hear what I was thinking of.”

“I’ve changed my mind.” I was panting shallowly, as much from the weight on my chest as from desire. Both were considerable.

He made a Scottish noise indicating deep amusement and tightened his grip on my wrists.

“You started it, Sassenach—but I’ll finish it.” Whereupon he put his lips to my wet ear and told me in a slow whisper exactly what he’d been thinking. Not moving an inch while he did so, save to put his hand back over my mouth when I began to call him names.

Every muscle in my body was jumping like a snapped rubber band when he finally moved. In one sudden motion, he raised himself and slid back, then forward hard.

When I could see and hear again, I realized that he was laughing, still balanced above me.

“Put ye out of your misery, did I, Sassenach?”

“You…” I croaked. Words failed me, but two could play at this game. He hadn’t moved, in part to torture me—but in equal part because he couldn’t; not without ending it at once. I flexed my soft, slick muscles once around him, slowly, gently—then did it three times, fast. He made a gratifying noise and lost it, jerking and groaning, the pulse of it exciting an echo in my own flesh. Very slowly, he lowered himself, sighing like a deflated bladder, and lay beside me, breathing slowly, eyes closed.

“Now you can sleep,” I said, stroking his hair. He smiled without opening his eyes, breathed deep, and his body relaxed, settling into the earth.

“And next time, you bloody Scot,” I whispered in his ear, “I’ll tell you what I was thinking.”

“Oh, God,” he said, and laughed without making a sound. “D’ye remember the first time I kissed ye, Sassenach?”

I lay there for some time, feeling the bloom of sweat on my skin and the reassuring weight of him curled asleep in the grass beside me, before I finally remembered.

“I said I was a virgin, not a monk. If I find I need help… I’ll ask.”

IAN MURRAY WOKE from a deep and dreamless sleep to the sound of a bugle. Rollo, lying close beside him, lurched upright with a startled, deep WOOF!, and glared round for the threat, hackles raised.

Ian scrambled up, as well, one hand on his knife, the other on the dog.

“Hush,” he said under his breath, and the dog relaxed fractionally, though he kept up a low, rolling growl, just below the range of human hearing—Ian felt it, a constant vibration in the huge body under his hand.

Now he was awake, he heard them easily. A subterranean stirring through the wood, as submerged—but quite as vibrant—as Rollo’s growl. A very large body of men, a camp, beginning to wake at no very great distance. How had he managed not to perceive them the night before? He sniffed, but the wind was wrong; he picked up no scent of smoke—though now he saw smoke, thin threads of it rising against the pale dawn sky. A lot of campfires. A very big camp.

He had been rolling up his blanket as he listened. There was nothing more to his own camp, and within seconds he had faded into the brush, blanket tied to his back and his rifle in hand, the dog huge and silent at his heel.

THE BRITISH ARE COMING

Three Mile Point, New York Colony

July 3, 1777

THE DARK PATCH of sweat between Brigadier Fraser’s broad shoulders had the shape of the Isle of Man on the map in the old schoolroom at home. Lieutenant Greenleaf’s coat was entirely soaked with sweat, the body almost black, and only the faded sleeves showing red.

William’s own coat was less faded—shamefully new and bright, in fact—but likewise clung to his back and shoulders, heavy with the humid exhalations of his body. His shirt was wringing; it had been stiff with salt when he put it on a few hours before, the constant sweating of the previous days’ exertion crystallized in the linen, but the stiffness had washed away as the sun rose, borne on a flood of fresh sweat.

Looking up at the hill the brigadier proposed to climb, he had had some hope of coolness at the summit, but the exertion of the climb had canceled out any benefit of altitude. They had left camp just after dawn, the air then so delicious in its freshness that he’d longed to run naked through the woods like an Indian, catch fish from the lake, and eat a dozen of them for his breakfast, fried in cornmeal, fresh and hot.

This was Three Mile Point, so called because it was three miles south of the fort at Ticonderoga. The brigadier, leading the advance force, had staged his troops here and proposed to climb to a height with Lieutenant Greenleaf, an engineer, to survey the terrain before moving further.

William had been assigned to the brigadier a week earlier, to his pleasure. The brigadier was a friendly, sociable commander, but not in the same way as General Burgoyne. Though William would not have cared had the man been a tartar—he would be in the forward lines; that was all that mattered.

He was carrying some of the engineer’s equipment, as well as a couple of canteens of water and the brigadier’s dispatch box. He helped to set up the surveying tripod and obligingly held measuring rods at intervals, but at length it was done, everything recorded, and the brigadier, having conferred with Greenleaf at some length, sent the engineer back to camp.

The immediate business concluded, the brigadier seemed disinclined to descend at once, instead walking slowly about, appearing to enjoy the slight breeze, and then settling on a rock, uncorking his canteen with a sigh of pleasure.

“Sit, William,” he said, motioning William to his own rock. They sat in silence for a bit, listening to the sounds of the forest.

“I know your father,” the brigadier said suddenly, then smiled, a charming smile. “Everyone tells you that, I suppose.”

“Well, yes, they do,” William admitted. “Or if not him, my uncle.”

General Fraser laughed. “A considerable burden of family history to be borne,” he commiserated. “But I’m sure you bear it nobly.”

William didn’t know what to say and made a politely indeterminate noise in response. The brigadier laughed again and passed him the canteen. The water was so warm that he barely felt it pass down his throat, but it smelled fresh and he could feel it slake his thirst.

“We were together at the Plains of Abraham. Your father and I, I mean. Did he ever tell you about that night?”

“Not a great deal,” William said, wondering if he was doomed to meet every soldier who had fought on that field with James Wolfe.

“We came down the river at night, you know. All of us petrified. Especially me.” The brigadier looked out over the lake, shaking his head a little at the memory. “Such a river, the St. Lawrence. General Burgoyne mentioned that you had been in Canada. Did you see it?”

“Not a great deal, sir. I traveled overland for the most part on the way to Quebec, and then came down the Richelieu. My father told me about the St. Lawrence, though,” he felt obliged to add. “He said it was a noble river.”

“Did he tell you that I nearly broke his hand? He was next to me in the boat, and as I leaned out to call to the French sentry, hoping that my voice would not break, he gripped my hand to steady me. I felt his bones grinding, but under the circumstances didn’t really notice until I let go and heard him gasp.”