He was laughing, almost soundlessly. Shaking his head, he straightened out the rumpled quilt I’d been sitting on, knelt on it, and stretched up a hand to me.
“Come lie wi’ me and watch the stars for a bit, Sassenach. If ye’re still awake in five minutes, I’ll take your clothes off and have ye naked in the moonlight.”
“And if I’m asleep in five minutes?” I kicked off my shoes and took his hand.
“Then I won’t bother takin’ your clothes off.”
The fire was burning lower but still steadily; I could feel the warm breeze of it touch my face and lift the hair at my temples. The stars were thick and bright as diamonds spilled in some celestial burglary. I shared this observation with Jamie, who made a very derogatory Scottish noise in response, but then lay back beside me, sighing in pleasure at the view.
“Aye, they’re bonnie. Ken Cassiopeia there?”
I looked at the approximate portion of the sky indicated by his nod, but shook my head. “I’m complete rubbish at constellations. I can see the Big Dipper, and I usually recognize Orion’s Belt, but damned if I see it at the moment. And the Pleiades are up there somewhere, aren’t they?”
“They’re part of Taurus—just there by the hunter.” He stretched out an arm, pointing. “And that’s Camelopardalis.”
“Oh, don’t be silly. There isn’t a giraffe constellation, I would have heard of that.”
“Well, it’s no really in the sky just now, but there is one. And come to think, is it any more ridiculous than what’s happened today?”
“No,” I said softly. “No, it’s not.” He put an arm around me and I rolled over to lay my cheek on his chest, and we watched the stars in silence, listening to the wind in the trees and the slow beat of our hearts.
It seemed a long time later when Jamie stirred and sighed.
“I dinna think I’ve ever seen such stars, not since the night we made Faith.”
I lifted my head in surprise. We seldom mentioned Faith—stillborn, but embedded in our hearts—to each other, though each of us knew the other’s feelings.
“You know when she was conceived? I don’t know that.”
He ran his hand slowly down my back, fingers pausing to rub circles in the small of it. If I’d been a cat, I would have waved my tail gently under his nose.
“Aye, well, I suppose I could be wrong, but I’ve always thought it was the night I went to your bed at the abbey. There was a tall window at the end o’ the hall, and I saw the stars as I came to ye. I thought it might be a sign to me—to see my way clear.”
For a moment, I groped among my memories. That time at the Abbey of Ste. Anne, when he’d come so close to a self-chosen death, was one I seldom revisited. It had been a terrifying time. Days full of fear and confusion running from one into the next, nights black with despair and desperation. And yet when I did look back, I found a handful of vivid images, standing out like the illuminated letters on a page of ancient Latin.
Father Anselm’s face, pale in candlelight, his eyes warm with compassion and then the growing glow of wonder as he heard my confession. The abbot’s hands, touching Jamie’s forehead, eyes, lips, and palms, delicate as a hummingbird’s touch, anointing his dying nephew with the holy chrism of Extreme Unction. The quiet of the darkened chapel where I had prayed for his life, and heard my prayer answered.
And among these moments was the night when I woke from sleep to find him standing, a pale wraith by my bed, naked and freezing, so weak he could barely walk, but filled once more with life and a stubborn determination that would never leave him.
“You remember Faith, then?” My hand rested lightly on my stomach, recalling. He’d never seen her, or felt her as more than random kicks and pushes from inside me.
He kissed my forehead briefly, then looked at me.
“Ye ken I do. Don’t you?”
“Yes. I just wanted you to tell me more.”
“Oh, I mean to.” He settled himself on one elbow and gathered me in so I could share his plaid.
“Do you remember that, too?” I asked, pulling down the fold of cloth he’d draped over me. “Sharing your plaid with me, the night we met?”
“To keep ye from freezing? Aye.” He kissed the back of my neck. “It was me freezing, at the abbey. I’d worn myself out tryin’ to walk, and ye wouldna let me eat anything, so I was starving to death, and—”
“Oh, you know that’s not true! You—”