I glanced at the letter, but the light was too poor for me to read it, even if I’d had my spectacles to hand.
“What does he say?”
“Ach, mostly just where he is and what he’s doing—which is none sae much at the moment; just sitting about in Philadelphia. Though there is a bit about General Arnold in there.” He nodded at the letter. “Joshua says he’s married Peggy Shippen—ye’ll remember her, I expect—and he’s bein’ court-martialed for speculating. Arnold, I mean, not Mr. Greenhow.”
“Speculating in what?” I asked, folding the letter. I remembered Peggy, all right: an eighteen-year-old girl, beautiful and knowing it, flaunting herself before the thirty-eight-year-old general like a trout fly. “I can see why he’d marry her—but why on earth would she want to marry him?” Benedict Arnold had considerable charm and animal magnetism, but he also had one leg shorter than the other and—to the best of my knowledge—neither property nor money.
Jamie gave me a patient look.
“He’s the military governor of Philadelphia, for one thing. And her family are Tories. Ye ken what the Sons of Liberty did to her cousin—maybe she’s thinking she’d rather they didna come back and burn her father’s house over her head.”
“You have a point.” The night breeze was beginning to chill me through my damp shift, and I shivered. “Give me that shawl, will you?”
“As for what Arnold’s speculating in,” Jamie added, wrapping the shawl round my shoulders, “it could be anything. Most of the city will be for sale, should the price be right.”
I nodded, looking out at the night, which spread its velvet cloak around us—momentarily spangled by a shower of sparks that shot out of the chimney on the other side of the house, fading to black before they touched down.
“I can’t stop Benedict Arnold,” I said quietly. “I couldn’t stop him, even if he was here right in front of me this minute. Could I?” I turned my head to him, appealing.
“No,” he said very softly, and took my hand. His was large and strong, but as cold as my own. “Come lie wi’ me, Sassenach. I’ll warm ye and we’ll watch the moon come down.”
SOMETIME LATER, WE lay curled together, naked in the cool night, happy in the warmth of each other’s body. The moon was coming down in the west, a sliver of silver that let the stars shine bright. The pale canvas rustled and murmured overhead, the scents of fir and oak and cypress surrounded us, and a random firefly, distracted from its business by a passing wind current, landed on the pillow by my head and sat for a moment, its abdomen pulsing with a regular cool-green light.
“Oidhche mhath, a charaid,” Jamie said to it. It waved its antennae in an amiable fashion and sailed off, circling down toward the distant flicker of its comrades on the ground.
“I wish we could keep our bedroom like this,” I said wistfully, watching its tail light disappear into the darkness below. “It’s so lovely, being part of the night.”
“Nay so much when it rains.” Jamie lifted his chin toward our canvas ceiling. “Dinna fash, though; I’ll have a solid roof on before snow flies.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said, and laughed. “Do you remember our first cabin, when it snowed and the roof leaked? You insisted on going up to fix it, in the pelting blizzard—and stark naked.”
“Well, and whose fault was that?” he inquired, though without rancor. “Ye wouldna let me go up in my shirt; what choice did I have?”
“You being you, none at all.” I rolled over and kissed him. “You taste like apple pie. Is there any left?”
“No. I’ll go down and fetch ye a bite, though.”
I stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“No, don’t. I’m not really hungry and I’d rather just stay like this. Mm?”
“Mmphm.”
He rolled toward me, then scooted down the bed and lifted himself between my thighs.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, as he settled comfortably into position.
“I should think that was obvious, Sassenach.”
“But you’ve just been eating apple pie!”
“It wasna that filling.”
“That … wasn’t quite what I meant …” His thumbs were thoughtfully stroking the tops of my thighs, and his warm breath was stirring the hairs on my body in a very disturbing way.
“If ye’re afraid of crumbs, Sassenach, dinna fash—I’ll pick them off after I’ve finished. Is it baboons ye said that do that? Or was it fleas they pick?”