"Are you all right?" he whispered. His fingers brushed my wet cheek.
"Yes. I'm sorry to wake you. I had a nightmare. What on earth—" I started to ask what it was that had made him spring so abruptly to the alert.
A large, warm hand ran down my bare arm, interrupting my question. "No wonder; you're frozen." The hand urged me under the pile of quilts and into the warm space recently vacated. "My fault," he murmured. "I've taken all the quilts. I'm afraid I'm no accustomed yet to share a bed." He wrapped the quilts comfortably around us and lay back beside me. A moment later, he reached again to touch my face.
"Is it me?" he asked quietly. "Can ye not bear me?"
I gave a short, hiccupping laugh, not quite a sob. "No, it isn't you." I reached out in the dark, groping for a hand to press reassuringly. My fingers met a tangle of quilts and warm flesh, but at last I found the hand I had been seeking. We lay side by side, looking up at the low, beamed ceiling.
"What if I said I couldn't bear you?" I asked suddenly. "What on earth could you do?" The bed creaked as he shrugged.
"Tell Dougal you wanted an annulment on grounds of nonconsummation, I suppose."
This time I laughed outright. "Nonconsummation! With all those witnesses?"
The room was growing light enough to see the smile on the face turned toward me. "Aye well, witnesses or no, it's only you and me that can say for sure, isn't it? And I'd rather be embarrassed than wed to someone that hated me."
I turned toward him. "I don't hate you."
"I don't hate you, either. And there's many good marriages have started wi' less than that." Gently, he turned me away from him and fitted himself to my back so we lay nested together. His hand cupped my breast, not in invitation or demand, but because it seemed to belong there.
"Don't be afraid," he whispered into my hair. "There's the two of us now." I felt warm, soothed, and safe for the first time in many days. It was only as I drifted into sleep under the first rays of daylight that I remembered the knife above my head, and wondered again, what threat would make a man sleep armed and watchful in his bridal chamber?
* * *
16
One Fine Day
The hard-won intimacy of the night seemed to have evaporated with the dew, and there was considerable constraint between us in the morning. After a mostly silent breakfast taken in our room, we climbed the small hillock behind the inn, exchanging rather strained politenesses from time to time.
At the crest, I settled on a log to rest, while Jamie sat on the ground, back against a pine sapling, a few feet away. Some bird was active in the bush behind me, a siskin, I supposed, or possibly a thrush. I listened to its dilatory rustlings, watched the small fluffy clouds float by, and pondered the etiquette of the situation.
The silence was becoming really too heavy to bear, when Jamie suddenly said, "I hope—" then stopped and blushed. Though I rather felt it should be me blushing, I was glad that at least one of us was able to do it.
"What?" I said as encouragingly as possible.
He shook his head, still pink. "It doesna matter."
"Go ahead." I reached out a foot and nudged his leg with a tentative toe. "Honesty, remember?" It was unfair, but I really couldn't stand any more nervous throat-clearing and eye-twitching.
His clasped hands tightened around his knees, and he rocked back a bit, but fixed his gaze directly on me.
"I was going to say," he said softly, "that I hoped the man who had the honor to lie first wi' you was as generous as you were with me." He smiled, a little shyly. "But on second thought, that didna sound quite right. What I meant…well, all I wanted was to say thank you."
"Generosity had nothing to do with it!" I snapped, looking down and brushing energetically at a nonexistent spot on my dress. A large boot pushed into my downcast field of vision and nudged my ankle.
"Honesty, is it?" he echoed, and I looked up to meet a derisively raised pair of eyebrows above a wide grin.
"Well," I said defensively, "not after the first time, anyway." He laughed, and I discovered to my horror that I was not beyond blushing after all.
A cool shadow fell over my heated face and a large pair of hands took firm hold of mine and pulled me to my feet. Jamie took my place on the log, and patted his knee invitingly.
"Sit," he said.
I reluctantly obliged, keeping my face turned away. He settled me comfortably against his chest and wrapped his arms about my waist. I felt the steady thump of his heart against my back.