"Nay, lad, nay need o' thanks. Just give her a good one for me, eh?"
I pressed my fingers to my lips and blew him a kiss. Slapping a hand to his face as though struck, he staggered back with an exclamation and reeled off into the taproom, weaving as though drunk, which he wasn't.
After all the hilarity below, the room seemed a haven of peace and quiet. Jamie, still laughing quietly to himself, sprawled out on the bed to recover his breath.
I loosened my bodice, which was uncomfortably tight, and sat down to comb the tangles out of my dance-disordered hair.
"You've the loveliest hair," said Jamie, watching me.
"What? This?" I raised a hand self-consciously to my locks, which as usual, could be politely described as higgledy-piggledy.
He laughed. "Well, I like the other too," he said, deliberately straight-faced, "but yes, I meant that."
"But it's so… curly," I said, blushing a little.
"Aye, of course." He looked surprised. "I heard one of Dougal's girls say to a friend at the Castle that it would take three hours with the hot tongs to make hers look like that. She said she'd like to scratch your eyes out for looking like that and not lifting a hand to do so." He sat up and tugged gently on one curl, stretching it down so that, uncurled, it reached nearly to my breast. "My sister Jenny's hair is curly, too, but not so much as yours."
"Is your sister's hair red, like yours?" I asked, trying to envision what the mysterious Jenny might look like. She seemed to be often in Jamie's mind.
He shook his head, still twisting curls in and out between his fingers. "No. Jenny's hair is black. Black as night. I'm red like my mother, and Jenny takes after Father. Brian Dhu, they called him, 'Black Brian,' for his hair and his beard."
"I've heard that Captain Randall is called 'Black Jack,' " I ventured. Jamie laughed humorlessly.
"Oh, aye. But that's with reference to the color of his soul, not his hair." His gaze sharpened as he looked down at me.
"You're not worrying about him, are ye, lass? Ye shouldna do so." His hands left my hair and tightened possessively on my shoulders.
"I meant it, ye know," he said softly. "I will protect you. From him, or anyone else. To the last drop of my blood, mo duinne."
"Mo duinne?" I asked, a little disturbed by the intensity of this speech. I didn't want to be responsible for any of his blood being spilt, last drop or first.
"It means 'my brown one'." He raised a lock of hair to his lips and smiled, with a look in his eyes that started all the drops of my own blood chasing each other through my veins. "Mo duinne," he repeated, softly. "I have been longing to say that to you."
"Rather a dull color, brown, I've always thought," I said practically, trying to delay things a bit. I kept having the feeling of being whirled along much faster than I intended.
Jamie shook his head, still smiling.
"No, I'd not say that, Sassenach. Not dull at all." He lifted the mass of my hair with both hands and fanned it out. "It's like the water in a burn, where it ruffles over the stones. Dark in the wavy spots, with bits of silver on the surface where the sun catches it."
Nervous and a little breathless, I pulled away in order to pick up the comb I had dropped on the floor. I came up to find Jamie eyeing me steadily.
"I said I wouldna ask for anything you did not wish to tell me," he said, "and I won't, but I draw my own conclusions. Colum thought perhaps you were an English spy, though he couldna imagine in that case why you'd no Gaelic. Dougal thinks you're likely a French spy, maybe looking for support for King James. But in that case, he canna imagine why you were alone."
"And what about you?" I asked, pulling hard at a stubborn tangle. "What do you think I am?"
He tilted his head appraisingly, looking me over carefully.
"To look at, you could be French. You've that fine-boned look through the face that some of the Angevin ladies have. Frenchwomen are usually sallow-faced, though, and you have skin like an opal." He traced a finger slowly across the curve of my collarbone, and I felt the skin glow beneath his touch.
The finger moved to my face, drawing from temple to cheek, smoothing the hair back behind my ear. I remained immobile under his scrutiny, trying not to move as his hand passed behind my neck, thumb gently stroking my earlobe.
"Golden eyes; I've seen a pair like that once before—on a leopard." He shook his head. "Nay, lass. Ye could be French, but you're not."