He dodged around a chair. "Of course, I thought it might ha' just been the effects of spending four months in a monastery, without benefit of female companionship, but then that ride through the dark together"—he paused to sigh theatrically, neatly evading my grab at his sleeve—"with that lovely broad arse wedged between my thighs"—he ducked a blow aimed at his left ear and sidestepped, getting a low table between us—"and that rock-solid head thumping me in the chest"—a small metal ornament bounced off his own head and went clanging to the floor—"I said to myself…"
He was laughing so hard at this point that he had to gasp for breath between phrases. "Jamie… I said… for all she's a Sassenach bitch… with a tongue like an adder's… with a bum like that… what does it matter if she's a f-face like a sh-sh-sheep?"
I tripped him neatly and landed on his stomach with both knees as he hit the floor with a crash that shook the house.
"You mean to tell me that you married me out of love?" I demanded. He raised his eyebrows, struggling to draw in breath.
"Have I not… just been… saying so?"
Grabbing me round the shoulders with one arm, he wormed the other hand under my skirt and proceeded to inflict a series of merciless pinches on that part of my anatomy he had just been praising.
Returning to pick up her embroidery basket, Jenny sailed in at this point and stood eyeing her brother with some amusement. "And what are you up to, young Jamie me lad?" she inquired, one eyebrow up.
"I'm makin' love to my wife," he panted, breathless between giggling and fighting.
"Well, ye could find a more suitable place for it," she said, raising the other eyebrow. "That floor'll give ye splinters in your arse."
If Lallybroch was a peaceful place, it was also a busy one. Everyone in it seemed to stir into immediate life at cockcrow, and the farm then spun and whirred like a complicated bit of clockwork until after sunset, when one by one the cogs and wheels that made it run began to fall away, rolling off into the dark to seek supper and bed, only to reappear like magic in their proper places in the morning.
So essential did every last man, woman, and child seem to the running of the place that I could not imagine how it had fared these last few years, lacking its master. Now not only Jamie's hands, but mine as well, were pressed into full employment. For the first time, I understood the stern Scotch strictures against idleness that had seemed like mere quaintness before—or after, as the case might be. Idleness would have seemed not only a sign of moral decay, but an affront to the natural order of things.
There were moments, of course. Those small spaces of time, too soon gone, when everything seems to stand still, and existence is balanced on a perfect point, like the moment of change between the dark and the light, when both and neither surround you.
I was enjoying such a moment on the evening of the second or third day following our arrival at the farmhouse. Sitting on the fence behind the house, I could see tawny fields to the edge of the cliff past the broch, and the mesh of trees on the far side of the pass, dimming to black before the pearly glow of the sky. Objects near and far away seemed to be at the same distance, as their long shadows melted into the dusk.
The air was chilly with a hint of the coming frost, and I thought I must go in soon, though I was reluctant to leave the still beauty of the place. I wasn't aware of Jamie approaching until he slid the heavy folds of a cloak around my shoulders. I hadn't realized quite how cold it was until I felt the contrasting warmth of the thick wool.
Jamie's arms came around me with the cloak, and I nestled back against him, shivering slightly.
"I could see ye shivering from the house," he said, taking my hands in his. "Catch a chill, if you're not careful."
"And what about you?" I twisted about to look at him. Despite the increasing bite of the air, he looked completely comfortable in nothing but shirt and kilt, with no more than a slight reddening of the nose to show it was not the balmiest of spring evenings.
"Ah, well, I'm used to it. Scotsmen are none so thin-blooded as ye blue-nosed Southrons." He tilted my chin up and kissed my nose, smiling. I took him by the ears and adjusted his aim downward.
It lasted long enough for our temperatures to have equalized by the time he released me, and the warm blood sang in my ears as I leaned back, balancing on the fence rail. The breeze blew from behind me, fluttering strands of hair across my face. He brushed them off my shoulders, spreading the ruffled locks out with his fingers, so the setting sun shone through the strands.