Army knife, an air of pleased satisfaction on her face.
Claire appreciated good tools, too. But she touched tools with immediate thought of what she meant to do with them, rather than simple admiration for elegance and function. A blade in her hand was no longer a tool but an extension of her hand. His own hand closed, thumb rubbing gently against his fingertips, remembering the knife he had made for her, the handle carefully grooved and sanded smooth to fit her hand, to match her grip exactly. Then he closed his fist tight, not wanting to think of her so intimately. Not just now.
Bidding the girls stand well back out of the way, Silvia carefully peeled the root and grated it into a small wooden bowl, keeping her face averted as much as possible from the rising fumes of the fresh horseradish but still with tears streaming down her face. Then, wiping her eyes on her apron and taking up the “special flask”—this being a dark-brown stoneware bottle stained with earth (had the lass just dug it up?)—she cautiously poured a small amount of the very alcoholic contents. What was it? Jamie wondered, sniffing cautiously. Very old applejack? Twice-fermented plum brandy? It had probably started life as some sort of fruit, but it had been some time since that fruit hung on a tree.
Mrs. Hardman relaxed, putting the cork back into the bottle as though relieved that the contents had not in fact exploded upon being decanted.
“Well, then,” she said, coming over to pick up Chastity, who squealed and fussed at being removed from Jamie, whom she plainly regarded as a large toy. “That must steep for a few hours. Thee needs heat. Thee should sleep, if thee can. I know thee passed a wakeful night, and tonight may not be much better.”
JAMIE HAD STEELED himself to the prospect of drinking horseradish liquor with a mix of trepidation and curiosity. The first of these emotions was momentarily relieved when he discovered that Mrs. Hardman didn’t mean him to drink it, but it returned in force when he found himself a moment later facedown on the bed with his shirt rucked up to his oxters and his hostess vigorously rubbing the stuff into his buttocks.
“Have a care, Friend Silvia,” he managed, trying to turn his head enough to get his mouth clear of the pillow without either twisting his back or unclenching his bum. “If ye drip that down the crack of my arse, I may be cured wi’ a somewhat sudden violence.”
A small snort of amusement tickled the hairs in the small of his back, where the flesh was still smarting and tingling from her administrations.
“My grandmother did say this receipt would raise the dead,” she said, her voice pitched low in order not to disturb the girls, who were rolled up on the hearth in their blankets like caterpillars. “Perhaps she was less careful in her applications.”
“THEE NEEDS HEAT,” she’d said. Between the horseradish liniment and the mustard plaster resting on his lower back, he thought he might suffer spontaneous combustion at any moment. He was sure his skin was blistering. “I know thee passed a wakeful night, and tonight may not be much better.” She’d got that right.
He shifted, trying to turn stealthily onto his side without making noise or dislodging the plaster—she’d bound it to his lower back by means of strips of torn flannel tied round his body, but they had a tendency to slip. The pain when shifting was in fact much less, which encouraged him greatly. On the other hand, he felt as though someone was repeatedly passing a pine torch within inches of his body. And while she had been very careful while working the liniment into him from rib cage to knees, a bit of the ferocious liquid had touched his balls, giving him a not-unpleasant sense of remarkable heat between his legs but also an uncontrollable urge to squirm.
He hadn’t, while she was working on him, and hadn’t said a word. Not after seeing the state of her hands: red as a lobsterback’s coat, and a milky blister rising on the side of her thumb. She hadn’t said a word, either, just drawn down his shirt when she was done and patted him gently on the backside before going to wash and then smooth a little cooking grease gingerly into her hands.
She was asleep now, too, a hunched form curled up in the corner of the settle, little Chastity’s cradle by