it wouldna stop me loving you.”
“I didn’t think it would.” I sniffed and he pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and handed it to me. It was worn white cambric and had the initial “P” embroidered awkwardly in one corner in blue thread. I couldn’t imagine where he’d got such a thing but didn’t bother asking, under the circumstances.
The bench was not very large, and his knee was within an inch or two of mine. He didn’t touch me again, though, and my heart rate was beginning to speed up noticeably. He meant it, about loving me, but that didn’t mean the next while was going to be pleasant.
“It was my impression that he told me because he was sure that you would tell me,” he said carefully.
“So I would have,” I said promptly, wiping my nose. “Though I might possibly have waited ’til you’d got home, had a bath, and been fed supper. If there’s one thing I know about men, it’s that you don’t break things like this to them on an empty stomach. When did you last eat?”
“This morning. Sausages. Dinna be changing the subject.” His voice was level, but there was a good deal of feeling bubbling under it; he might as well have been a pan of simmering milk. One extra degree of heat and there’d be an eruption and scorched milk all over the stove. “I understand, but I want—I need—to know what happened.”
“You understand?” I echoed, sounding surprised even to my own ears. I hoped he did understand, but his manner was more than a little at odds with his words. My hands were no longer cold; they were starting to sweat, and I gripped the skirt over my knees, heedless of mud stains.
“Well, I dinna like it,” he said, not quite between clenched teeth. “But I understand it.”
“You do?”
“I do,” he said, eyeing me. “Ye both thought I was dead. And I ken what ye’re like when you’re drunk, Sassenach.”
I slapped him, so fast and so hard that he hadn’t time to duck and lurched back from the impact.
“You—you—” I said, unable to articulate anything bad enough to suit the violence of my feelings. “How bloody dare you!”
He touched his cheek gingerly. His mouth was twitching.
“I . . . uh . . . didna quite mean that the way it sounded, Sassenach,” he said. “Besides, am I no the aggrieved party here?”
“No, you bloody aren’t!” I snapped. “You go off and get—get drowned, and leave me all alone in the m-midst of spies and s-soldiers and with children—you and Fergus both, you bastards! Leave me and Marsali to-to—” I was so choked with emotion that I couldn’t go on. I was damned if I’d cry, though, damned if I’d cry any more in front of him.
He reached out carefully and took my hand again. I let him, and let him draw me closer, close enough to see the faint dusting of his beard stubble, to smell the road dust and dried sweat in his clothes, to feel the radiant heat from his body.
I sat quivering, making small huffing sounds in lieu of speech. He ignored this, spreading my fingers out between his own, gently stroking the palm of my hand with a large, callused thumb.
“I didna mean to imply that I think ye a drunkard, Sassenach,” he said, making an obvious effort to be conciliatory. “It’s only that ye think wi’ your body, Claire; ye always have.”
With a tremendous effort of my own, I found words.
“So I’m a—a—what are you calling me now? A loose woman? A trollop? A strumpet? And you think that’s better than calling me a drunkard?!?”
He gave a small snort of what might have been amusement. I yanked at my hand, but he wouldn’t let go.
“I said what I meant, Sassenach,” he said, tightening his grip on my hand, and augmenting it with another hand on my forearm, preventing me from rising. “Ye think wi’ your body. It’s what makes ye a surgeon, no?”
“I—oh.” Overcoming my dudgeon momentarily, I was obliged to admit that there was something in this observation.
“Possibly,” I said stiffly, looking away from him. “But I don’t think that’s what you meant.”
“Not entirely, no.” There was a very slight edge to his voice again, but I wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Listen to me.”
I sat stubbornly silent for a moment, but he simply held on, and I knew that he was more stubborn by nature than I could be if I worked at it for a