“How did I come to be here,” Grey repeated under his breath. “Comment, indeed. Never mind. I’ll tell you where we’re going, shall I? I gather we’re bound for a place called Coryell’s Ferry to join General Washington. Does that ring a bell?”
Germain’s slender shoulders relaxed, and a soft pattering on the earth indicated that apparently it did. Grey joined him, and, finished, they turned back toward the glow of the campfire.
Still in the shelter of the woods, Grey put his hand on Germain’s shoulder and squeezed. The boy stopped dead.
“Attendez, monsieur,” Grey said, low-voiced. “If the militia learn who I am, they’ll hang me. Instantly. My life is in your hands from this moment. Comprenez-vous?”
There was silence for an unnerving moment.
“Are you a spy, my lord?” Germain asked softly, not turning round.
Grey paused before answering, wavering between expediency and honesty. He could hardly forget what he’d seen and heard, and when he made it back to his own lines, duty would compel him to pass on such information as he had.
“Not by choice,” he said at last, just as softly.
A cool breeze had risen with the setting of the sun, and the forest murmured all around them.
“Bien,” Germain said at last. “And thank ye for the food.” He turned then, and Grey could see the glint of firelight on one fair brow, arched in inquisitiveness.
“So I am Bobby Higgins. Who are you, then?”
“Bert Armstrong,” Grey replied shortly. “Call me Bert.”
He led the way then toward the fire and the blanket-humped rolls of sleeping men. He couldn’t quite tell, above the rustling of the trees and the snoring of his fellows, but he thought the little bugger was laughing.
MORPHIA DREAMS
WE SLEPT THAT NIGHT in the public room of an ordinary in Langhorne. Bodies were sprawled on tables and benches, curled under the tables, and laid in haphazard arrangements on pallets, folded cloaks, and saddlebags, as far away from the hearth as they could get. The fire was banked, but it still radiated considerable heat. The room was filled with the bitter scents of burning wood and boiling bodies. I estimated the temperature in the room at something like ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit, and the slumbering bodies on display were largely unclad, pale haunches, shoulders, and bosoms glimmering in the sullen glow of the embers.
Jamie had been traveling in shirt and breeches, his new uniform and its dazzling smallclothes carefully folded into a portmanteau until we got within range of the army, so his disrobing was a simple matter of unbuttoning his flies and pulling off his stockings. Mine was complicated by the fact that my traveling stays had leather laces, and over the course of a sweat-drenched day, the knot had tightened into a stubborn nodule that resisted all attempts.
“Are ye no coming to bed, Sassenach?” Jamie was already lying down, having found a remote corner behind the bar counter and spread out our cloaks.
“I’ve broken a fingernail trying to get this bloody thing loose, and I can’t bloody reach it with my teeth!” I said, on the verge of breaking into tears of frustration. I was swaying with weariness, but couldn’t bring myself to sleep in the clammy confines of my stays.
Jamie reached up an arm out of the darkness, beckoning.
“Come lie down wi’ me, Sassenach,” he whispered. “I’ll do it.”
The simple relief of lying down, after twelve hours in the saddle, was so exquisite that I nearly changed my mind about sleeping in my stays, but he’d meant it. He squirmed down and bent his head to nuzzle at my laces, an arm round my back to steady me.
“Dinna fash,” he murmured into my midsection, voice somewhat muffled. “If I canna nibble it loose, I’ll prise it wi’ my dirk.”
He looked up with an inquiring noise, as I’d uttered a strangled laugh at the prospect.
“Just trying to decide whether being accidentally disemboweled would be worse than sleeping in my stays,” I whispered, cupping his head. It was warm, the soft hair at his nape damp to the touch.
“My aim’s no that bad, Sassenach,” he said, pausing in his labors for an instant. “I’d only risk stabbin’ ye in the heart.”
As it was, he accomplished his goal without recourse to weapons, gently jerking the knot loose with his teeth until he could finish the job with his fingers, opening the heavy seamed canvas stays like a clamshell to expose the whiteness of my shift. I sighed like a grateful mollusk opening at high tide, plucking the fabric out of the creases the stays had made in my flesh. Jamie pushed away the discarded stays but remained where he was, his face near my br**sts, rubbing his hands gently over my sides.
I sighed again at his touch; he’d done it by habit, but it was a habit I’d missed for the last four months, and a touch I’d thought never to feel again.
“Ye’re too thin, Sassenach,” he whispered. “I can feel every rib. I’ll find ye food tomorrow.”
I had been too much preoccupied in the last few days to think about food, and was much too tired at the moment to be hungry, but made an agreeable sound in response and stroked his hair, tracing the curve of his skull.
“I love you, a nighean,” he said, very softly, his breath warm on my skin.
“I love you,” I answered just as softly, taking the ribbon from his hair and loosening his plait between my fingers. I pressed his head closer to me, not in invitation, but out of the sudden urgent need to keep him close to me, to protect him.
He kissed my breast and turned his head, laying it in the hollow of my shoulder. He took one deep breath, one more, and then was asleep, the relaxing weight of his body against me both protection and trust.