* * *
“Verra nice, Sassenach,” Jamie said when I rejoined him, flushed and breathless, after the singing. He grinned down at me and patted my shoulder.
“How would you know?” I said, accepting a glass of wine-punch from a passing servant. “You can’t tell one song from another.”
“Well, ye were loud, anyway,” he said, unperturbed. “I could hear every word.” I felt him stiffen slightly beside me, and turned to see what—or whom—he was looking at.
The woman who had just entered was tiny, scarcely as high as Jamie’s lowest rib, with hands and feet like a doll’s, and brows delicate as Chinese tracery, over eyes the deep black of sloes. She advanced with a step that mocked its own lightness, so she looked as though she were dancing just above the ground.
“There’s Annalise de Marillac,” I said, admiring her. “Doesn’t she look lovely?”
“Oh, aye.” Something in his voice made me glance sharply upward. A faint pink tinged the tips of his ears.
“And here I thought you spent your years in France fighting, not making romantic conquests,” I said tartly.
To my surprise, he laughed at this. Catching the sound, the woman turned toward us. A brilliant smile lit her face as she saw Jamie looming among the crowd. She turned as though to come in our direction, but was distracted by a gentleman, wigged and resplendent in lavender satin, who laid an importuning hand on her fragile arm. She flicked her fan charmingly at Jamie in a gesture of regretful coquetry before devoting her attention to her new companion.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, seeing him still grinning broadly after the lady’s gently oscillating lace skirts.
He snapped suddenly back to an awareness of my presence, and smiled down at me.
“Oh, nothing, Sassenach. Only what ye said about fighting. I fought my first duel—well, the only one, in fact—over Annalise de Marillac. When I was eighteen.”
His tone was mildly dreamy, watching the sleek, dark head bob away through the crowd, surrounded wherever it went by white clusters of wigs and powdered hair, with here and there a fashionably pink-tinged peruke for variety.
“A duel? With whom?” I asked, glancing around warily for any male attachments to the China doll who might feel inclined to follow up an old quarrel.
“Och, he isna here,” Jamie said, catching and correctly interpreting my glance. “He’s dead.”
“You killed him?” Agitated, I spoke rather louder than intended. As a few nearby heads turned curiously in our direction, Jamie took me by the elbow and steered me hastily toward the nearest French doors.
“Mind your voice, Sassenach,” he said, mildly enough. “No, I didna kill him. Wanted to,” he added ruefully, “but didn’t. He died two years ago, of the morbid sore throat. Jared told me.”
He guided me down one of the garden paths, lit by lantern-bearing servants, who stood like bollards at five-yard intervals from the terrace to the fountain at the bottom of the path. In the midst of a big reflecting pool, four dolphins sprayed sheets of water over an annoyed-looking Triton in the center, who brandished a trident rather ineffectually at them.
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” I urged as we passed out of hearing of the groups on the terrace. “What happened?”
“All right, then,” he said, resigned. “Well, ye will have observed that Annalise is rather pretty?”
“Oh, really? Well, perhaps, now that you mention it, I can see something of the kind,” I answered sweetly, provoking a sudden sharp look, followed by a lopsided smile.
“Aye. Well, I wasna the only young gallant in Paris to be of the same opinion, nor the only one to lose his head over her, either. Went about in a daze, tripping over my feet. Waited in the street, in hopes of seeing her come out of her house to the carriage. Forgot to eat, even; Jared said my coat hung on me like a scarecrow’s, and the state of my hair didna much help the resemblance.” His hand went absently to his head, patting the immaculate queue that lay clubbed tight against his neck, bound with blue ribbon.
“Forgot to eat? Christ, you did have it bad,” I remarked.
He chuckled. “Oh, aye. And still worse when she began to flirt wi’ Charles Gauloise. Mind ye,” he added fairly, “she flirted with everyone—that was all right—but she chose him for her supper partner ower-often for my taste, and danced with him too much at the parties, and…well, the long and the short of it, Sassenach, is that I caught him kissing her in the moonlight on her father’s terrace one night, and challenged him.”
By this time, we had reached the fountain in our promenade. Jamie drew to a stop and we sat on the rim of the fountain, upwind of the spray from the puff-lipped dolphins. Jamie drew a hand through the dark water and lifted it dripping, abstractedly watching the silver drops run down his fingers.
“Dueling was illegal in Paris then—as it is now. But there were places; there always are. It was his to choose, and he picked a spot in the Bois de Boulogne. Close by the road of the Seven Saints, but hidden by a screen of oaks. The choice of weapon was his, too. I expected pistols, but he chose swords.”
“Why would he do that? You must have had a six-inch reach on him—or more.” I was no expert, but was perforce learning a small bit about the strategy and tactics of swordfighting; Jamie and Murtagh took each other on every two or three days to keep in practice, clashing and parrying and lunging up and down the garden, to the untrammeled delight of the servants, male and female alike, who all surged out onto the balconies to watch.
“Why did he choose smallswords? Because he was bloody good with one. Also, I suspected he thought I might kill him accidentally with a pistol, while he knew I’d be satisfied only to draw blood with a blade. I didna mean to kill him, ye ken,” he explained. “Only to humiliate him. And he knew it. No fool, was our Charles,” he said, ruefully shaking his head.
The mist from the fountain was making ringlets escape from my coiffure, to curl around my face. I brushed back a wisp of hair, asking, “And did you humiliate him?”
“Well, I wounded him, at least.” I was surprised to hear a small note of satisfaction in his voice, and raised an eyebrow at him. “He’d learnt his craft from LeJeune, one of the best swordmasters in France.” Jamie explained. “Like fighting a damn flea, it was, and I fought him right-handed, too.” He pushed a hand through his hair once more, as though checking the binding.
“My hair came loose, midway through,” he said. “The thong holding it broke, and the wind was blowing it into my eyes, so all I could see was the wee white shape of Charles in his shirt, darting to and fro like a minnow. And that’s how I got him, finally—the way ye spear a fish with a dirk.” He snorted through his nose.
“He let out a skelloch as though I’d run him through, though I knew I’d but pinked him in one arm. I got the hair out of my face at last and looked beyond him to see Annalise standing there at the edge of the clearing, wi’ her eyes wide and dark as yon pool.” He gestured out over the silver-black surface beside us.
“So I sheathed my blade and smoothed back my hair, and stood there—half-expectin’ her to come and throw herself into my arms, I suppose.”
“Um,” I said, delicately. “I gather she didn’t?”
“Well, I didna ken anything about women then, did I?” he demanded. “No, she came and threw herself on him, of course.” He made a Scottish noise deep in his throat, one of self-derision and humorous disgust. “Married him a month later, I heard.”
“Aye, well.” He shrugged suddenly, with a rueful smile. “So my heart was broken. Went home to Scotland and moped about for weeks, until my father lost patience wi’ me.” He laughed. “I even thought of turning monk over it. Said to my father over supper one night as I thought perhaps in the spring I’d go across to the Abbey and become a novice.”
I laughed at the thought. “Well, you’d have no difficulty with the vow of poverty; chastity and obedience might come a bit harder. What did your father say?”
He grinned, teeth white in a dark face. “He was eating brose. He laid down the spoon and looked at me for a moment. Then he sighed and shook his head, and said, ‘It’s been a long day, Jamie.’ Then he picked up the spoon again and went back to his supper, and I never said another word about it.”
He looked up the slope to the terrace, where those not dancing strolled to and fro, cooling off between dances, sipping wine and flirting behind fans. He sighed nostalgically.
“Aye, a verra pretty lass, Annalise de Marillac. Graceful as the wind, and so small that ye wanted to tuck her inside your shirt and carry her like a kitten.”
I was silent, listening to the faint music from the open doors above, as I contemplated the gleaming satin slipper that encased my size-nine foot.
After a moment, Jamie became aware of my silence.
“What is it, Sassenach?” he asked, laying a hand on my arm.
“Oh, nothing,” I said with a sigh. “Only thinking that I rather doubt anyone will ever describe me as ‘graceful as the wind.’ ”
“Ah.” His head was half-turned, the long, straight nose and firm chin lighted from behind by the glow of the nearest lantern. I could see the half-smile on his lips as he turned back toward me.
“Well, I’ll tell ye, Sassenach, ‘graceful’ is possibly not the first word that springs to mind at thought of you.” He slipped an arm behind me, one hand large and warm around my silk-clad shoulder.
“But I talk to you as I talk to my own soul,” he said, turning me to face him. He reached up and cupped my cheek, fingers light on my temple.
“And, Sassenach,” he whispered, “your face is my heart.”
It was the shifting of the wind, several minutes later, that parted us at last with a fine spray from the fountain. We broke apart and rose hastily, laughing at the sudden chill of the water. Jamie inclined his head inquiringly toward the terrace, and I took his arm, nodding.
“So,” I observed, as we made our way slowly up the wide steps to the ballroom, “you’ve learnt a bit more about women now, I see.”
He laughed, low and deep, tightening his grasp on my waist.
“The most important thing I’ve learned about women, Sassenach, is which one to choose.” He stepped away, bowing to me, and gesturing through the open doors to the brilliant scene inside. “May I have this dance, milady?”