* * *
The servants were up before dawn, polishing and cleaning in preparation for entertaining Monsieur Duverney at a small, private supper in the evening.
“I don’t know why they bother,” I told Jamie, lying in bed with my eyes closed, listening to the bustle downstairs. “All they need do is dust off the chess set and put out a bottle of brandy; he won’t notice anything else.”
He laughed and bent to kiss me goodbye. “That’s all right; I’ll need a good supper if I’m to go on beating him.” He patted my shoulder in farewell. “I’m going to the warehouse, Sassenach; I’ll be home in time to dress, though.”
In search of something to do that would take me out of the servants’ way, I finally decided to have a footman escort me down to the Rohans’. Perhaps Louise could use a bit of solace, I thought, after her quarrel of the night before. Vulgar curiosity, I told myself primly, had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
* * *
When I returned in the late afternoon, I found Jamie slouched in a chair near the bedroom window with his feet propped on the table, collar undone and hair rumpled as he pored over a sheaf of scribbled papers. He looked up at the sound of the door closing, and the absorbed expression melted into a broad grin.
“Sassenach! There you are!” He swung his long legs down and came across to embrace me. He buried his face in my hair, nuzzling, then drew back and sneezed. He sneezed again, and let go of me to grope in his sleeve for the handkerchief he carried there, military style.
“What do ye smell like, Sassenach?” he demanded, pressing the linen square to his nose just in time to muffle the results of another explosive sneeze.
I reached into the bosom of my dress and plucked the small sachet from between my breasts.
“Jasmine, roses, hyacinth, and lily of the valley.…ragweed, too, apparently,” I added as he snorted and wheezed into the capacious depths of the handkerchief. “Are you all right?” I looked around for some means of disposal, and settled for dropping the sachet into a stationery box on my desk at the far side of the room.
“Aye, I’ll do. It’s the hya…hya…hyaCHOO!”
“Goodness!” I hastily flung the window open, and motioned to him. He obligingly stuck his head and shoulders out into the wet drizzle of the morning, breathing in gusts of fresh, hyacinth-free air.
“Och, that’s better,” he said with relief, pulling in his head a few minutes later. His eyes widened. “What are ye doing now, Sassenach?”
“Washing,” I explained, struggling with the back laces of my gown. “Or getting ready to, at least. I’m covered with oil of hyacinth,” I explained, as he blinked. “If I don’t wash it off, you’re liable to explode.”
He dabbed meditatively at his nose and nodded.
“You’ve a point there, Sassenach. Shall I have the footman fetch up some hot water?”
“No, don’t bother. A quick rinse should take most of it off,” I assured him, unbuttoning and unlacing as quickly as possible. I raised my arms, reaching behind my head to gather my hair into a bun. Suddenly Jamie leaned forward and grasped my wrist, pulling my arm into the air.
“What are you doing?” I said, startled.
“What have you done, Sassenach?” he demanded. He was staring under my arm.
“Shaved,” I said proudly. “Or rather, waxed. Louise had her servante aux petits soins—you know, her personal groomer?—there this morning, and she did me, too.”
“Waxed?” Jamie looked rather wildly at the candlestick by the ewer, then back at me. “You put wax in your oxters?”
“Not that kind of wax,” I assured him. “Scented beeswax. The grooming lady heated it, then spread the warm wax on. Once it’s cooled, you just jerk it off,” I winced momentarily in recollection, “and Bob’s your uncle.”
“My uncle Bob wouldna countenance any such goings-on,” said Jamie severely. “What in hell would ye do that for?” He peered closely at the site, still holding my wrist up. “Didn’t it hur…hurt…choof!” He dropped my hand and backed up rapidly.
“Didn’t it hurt?” he asked, handkerchief to nose once more.
“Well, a bit,” I admitted. “Worth it, though, don’t you think?” I asked, raising both arms like a ballerina and turning slightly to and fro. “First time I’ve felt entirely clean in months.”
“Worth it?” he said, sounding a little dazed. “What’s it to do wi’ clean, that you’ve pulled all of the hairs out from under your arms?”
A little belatedly, I realized that none of the Scottish women I had encountered employed any form of depilation. Furthermore, Jamie had almost certainly never been in sufficiently close contact with an upper-class Parisienne to know that many of them did. “Well,” I said, suddenly realizing the difficulty an anthropologist faces in trying to interpret the more singular customs of a primitive tribe. “It smells much less,” I offered.
“And what’s wrong wi’ the way ye smell?” he said heatedly. “At least ye smelt like a woman, not a damn flower garden. What d’ye think I am, a man or a bumblebee? Would ye wash yourself, Sassenach, so I can get within less than ten feet of ye?”
I picked up a cloth and began sponging my torso. Madame Laserre, Louise’s groomer, had applied scented oil all over my body; I rather hoped it would come off easily. It was disconcerting to have him hovering just outside sniffing range, glaring at me like a wolf circling its prey.
I turned my back to dip the cloth into the bowl, and said offhandedly over my shoulder, “Er, I did my legs, too.”
I stole a quick glance over my shoulder. The original shock was fading into a look of total bewilderment.
“Your legs dinna smell like anything,” he said. “Unless you’ve been walkin’ knee-deep in the cow-byre.”
I turned around and pulled my skirt up to my knees, pointing one toe forward to display the delicate curves of calf and shin.
“But they look so much nicer,” I pointed out. “All nice and smooth; not like Harry the hairy ape.”
He glanced down at his own fuzzy knees, offended.
“An ape, am I?”
“Not you, me!” I said, getting exasperated.
“My legs are any amount hairier than yours ever were!”
“Well, they’re supposed to be; you’re a man!”
He drew in breath as though about to reply, then let it out again, shaking his head and muttering something to himself in Gaelic. He flung himself back into the chair and sat back, watching me through narrowed eyes, every now and then muttering to himself again. I decided not to ask for a translation.
After most of my bath had been accomplished in what might best be described as a charged atmosphere, I decided to attempt conciliation.
“It might have been worse, you know,” I said, sponging the inside of one thigh. “Louise had all her body hair removed.”
That startled him back into English, at least temporarily.
“What, she’s taken the hairs off her honeypot?” he said, horrified into uncharacteristic vulgarity.
“Mm-hm,” I replied, pleased that this vision had at least distracted him from my own distressingly hairless condition. “Every hair. Madame Laserre plucked out the stray ones.”
“Mary, Michael, and Bride!” He closed his eyes tightly, either in avoidance, or the better to contemplate the prospect I had described.
Evidently the latter, for he opened his eyes again and glared at me, demanding, “She’s goin’ about now bare as a wee lassie?”
“She says,” I replied delicately, “that men find it erotic.”
His eyebrows nearly met his hairline, a neat trick for someone with such a classically high brow.
“I do wish you would stop that muttering,” I remarked, hanging the cloth over a chairback to dry. “I can’t understand a word you say.”
“On the whole, Sassenach,” he replied, “that’s as well.”