* * *
“How was it, Sassenach?” Jamie asked.
“Horrible!” I answered, beaming broadly.
He raised one eyebrow, smiling down at me as I lay sprawled on the chaise.
“Oh, enjoyed yourself, did ye?”
“Oh, Jamie, it was so nice to be useful again! I mopped floors and I fed people gruel, and when Sister Angelique wasn’t looking, I managed to change a couple of filthy dressings and lance an abscess.”
“Oh, good,” he said. “Did ye remember to eat, in the midst of all this frivolity?”
“Er, no, as a matter of fact, I didn’t,” I said guiltily. “On the other hand, I forgot to be sick, too.” As though reminded of delinquency, the walls of my stomach took a sudden lurch inward. I pressed a fist under my breastbone. “Perhaps I should have a bite.”
“Perhaps ye should,” he agreed, a little grimly, reaching for the bell.
He watched as I obediently downed meat pie and cheese, describing L’H?pital des Anges and its inmates in enthusiastic detail between bites as I ate.
“It’s very crowded in some of the wards—two or three to a bed, which is awful, but—don’t you want some of this?” I broke off to ask. “It’s very good.”
He eyed the piece of pastry I was holding out to him.
“If ye think ye can keep from telling me about gangrenous toenails long enough for a bite to make it from my gullet to my stomach, then yes.”
Belatedly, I noticed the slight pallor on his cheeks, and the faint pinching of his nostrils. I poured a cup of wine and handed it to him before picking up my own plate again.
“And how was your day, my dear?” I asked demurely.