HE’D COME UP to the loft and pulled the ladder up behind him, to prevent the children coming up. I was dressing quickly—or trying to—as he told me about Dan Morgan, about Washington and the other Continental generals. About the coming battle.
“Sassenach, I had to,” he said again, softly. “I’m that sorry.”
“I know,” I said. “I know you did.” My lips were stiff. “I—you—I’m sorry, too.”
I was trying to fasten the dozen tiny buttons that closed the bodice of my gown, but my hands shook so badly that I couldn’t even grasp them. I stopped trying and dug my hairbrush out of the bag he’d brought me from the Chestnut Street house.
He made a small sound in his throat and took it out of my hand. He threw it onto our makeshift couch and put his arms around me, holding me tight with my face buried in his chest. The cloth of his new uniform smelled of fresh indigo, walnut hulls, and fuller’s earth; it felt strange and stiff against my face. I couldn’t stop shaking.
“Talk to me, a nighean,” he whispered into my tangled hair. “I’m afraid, and I dinna want to feel so verra much alone just now. Speak to me.”
“Why has it always got to be you?” I blurted into his chest.
That made him laugh, a little shakily, and I realized that all the trembling wasn’t coming from me.
“It’s no just me,” he said, and stroked my hair. “There are a thousand other men readying themselves today—more—who dinna want to do it, either.”
“I know,” I said again. My breathing was a little steadier. “I know.” I turned my face to the side in order to breathe, and all of a sudden began to cry, quite without warning.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I don’t mean—I don’t want t-to make it h-harder for you. I—I—oh, Jamie, when I knew you were alive—I wanted so much to go home. To go home with you.”
His arms tightened hard round me. He didn’t speak, and I knew it was because he couldn’t.
“So did I,” he whispered at last. “And we will, a nighean. I promise ye.”
The sounds from below floated up around us: the sounds of children running back and forth between the shop and the kitchen, Marsali singing to herself in Gaelic as she made fresh ink for the press from varnish and lamp-black. The door opened, and cool, rainy air blew in with Fergus and Germain, adding their voices to the cheerful confusion.
We stood wrapped in each other’s arms, taking comfort from our family below, yearning for the others we might never see again, at once at home and homeless, balanced on a knife edge of danger and uncertainty. But together.
“You’re not going off to war without me,” I said firmly, straightening up and sniffing. “Don’t even think about it.”
“I wouldna dream of it,” he assured me gravely, went to wipe his nose on his uniform sleeve, thought better of it, and stopped, looking at me helplessly. I laughed—tremulous, but it was a laugh nonetheless—and gave him the handkerchief I’d tucked automatically into my bosom when I fastened my stays. Like Jenny, I always had one.
“Sit down,” I said, swallowing as I picked up the hairbrush. “I’ll plait your hair for you.”
He’d washed it this morning; it was clean and damp, the soft red strands cool in my hands and smelling—oddly—of French soap, scented with bergamot. I rather missed the scent of sweat and cabbage that had surrounded me all night.
“Where did you bathe?” I asked curiously.
“At the house on Chestnut Street,” he answered, a little tersely. “My sister made me. She said I couldna turn up to be a general smelling like a stale dinner, and there was a tub and hot water to spare.”
“Did she?” I murmured. “Um . . . speaking of Chestnut Street . . . how is His Grace, the Duke of Pardloe?”
“Gone before dawn, Jenny said,” he said, bending his head to aid in the plaiting. His neck was warm under my fingers. “According to Ian, Denny Hunter said he was well enough to go, provided that he took along a flask of your magic potion. So Mrs. Figg gave him back his breeches—wi’ some reluctance, I understand—and he went.”
“Went where?” I asked. His hair was more heavily traced with silver than it had been. I didn’t mind that; I minded that I hadn’t been there to see it slowly change, day by day.
“Ian didna ask him. But he said Mrs. Figg told the duke the names of some friends of Lord John’s—Loyalists that might be still in the city. And his son’s staying in a house here, no? Dinna be worrit on his account, Sassenach.” He turned his head to smile sideways at me. “His Grace is a man who’s hard to kill.”
“I suppose it takes one to know one,” I said tartly. I didn’t ask why Jamie had gone to Chestnut Street; Hal, Jenny, and all other concerns notwithstanding, I knew he wanted to know whether John had reappeared. Apparently not, and a small chill frosted my heart.
I was groping in my pocket for a ribbon with which to club his queue, when a fresh draft swept through the loft, lifting the oilcloth and fluttering the papers beneath. I turned to see the source of the breeze and beheld Germain, swinging off the pulley rope to come in by the shuttered doors through which bales and kegs could be lowered from the loft to wagons below.
“Bonjour, Grand-père,” he said, wiping a cobweb off his face as he landed and bowing to Jamie with great formality. He turned and bowed to me, as well. “Comment ?a va, Grand-mère?”
“Fi—” I began automatically, but was interrupted by Jamie.
“No,” he said definitely. “Ye’re not coming.”
“Please, Grandda!” Germain’s formality disappeared in an instant, replaced by pleading. “I could be a help to ye!”
“I know,” Jamie said dryly. “And your parents would never forgive me if ye were. I dinna even want to know what your notion of help involves, but—”
“I could carry messages! I can ride, ye ken that, ye taught me yourself! And I’m nearly twelve!”
“Ye ken how dangerous that is? If a British sharpshooter didna take ye out of the saddle, someone from the militia would club ye over the head to steal the horse. And I can count, ken? Ye’re no even eleven yet, so dinna be tryin’ it on with me.”
Obviously, danger held no fears whatever for Germain. He shrugged, impatient.
“Well, I could be an orderly, then. I can find food anywhere,” he added, cunning. He was in fact a very accomplished scrounger, and I looked at him thoughtfully. Jamie intercepted my glance and glowered at me.
“Dinna even think about it, Sassenach. He’d be taken up for theft and hanged or flogged within an inch of his life, and I couldna do a thing to stop it.”
“Nobody’s ever caught me!” Germain said, his professional pride outraged. “Not once!”
“And they’re not going to,” his grandfather assured him, fixing him with a steely eye. “When ye’re sixteen, maybe—”
“Oh, aye? Grannie Janet says ye were eight when ye first went raiding with your da!”
“Lifting cattle’s no the same as war, and I wasna anywhere near the fighting,” Jamie said. “And your Grannie Janet should keep her mouth shut.”
“Aye, I’ll tell her ye said so,” Germain retorted, disgruntled. “She says ye got bashed on the head with a sword.”
“I did. And with luck ye’ll live to be an auld man with your brains unscrambled, unlike your grandsire. Leave us, lad, your grannie needs to put her stockings on.” He stood up and, lifting the ladder, slid it down from the loft and pushed Germain firmly onto it.
He stood looking sternly down until Germain had reached the floor below, marking his displeasure by skipping the last few rungs and landing with a loud thud.
Jamie sighed, straightened up, and stretched himself gingerly, groaning a little.
“God knows where we’ll sleep tonight, Sassenach,” he remarked, glancing at our rude couch as he sat down for me to finish clubbing his hair. “For the sake of my back, I hope it’s a bit softer than this.” He grinned at me suddenly. “Did ye sleep well?”
“Never better,” I assured him, smoothing out the ribbon. In fact, I ached in almost every place it was possible to ache, save perhaps the top of my head. For that matter, I’d barely slept, and neither had he; we’d passed the hours of darkness in slow and wordless exploration, finding again each other’s body . . . and, toward dawn, had touched each other’s soul again. I touched the back of his neck now, gently, and his hand rose to mine. I felt simultaneously wonderful and wretched, and didn’t know from moment to moment which feeling was uppermost.
“When will we leave?”
“As soon as ye put your stockings on, Sassenach. And tidy your hair. And do up your buttons,” he added, turning and catching sight of my excessive décolletage. “Here, I’ll do that.”
“I’ll need my medicine box,” I said, going cross-eyed as I watched his nimble fingers flicking down my chest.
“I brought it,” he assured me, and frowned a bit, eyes intent on a recalcitrant button. “It’s a bonny bit of furniture. I expect his lordship bought it for ye?”
“He did.” I hesitated a moment, rather wishing he had said “John” rather than “his lordship.” I also wished I knew where John was—and that he was all right. But this didn’t seem the moment to say any of those things.
Jamie leaned forward and kissed the top of my breast, his breath warm on my skin.
“I dinna ken whether I’ll have a bed at all tonight,” he said, straightening up. “But whether it’s feathers or straw, promise ye’ll share it with me?”
“Always,” I said, and, picking up my cloak, shook it out, swirled it round my shoulders, and smiled bravely at him. “Let’s go, then.”
JENNY HAD SENT my medicine chest from Chestnut Street and with it the large parcel of herbs from Kingsessing, which had been delivered there the night before. With the forethought of a Scottish housewife, she’d also included a pound of oatmeal, a twist of salt, a package of bacon, four apples, and six clean handkerchiefs. Also a neat roll of fabric with a brief note, which read:
Dear Sister Claire,
You appear to own nothing suitable in which to go to war. I suggest you borrow Marsali’s printing apron for the time being, and here are two of my flannel petticoats and the simplest things Mrs. Figg could find amongst your wardrobe.
Take care of my brother, and tell him his stockings need darning, because he won’t notice until he’s worn holes in the heel and given himself blisters.