Dragonfly In Amber - Gabaldon Diana (читать книги бесплатно полностью без регистрации сокращений txt) 📗
“I couldna do anything but lie in my hammock and groan, in any case,” he said, shrugging, “so it seemed I might as well have pox, too.”
He and Murtagh had hastily changed roles, and twenty-four hours off the coast of Spain, the master of the Scalamandre had discovered to his horror that plague had broken out below.
Jamie scratched his neck reflectively, as though still feeling the effects of the nettle juice.
“They thought of throwing me overboard when they found out,” he said, “and I must say it seemed a verra fine idea to me.” He gave me a lopsided grin. “Have ye ever had seasickness while covered wi’ nettle rash, Sassenach?”
“No, thank God.” I shuddered at the thought. “Did Murtagh stop them?”
“Oh, aye. He’s verra fierce, is Murtagh. He slept across the threshold wi’ his hand on his dirk, until we came safe to port at Bilbao.”
True to forecast, the Scalamandre’s captain, faced with the unprofitable choice of proceeding to Le Havre and forfeiting his cargo, or returning to Spain and cooling his heels while word was sent to Paris, had leaped at the opportunity to dispose of his hold’s worth of port to the new purchaser chance had thrown in his way.
“Not that he didna drive a hard bargain,” Jamie observed, scratching his forearm. “He haggled for half a day – and me dying in my hammock, pissing blood and puking my guts out!”
But the bargain had been concluded, both port and smallpox patient unloaded with dispatch at Bilbao, and – aside from a lingering tendency to urinate vermilion – Jamie’s recovery had been rapid.
“We sold the port to a broker there in Bilbao,” he said. “I sent Murtagh at once to Paris, to repay Monsieur Duverney’s loan – and then… I came here.”
He looked down at his hands, lying quiet in his lap. “I couldna decide,” he said softly. “To come or no. I walked, ye ken, to give myself time to think. I walked all the way from Paris to Fontainebleau. And nearly all the way back. I turned back half a dozen times, thinking myself a murderer and a fool, not knowing if I would rather kill myself or you…”
He sighed then, and looked up at me, eyes dark with reflections of the fluttering leaves.
“I had to come,” he said simply.
I didn’t say anything, but laid my hand over his and sat beside him. Fallen grapes littered the ground under the arbor, the pungent scent of their fermentation promising the forgetfulness of wine.
The cloud-streaked sun was setting, and a blur of gold silhouetted the respectful form of Hugo, looming black in the entrance to the arbor.
“Your pardon, Madame,” he said. “My mistress wishes to know – will le seigneur be staying for supper?”
I looked at Jamie. He sat still, waiting, the sun through the grape leaves streaking his hair with a tiger’s blaze, shadows falling across his face.
“I think you’d better,” I said. “You’re awfully thin.”
He looked me over with a half-smile. “So are you, Sassenach.”
He rose and offered me his arm. I took it and we went in together to supper, leaving the grape leaves to their muted conversation.
I lay next to Jamie, close against him, his hand resting on my thigh as he slept. I stared upward into the darkness of the bedroom, listening to the peaceful sigh of his sleeping breath, breathing myself the fresh-washed scent of the damp night air, tinged with the smell of wisteria.
The collapse of the Comte St. Germain had been the end of the evening, so far as all were concerned save Louis. As the company made to depart, murmuring excitedly among themselves, he took my arm, and led me out through the same small door by which I had entered. Good with words when required, he had no need of them here.
I was led to the green silk chaise, laid on my back and my skirts gently lifted before I could speak. He did not kiss me; he did not desire me. This was the ritual claiming of the payment agreed upon. Louis was a shrewd bargainer, and not one to forgive a debt he thought owed to him, whether the payment had value to him or not. And perhaps it did, after all; there was more than a hint of half-fearful excitement in his preparations – who but a king would dare to take La Dame Blanche in his embrace?
I was closed and dry, unready. Impatient, he seized a flagon of rose-scented oil from the table, and massaged it briefly between my legs. I lay unmoving, soundless, as the hastily probing finger withdrew, replaced at once by a member little larger, and – “suffered” is the wrong word, there was neither pain nor humiliation involved; it was a transaction – I waited, then, through the quick thrusting, and then he was on his feet, face flushed with excitement, hands fumbling to refasten his breeches over the small swelling within. He would not risk the possibility of a half-Royal, half-magic bastard; not with Madame de La Tourelle ready – a good deal readier than I, I hoped – and waiting in her own chambers down the hall.
I had given what was implicitly promised; now he could with honor accede to my request, feeling no virtu had gone forth from him. As for me, I met his courteous bow with my own, took my elbow from the grip with which he had gallantly escorted me to the door, and left the audience chamber only a few minutes after entering it, with the King’s assurance that the order for Jamie’s freedom would be given in the morning.
The Gentleman of the Bedchamber was standing in the hall, waiting. He bowed to me, and I bowed back, then followed him down the Hall of Mirrors, feeling the slipperiness of my oily thighs as they brushed each other, and smelling the strong scent of roses between my legs.
Hearing the gate of the palace shut behind me, I had closed my eyes and thought that I would never see Jamie again. And if by chance I did, I would rub his nose in the scent of roses, until his soul sickened and died.
But now instead I held his hand on my thigh, listening to his breathing, deep and even in the dark beside me. And I let the door close forever on His Majesty’s audience.
29 TO GRASP THE NETTLE
“Scotland.” I sighed, thinking of the cool brown streams and dark pines of Lallybroch, Jamie’s estate. “Can we really go home?”
“I expect we’ll have to,” he answered wryly. “The King’s pardon says I leave France by mid-September, or I’m back in the Bastille. Presumably, His Majesty has arranged a pardon as well from the English Crown, so I willna be hanged directly I get off the ship in Inverness.”
“I suppose we could go to Rome, or to Germany,” I suggested, tentatively. I wanted nothing more than to go home to Lallybroch, and heal in the quiet peace of the Scottish Highlands. My heart sank at the thought of royal courts and intrigue, the constant press of danger and insecurity. But if Jamie felt we must…
He shook his head, red hair falling over his face as he stooped to pull on his stockings.
“Nay, it’s Scotland or the Bastille,” he said. “Our passage is already booked, just to make sure.” He straightened and brushed the hair out of his eyes with a wry smile. “I imagine the Duke of Sandringham – and possibly King George – want me safe at home, where they can keep an eye on me. Not spying in Rome, or raising money in Germany. The three weeks’ grace, I gather, is a courtesy to Jared, giving him time to come home before I leave.”
I was sitting in the window seat of my bedroom, looking out over the tumbled green sea of the Fontainebleau woods. The hot, languid air of summer seemed to press down, sapping all energy.
“I can’t say I’m not glad.” I sighed, pressing my cheek against the glass in search of a moment’s coolness. The legacy of yesterday’s chill rain was a blanketing humidity that made hair and clothes cling to my skin, itching and damp. “Do you think it’s safe, though? I mean, will Charles give up, now that the Comte is dead, and the money from Manzetti lost?”
