![]() And you have to go it wouldn’t do to keep your cousin waiting, after all.” I threw back the covers and stood up, to demonstrate. Aside from a sour taste in my mouth, and a slight soreness in the abdominal muscles, I felt quite my normal self. Yet once the bout was over, I felt entirely restored. Fight as I would to keep from vomiting in the mornings, I could hold nothing down for long. “Rinse your mouth, Sassenach, but don’t swallow, for God’s sake.” Jamie held the cup for me, wiped my mouth with a cloth as though I were a small and messy child, then lifted me and laid me carefully back in the bed. “It’s all right,” I said faintly, a bit later. Glancing down, I saw the limp gray form on the floor, a small pearl of blood glistening on the snout. Hands busy, he tilted his head toward the table. “There aren’t spiders up here, are there?”įastening his kilt about his waist, Jamie shook his head. “What were you stamping on?” I asked, sipping carefully. My stomach seemed to have settled sufficiently to risk a sip of water, and I poured a cupful from the cracked bedroom ewer. “Um, perhaps I will just lie down a moment,” I murmured, pulling my feet off the freezing floor and thrusting them under the quilts, in search of the last remnants of warmth. Still, the silver in Jamie’s purse had procured us the best room in the inn, and the narrow bed was stuffed with goose feathers rather than with chaff or wool. “I don’t think so.” I cast an eye back at the bed the quilts, like most coverings supplied by public inns, were none too clean. You won’t be sick now?” I wasn’t entirely sure, but nodded reassuringly. Perhaps ye can rest a bit, now you’ve eaten. “I’ll send up the chambermaid to light the fire. ![]() Pausing in his dressing, he came back to the bed and hugged me briefly. Accustomed to cold, though, he neither shivered nor hurried as he pulled on stockings and shirt. He was naked, and a ripple of gooseflesh brushed his shoulders and raised the red-gold hairs on his arms and legs. France in February is cold as hell frozen over, and the bubbled-glass panes of the window were coated thick with frost. With a dubious look at me, Jamie rose and went to retrieve his clothes from the stool near the window. “Don’t worry, it’s quite normal for pregnant women to feel sick in the morning.” “I’ll be fine in a moment,” I said, with forced cheerfulness. No, thank you.” I shuddered briefly at the thought of drinking hock-I seemed to smell the dark, fruity fumes, just at the mention of it-and pushed myself upright. “Would a bit of wine help? There’s a flask of hock in my saddlebag.” Sitting down beside me on the rough inn bed, he pulled me gently against him and stroked my sleep-tousled hair. ![]() When I nodded and feebly began to sit up, he put an arm around my back to help me. I opened my eyes, to see the anxious face of Jamie Fraser hovering a few inches above me. The nauseating roll of my inner waves slowly calmed, and at last my innards lay at anchor. The dessicated wads of bread crumbs gradually made their way down my throat and took up residence in my stomach, where they lay like small heaps of ballast. ![]() Groping blindly without opening my eyes, I grasped it and began to chew gingerly, forcing each choking bite down a parched throat. “Here, Sassenach,” said an anxious voice, and I felt the touch of a dry bread crust against my lower lip. There was a sudden startled heave of the bedclothes, and I grasped the edge of the mattress and tightened all my muscles, hoping to stabilize the pitch and yaw of my internal organs.įumbling noises came from the far side of the bed, followed by the sliding of a drawer, a muffled exclamation in Gaelic, the soft thud of a bare foot stamping planks, and then the sinking of the mattress under the weight of a heavy body. There was no response from the large, warm object next to me, other than the faint sigh of his breathing. “Bread,” I muttered feebly, keeping my eyes tightly closed. ![]()
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