Outlander aka Cross Stitch - Gabaldon Diana - Страница 56

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There was a soft scratching at the door, as of someone groping for the latch. I knew the door was unbolted; though it was fitted with brackets for a bolt, I had searched unavailingly for the bolt itself before retiring. I grabbed the candlestick, yanked the stub of the candle out, and slid out of bed as quietly as I could, clutching the heavy pottery.

The door squeaked slightly on its hinges as it gave. The room’s only window was tightly shuttered against both elements and light; nonetheless I could just make out the dim outline of the door as it opened. The outline grew, then to my surprise, it shrank and disappeared as the door shut again. Everything was quiet once more.

I stayed pressed against the wall for what seemed like ages, holding my breath and trying to hear through the noise of my pounding heart. At last I inched toward the door, edging carefully around the room next to the wall, thinking the floorboards must surely be more solid here. I eased my foot down at each step, gradually trusting my weight to it, then pausing and groping with bare toes for the seam between two boards, before setting the other foot as solidly as I could judge.

Once the door was reached, I paused, ear pressed to the thin panels, hands braced on the frame, on guard against a sudden bursting inward. I thought perhaps I heard slight sounds, but wasn’t sure. Was it only the sounds of the activity down below, or was it the stifled breathing of someone on the other side of the panel?

The constant flow of adrenaline was making me slightly sick. Tiring at last of this nonsense, I took a firm grip of my candlestick, yanked open the door, and rushed into the hallway.

I say “rushed”; in actuality, I took two steps, trod heavily on something soft, and fell headlong into the passageway, skinning my knuckles and banging my head quite painfully on something solid.

I sat up, clutching my brow with both hands, completely uncaring that I might be assassinated at any moment.

The person I had stepped on was swearing in a rather breathless manner. Through the haze of pain, I was dimly aware that he (I assumed from the size and the smell of sweat that my visitor was male) had risen and was groping for the fastening of the shutters in the wall above us.

A sudden inrush of fresh air made me wince and shut my eyes. When I opened them, there was enough light from the night sky for me to see the intruder.

“What are you doing here?” I asked accusingly.

At the same time Jamie asked, in a similarly accusatory tone, “How much do ye weigh, Sassenach?”

Still a bit addled, I actually replied “Nine stone,” before thinking to ask “Why?”

“Ye nearly crushed my liver,” he answered, gingerly prodding the affected area. “Not to mention scaring living hell out of me.” He reached a hand down and hauled me to my feet. “Are ye all right?”

“No, I bumped my head.” Rubbing the spot, I looked dazedly around the bare hallway. “What did I bang it on?” I demanded ungrammatically.

“My head,” he said, rather grumpily, I thought.

“Serves you right,” I said nastily. “What were you doing, sneaking about outside my door?”

He gave me a testy look.

“I wasna ‘sneaking about,’ for God’s sake. I was sleeping – or trying to.” He rubbed what appeared to be a knot forming on his temple.

“Sleeping? Here?” I looked up and down the cold, bare, filthy hallway with exaggerated amazement. “You do pick the oddest places; first stables, now this.”

“It may interest ye to know that there’s a small party of English dragoons stopped in to the taproom below,” he informed me coldly. “They’re a bit gone in drink, and disporting themselves a bit reckless with two women from the town. Since there’s but the two lasses, and five men, some of the soldiers seemed a bit inclined to venture upward in search of… ah, partners. I didna think you’d care overmuch for such attentions.” He flipped his plaid back over his shoulder and turned in the direction of the stairway. “If I was mistaken in that impression, then I apologize. I’d no intention of disturbin’ your rest. Good e’en to ye.”

“Wait a minute.” He stopped, but did not turn back, forcing me to walk around him. He looked down at me, polite but distant.

“Thank you,” I said. “It was very kind of you. I’m sorry I stepped on you.”

He smiled then, his face changing from a forbidding mask to its usual expression of good humor.

“No harm done, Sassenach,” he said. “As soon as the headache goes away and the cracked rib heals, I’ll be good as new.”

He turned back and pushed open the door of my room, which had swung shut in the wake of my hasty exit, owing to the fact that the builder had apparently constructed the inn without benefit of a plumb line. There wasn’t a right angle in the place.

“Go back to bed, then,” he suggested. “I’ll be here.”

I looked at the floor. Besides its essential hardness and coldness, the oaken boards were blotched with expectorations, spills, and forms of filth I didn’t wish even to contemplate. The builder’s mark in the door lintel had said 1732, and that was plainly the last time the boards had been cleaned.

“You can’t sleep out here,” I said. “Come in; at least the floor in the room isn’t quite this bad.”

Jamie froze, hand on the doorframe.

“Sleep in your room with ye?” He sounded truly shocked. “I couldna do that! Your reputation would be ruined!”

He really meant it. I started to laugh, but converted it into a tactful coughing fit. Given the exigencies of road travel, the crowded state of the inns, and the crudity or complete lack of sanitary facilities, I was on terms of such physical intimacy with these men, Jamie included, that I found the idea of such prudery hilarious.

“You’ve slept in the same room with me before,” I pointed out, when I had recovered a bit. “You and twenty other men.”

He sputtered a bit. “That isna at all the same thing! I mean, it was a quite public room, and…” He paused as an awful thought struck him. “You didna think I meant that you were suggesting anything improper?” he asked anxiously. “I assure ye, I-”

“No, no. Not at all.” I made haste to reassure him that I had taken no offense.

Seeing that he could not be persuaded, I insisted that at the least he must take the blankets from my bed to lie upon. He agreed to this reluctantly, and only upon my repeated assurances that I would not use them myself in any case, but intended to sleep as usual in the cover of my thick traveling cloak.

I tried to thank him again, as I paused by the makeshift pallet before returning to my fetid sanctuary, but he waved away my appreciation with a gracious hand.

“It isna entirely disintested kindness on my part, ye ken,” he observed. “I’d as soon avoid notice myself.”

I had forgotten that he had his own reasons for keeping away from English soldiery. It did not escape me, however, that this could have been much better accomplished, not to say more comfortably, by his sleeping in the warm and airy stables, rather than on the floor before my door.

“But if anyone does come up here,” I protested, “they’ll find you then.”

He reached a long arm out to grasp the swinging shutter and pulled it to. The hall was plunged in blackness, and Jamie appeared as no more than a shapeless bulk.

“They canna see my face,” he pointed out. “And in the condition they’re in, my name would be of no interest to them, either, even were I to give them the right one, which I dinna mean to do.”

“That’s true,” I said, doubtfully. “Won’t they wonder, though, what you’re doing up here in the dark?” I could see nothing of his face, but the tone of his voice told me he was smiling.

“Not at all, Sassenach. They’ll just think I’m waiting my turn.”

I laughed and went in then. I curled myself on the bed and went to sleep, marveling at the mind that could make such ribald jokes even as it recoiled at the thought of sleeping in the same room with me.

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