Honey-Buttermilk Oatbread at Madame Jeanne’s from Voyager
A knock at the door broke the tension. It was a small serving maid, with a tray of supper. She bobbed shyly to me, smiled at Jamie, and laid both supper — cold meat, hot broth and warm oatbread with butter — and the fire with a quick and practiced hand, then left us with a murmured “Good e’en to ye.”
We ate slowly, talking carefully only of neutral things; I told him how I had made my way from Craigh na Dun to Inverness, and made him laugh with stories of Mr. Graham and Master Georgie. He in turn told me about Mr. Willoughby; how he had found the little Chinese, half-starved and dead drunk, lying behind a row of casks on the docks at Burntisland, one of the shipping ports near Edinburgh.
We said nothing much of ourselves, but as we ate, I became increasingly conscious of his body, watching his fine, long hands as he poured wine and cut meat, seeing the twist of his powerful torso under his shirt, and the graceful line of neck and shoulder as he stooped to retrieve a fallen napkin. Once or twice, I thought I saw his gaze linger on me in the same way — a sort of hesitant avidity — but he quickly glanced away each time, hooding his eyes so that I could not tell what he saw or felt.
Diana Gabaldon, Voyager, (Chapter 25)
