Diana Gabaldon · @Writer_DG
20th Aug 2013 from TwitLonger
#DailyLines #MOBY #WRITTENInMYOwnHEARTSBlood #Book8 #OutMARCH2014 #exodusfromPhiladelphia #alarmingpossibilities
It had still taken a good deal of persuasion, but in the end, William had landed up as one of Clinton’s dozen _aides-de-camp_, charged with the tedious chore of riding up and down the ponderously-moving column, collecting reports, delivering dispatches, and dealing with any small difficulties that developed en route—a more or less hourly occurrence. He kept a running mental note of where the various surgeons and hospital orderlies were; he lived in horror of having to attend the delivery of one of the camp-followers’ babies—there were at least fifty very pregnant women with the column.
Maybe it was the proximity of these ladies, gravid and pale, their swollen bellies borne like burdens, balanced with the ones on their backs, that made him think of…
Surely whores knew how to avoid pregnancy? He didn’t recall Arabella-Jane doing anything…but he wouldn’t have noticed, drunk as he was.
William thought of her whenever he touched the spot on his breast where his gorget should be. If asked, he would have said he put the thing on with his uniform and forgot about it—but from the number of times he found Arabella-Jane in his mind, he was apparently in the habit of fiddling with it constantly.