Chapter 3 #2
He took a breath, and it seemed his whole body deflated and shrank. His fists uncurled last, and he turned toward her. Slowly. “Aye.”
She had made certain her hands retained enough calluses for him to feel them, so she took one of his strong hands in both of hers and turned him back the way they’d come.
She had no doubt he would notice the roughness of her touch, and released him as quickly as she could.
Relieved that he was moving, Ella guided him with a light touch on his arm toward the keep’s main door.
Then her foot slipped on a patch of mud.
She cried out and flailed, trying to catch herself, but before she fell to the ground, Calum scooped her up.
He held her against his chest, his arms solid supports across her back and behind her knees.
Sudden heat coursed through her, whether from Calum’s body or her own embarrassment, she couldn’t say.
“Are ye hurt…Janet?”
Heart pounding, she shook her head before remembering to speak. “Thanks to ye, Calum, nay. Ye saved me from falling. How did ye ken where I was?”
“I always ken where ye are.” He started walking forward, still carrying her.
Ella shivered at the deep undertone of his voice rumbling through his chest and into her ribs, intensifying as the vibrations slipped deeper into her body. His words seemed to carry a promise she hoped for, but dared not name. If he paid such close attention to her, it must mean something.
But nay! Thanks to her altered voice and scent, he thought she was Janet, not Ella. How true were his feelings for her if he spoke so of Janet? Of a woman who smelled of onions! He always knew where she was? Why would he give a servant that sort of attention? Why would he admit it?
She thought he desired her and her alone, yet it seemed he was no better than any of the past men in her life.
Faithless. She’d learned that the hard way with Dermott.
Even Thomas, who’d only brought her home and divorced her to save her life.
Determined to have their way with any woman in reach.
“Ye can put me down,” she told him, guilt and anger stealing her enjoyment of his nearness.
No one else would know the apprehension that filled her, but anyone could see them.
She must look ridiculous, being rescued by a blind man, no matter how good it felt to be held secure in his arms. Even now, the quiet bailey was too public a place for such a display.
“Are ye certain ye can remain standing?”
His tone was teasing, once again reminding her of Calum’s good-natured humor before his injury, but his touch betrayed his concern, his hand on her back stroking up and down.
He meant to soothe her, she knew, but instead, his touch set her blood to singing.
Yet, he was flirting with Janet, not her.
She fought down the feelings his touch elicited and took a breath.
“Long enough to get inside, aye.” Where she would find more onions.
Maybe some garlic. Or rotten meat. Anything to break the spell Janet seemed to have over him.
He stood her on her feet and took her arm without further comment, but with a frown that made her fear that he’d been affected by holding her, too.
Needing a distraction, she hurried them up the steps to the keep’s heavy door and let him pull it open.
Once he closed it behind them, his shoulders slumped and she realized he dreaded being confined indoors yet again.
She led him to the entrance to the great hall and paused.
There was no one nearby. No one to call her by her true name.
She could remain Janet, at least for now.
She didn’t know what she would do if someone forgot their ruse and called her Ella.
Admit to it, she supposed, and deal with Calum’s reaction as she must.
“Take a breath,” she told him. So soon after being in his arms, it might be a risk to emphasize his sense of smell, but the festival preparations should cover her scent.
She needed to distract him. “Tell me what ye sense.” His broad chest rose and fell, and watching him made her hungry to be held against it again. Even if only as Janet.
“People and hounds,” he said, his fierce expression smoothing into enjoyment. “And for the Marymas, bannocks. Lots of them.”
“And more?”
“The hearth fire burning, and…” He lifted his head, nostrils flaring while he took another breath.
He looked proud, strong and confident, despite the healer’s bandages covering his eyes and wrapping around his dark head.
“Roasting meats, aye, and tarts from the kitchen,” he announced.
“I canna smell the pies, but all the rest, aye.”
“Ye said my senses are undimmed. And I told ye, I notice everything.” He turned his face to her. “I ken that Ella has been in my chamber, no’ ye.”
Ella froze. Nay! How did he know that? She’d been careful to keep the healer’s onions and herbs on her any time she tended him.
“I ken her scent. I told the healer I did not want her there.”
Ella fought to speak normally in Janet’s low tones. “Perhaps ye only imagined…or something of her scent remains in the room from before the healer called the lads and me to ye.”
Without the bandages over his eyes, she expected his gaze would be locked with hers. Was he trying to tell her he knew—or at least suspected—who she really was? Could he truly find her scent among all the others in the keep?
“Perhaps.”
His acquiescence surprised her. She’d thought he would continue to challenge her.
As he held her safe in his arms, he’d hesitated before calling her Janet.
Was he playing with her? Mocking her? That, she would not tolerate.
She’d been through too much, and learned too much, to be any man’s plaything ever again.
But Janet wouldn’t know to take offense. “If she has been in yer chamber, ’twas no’ when I was present. And surely, she only meant to help ye.” She summoned a chuckle. “What man would object to a beautiful lass caring for him?”
Calum’s mouth thinned and his fists clenched. “What good is beauty to a blind man? Can ye tell me that?”
His words hit her like a dirk to the heart.
Was that all she meant to him? He saw only her beauty?
Even after the last year, he did not have a sense of who she was inside?
He wouldn’t feel the same about her if he couldn’t see her ever again?
She knew better. She’d spent enough time with him in the year since she’d come to Brodie to know he would have become bored with her very quickly if all she was to him was someone pleasant to look at.
They’d had too many conversations. He knew her history and all she had suffered.
How she looked should be the least thing about her that he cared for.
Nay, she would not accept that his enjoyment of her beauty was all she was to him. His fear and frustration sent those resentful words spewing from his mouth.
He pursued her from the moment he met her.
He cared for her. He made his feelings for her evident without words, even if she didn’t want to recognize them at the time.
Instead, she held him off, certain that she was not ready to be close to any man, even one who interested her, and who pursued her as consistently as Calum did.
Why did every man think her beauty was all she had to offer?
She thought Calum was better than that. She was sick of being wanted only for her face.
It was the reason Thomas Ross immediately claimed her from among the three captured Munro lasses, but she showed him she had more spine in her than he expected.
She escaped. It wasn’t her fault her own Munro chief forced her to return to Ross with the husband she didn’t want when Thomas came to reclaim her.
Only her own strength in refusing food for weeks saved her, convincing Thomas that she would rather die than remain wed to him.
At least then, he had done the honorable thing, brought her home to Munro and divorced her.
She thought Calum was different.
But was he? He treated Janet with as much courtesy—or more—than he’d given Ella lately.
Did he really feel any affection for her, or did he treat any woman as well as he’d treated her in the past, and Janet now?
Perhaps what she thought was his patience with her reluctance to get closer to him or to any man wasn’t patience, but some sort of friendly indifference.
Maybe she’d imagined he wanted her—after all, he’d never actually said as much.
Perhaps it was time to end this pretense.
To remove this false face she wore around him, and to make him tell her the truth of how he felt about her.
She wanted to tell him who she was, but the great hall was no place for such a conversation.
For such a confrontation, if that was what it would become.
And if she was wrong about ending her deception right now, she could not let him fall in love with Janet.
It would hurt her too much. She knew that was selfish.
She’d ignored his advances again and again, but she’d learned, when she feared she’d lost him to his injuries, that she couldn’t bear to be without him.
He might be angry at her for what she’d done, but the Calum she knew would soon get past it.
Or would he? After succumbing to such a terrible injury, was he still the Calum she knew?
Who would Calum become if, as he feared, he’d lost half his sight?
If he could not be the warrior he was before Harlaw?
Would he still be the man she could love?
Friends warned her he might be changed. Different.
But she believed, deep inside, he would be the same man he’d always been, and he would adjust. Iain would give him every opportunity to assume an important place in the clan, no matter what. She would help.