Chapter Seventeen #2
“Nay, I dinna. It wouldnae be fair to put her in such a situation. Whatever might have happened since, I still gave my word to see her safely home, and I mean to keep that promise.” He fixed Mal with a hard stare. “So ye willnae breathe a word of this conversation to anyone. Do ye ken?”
Mal held his gaze for a moment and then sighed. “As ye wish.”
Arran nodded. “Good.” He stood up from the bale of straw. “Then we willnae speak of this again. Now, I need to see a man about a book.”
He strode off before Mal could utter another word.
He took a deep breath as he stepped out of the stable and into the warm sunshine outside.
Following his conversation with Mal, the turmoil of his feelings had not abated.
In fact, they’d gotten worse. While the realization of what he felt for Jenna filled his heart with joy, the realization of what he was about to lose felt like a cold icicle stabbed right through his chest.
Did ye know this would happen, Lir? he thought.
If so, then Brother Merrick had been right all along: the old gods were indeed cruel.
*
“Oh my God, that is amazing,” Jenna sighed, sinking into the tub right up to her chin.
Ingrid had tipped a powder into the water that caused a lovely lavender scent to rise up and little soap bubbles to form on the surface. As she lounged, Jenna felt all her aches and pains and tension slowly drain away. Heaven. Absolute heaven.
“Would ye like me to wash yer hair?” Ingrid asked.
Jenna was about to decline but thought better of it. It might be nice to be pampered for once. “Actually, that would be great.”
She sat up and Ingrid came to kneel behind her. The maid took a wooden scoop and began gently pouring water over her hair and then washing it with a soap made from fat and marjoram—the closest thing they had to shampoo in this time.
Jenna felt her eyes sliding closed. It was blissful to be pampered like this—but Jenna couldn’t help wishing it was Arran instead of Ingrid. She wished it was his fingers massaging her scalp, his hands gently pouring water over her shoulders.
Jenna had to bite her lip to keep from groaning. Why did she have to think about Arran? Why did he have to keep filling her thoughts at the most inopportune moments?
Okay, so they’d had fabulous sex, but that’s all it was. Purely physical. A bit of fun. Nothing else.
So why the hell couldn’t she get him out of her head?
Aargh! It was infuriating in the extreme.
She had come here to earn enough money to pay off her debts and save her house.
Simple. She most definitely had not come here to sleep with the very man who’d employed her and then moon around after him like some love-struck teenager!
Yet she could still almost feel the touch of his fingers across her skin, smell his scent in the air around her, hear his deep, rumbling voice as it washed over her.
What was he doing right now? Meeting with his staff?
Discussing plans? Doing other lairdly stuff?
Was he thinking about her at all? She doubted it.
Arran no doubt had the pick of the ladies of Skye, and Jenna doubted she was the first woman he’d ever had a bit of fun with. Nor would she be the last.
That thought sent an unpleasant sensation sneaking through her gut, and it took a moment for her to realize it was jealousy.
She pressed her lips into a hard line as Ingrid began rinsing out her hair.
Ridiculous. What did she have to be jealous about?
She would be going home soon, back to her normal life where everything made sense, and where people she’d never met weren’t after her blood.
She’d never see Arran MacLeod again.
That little twinge in her stomach turned into a full-on ache. Never see Arran again? She didn’t like the thought of that. She didn’t like it one bit.
“What is it?” Ingrid asked suddenly.
Jenna glanced over her shoulder at the younger woman. “Sorry? What?”
“Ye seemed like ye were miles away. And ye looked sad.”
“Did I?” Jenna asked, surprised. “I guess I’m just a little wrung out by what happened today. That must be it.”
Ingrid watched her for a moment and then went back to rinsing her hair. “Ah, that must be it. For a minute there, it seemed as if ye might be thinking of something in particular. Or someone in particular.”
Jenna swiveled to look at Ingrid. “What do you mean by that?”
Ingrid shrugged innocently. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Now turn around so I can finish yer hair.”
Jenna didn’t. She wasn’t fooled by the maid’s bland expression and feigned innocence. She narrowed her eyes. “What have you heard?”
“Nothing!” Ingrid said quickly. “Nothing at all.”
“Ingrid,” Jenna said, scowling at the younger woman. “Spill. What have you heard?”
Ingrid bit her lip and then put down the wooden ewer she’d been using to rinse Jenna’s hair.
“Oh, all right.” She shuffled forward, her eyes sparkling with curiosity.
“Well I’m… friendly… with one of the lads who rowed out to bring ye back.
Robbie, his name is. Anyway, he said ye and the laird looked a bit…
flustered when they picked ye up.” She paused and bit her lip again, as if deciding whether to continue.
“And that yer clothing looked a little… hastily donned. Apparently, the laird had his breeches on back to front.”
Jenna stared at Ingrid for a moment longer and then burst into laughter. It was such a ridiculous image of Arran that she couldn’t help herself. She hadn’t noticed his slip, and neither, it seemed, had he. After her mirth subsided, she put her head in her hands and groaned.
“Oh God, Ingrid! What am I going to do? Does the whole keep know that Arran and I… that we… that we… oh, you know what I mean!”
“Dinna fash. The lads from the boat are the only ones who know, and they wouldnae breathe a word for fear of the laird’s anger. They willnae tell anyone.”
“But Robbie told you.”
“That’s only because we are… close.”
“Oh, close are you?” Jenna snorted. “In the same way that the laird and I are close?”
Ingrid grinned. “Aye, something like that.”
Jenna blew out a breath and then slapped the surface of the water, watching the droplets catch the light as they fell back down. “This is such a mess, Ingrid. I didn’t mean for this to happen. What am I going to do?”
“I dinna understand,” Ingrid replied with a frown. “Why is it a mess? The laird is unmarried so—” Her face suddenly went pale. “Oh! Ye aren’t married in the future, are ye?”
Jenna laughed at the shocked expression on the younger woman’s face. “No! Relax, I’m not married.” Although I was going to be, she thought, as an image of Alex flashed through her mind. She pushed it away. She would not think about him now. She would not think about him ever again.
Ingrid breathed out, pressing a hand against her chest. “Oh my. Dinna give me a scare like that! But if ye are unmarried why are ye so concerned?”
“Because I don’t know how to handle this! It’s not like I planned for it to happen.”
“But if ye and the laird are… close… isnae it obvious how ye handle it? Ye do the same thing Robbie and I are going to do.”
“And what’s that?”
“Ye marry the laird, of course!”
Jenna felt her mouth drop open. She couldn’t have been more shocked if Ingrid had told her she had to run naked around the island under a full moon.
Marry Arran? Was she crazy?
With an effort, Jenna snapped her mouth shut. “Um… that’s not exactly what I had in mind.”
“Why not? He’s the laird, and a more eligible bachelor ye’ll not find in all the islands. And you’re a MacFinnan spellweaver. What a match ye would make! And what children ye would produce!”
Jenna recoiled, holding up her palms. “Whoa! Stop, Ingrid. Just stop. I’ve just had a brief… encounter… with Arran and you’ve already got us married with children!”
Ingrid shrugged. “It’s the way things are done on Skye.”
“Well, it’s not the way things are done where I come from. I will most definitely not be marrying Arran.”
Or anyone else, she added to herself. Ever. I’m not taking that kind of risk again. Sure, Arran is gorgeous and charming and sweet and protective and hot as hell in bed, but I don’t love him. I don’t. I won’t love a man ever again.
“Oh.” Ingrid’s shoulders sagged with disappointment. “I see.”
Ingrid said nothing else, and an awkward silence filled the room as Jenna finished her bath and Ingrid handed her a large cloth to use as a towel.
Jenna wondered at Ingrid’s reaction. It seemed that Rosaline wasn’t the only one eager for Arran to marry and start producing heirs.
Jenna wondered why he hadn’t. Was it really because he’d been too busy defending his island from raiders as he claimed, or was there more to it than that?
It doesn’t matter, she told herself as she began pulling on the clean clothes that Ingrid laid out for her. It’s none of your business, and it’s not your problem. Just do the job you came here to do, get paid, and go home. And stop thinking about Arran bloody MacLeod!
“How is Rosaline now?” she asked Ingrid.
When they’d returned to the keep, it was clear that Rosaline had been going out of her mind with worry. It must be horrible, Jenna thought, to have the only remaining member of your family constantly in danger. She didn’t know how Rosaline coped.
Ingrid picked up the pile of Jenna’s laundry, tied them into a sheet, and deposited them by the door. “Oh, ye know. The lady of the keep is a strong woman but still, she worries me. She’s getting on a bit now and all this constant worry canna be good for her.”
“Getting on a bit?” Jenna said. “Rosaline is not ‘getting on a bit’!”
“She is too. It’s her name day tomorrow, and she’ll be fifty. Fifty! Imagine it! I’ve rarely met anyone so old. Even my old gran didnae live much past that, and she was the oldest person in her village.”
Jenna blinked in surprise. “It’s Rosaline’s fiftieth birthday tomorrow?”
“Aye.”
“Is she having a party?”
“A what?”