Chapter 7 #2
She'd been able to hide her background so effectively because people had simply never asked. Even Ava, who Paisley considered her closest friend, seemed disinterested in the past in comparison to the pressing issues of the present and future.
"What are ye doing, Thomas?" Dominic snapped, materializing out of the crowd. "Stop bothering her. She's working."
"I was just asking..."
"Nay, ye were nae. Go on, both of ye. Go find somewhere to sit and stop bothering the lass."
Thomas held Dominic's steely gray gaze for a moment, then sighed, rolling his eyes.
"Fine. Ye are nae fun, ye know that?" he mumbled, taking Emma's hand.
"Aye, I know," Dominic responded tartly.
Thomas paused, catching Paisley's eye and winking. "Welcome to the family, lassie."
Dominic narrowed his eyes, folding his arms across his brawny chest, and watched them disappear into the crowd. He glanced back at Paisley and raised his eyebrows.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I shouldn't be chatting. I should be working."
"Sure, it's nae yer fault. Thomas is chatty, and he's nosy to boot."
That last comment seemed pointed, but by the time Paisley raised her eyes to meet his, the sympathetic expression was gone.
"Right," he said, their moment of understanding over. "I need six tankards of ale, a pint of..."
"If ye wait a moment, I'll walk ye home," Dominic said shortly, turning to securely lock the pub's doors behind him.
Despite saying that she could finish at midnight and he would stay longer, Dominic had herded all of the patrons out of the pub at midnight on the dot.
Paisley couldn't help but wonder whether he'd done it so that he could walk her home, but quickly reproved herself.
Jumping to conclusions like that was a bad idea.
She glanced around at the forest nearby, pitch black and ominous, and shivered.
"Thank you," she said, wrapping her arms around herself. "I don't much like the dark."
Dominic glanced over his shoulder at her, raising an eyebrow. "Well, I'm sorry to tell ye this, but there's a lot of darkness in the countryside."
"There is?" Paisley said, feigning shock. "I'm so glad you were here to explain that to me. Tell me, can you explain what that big round thing up in the sky could be? I'm at a loss." She pointed up at the moon, cackling at her own joke.
Dominic rolled his eyes. "Ye and Thomas are two of a kind. He liked ye, by the way. Not in a flirty way, don't worry. He's nae so much as glanced at another woman since he met Emma."
"I liked him too," Paisley said, tipping back her head to look up at the stars. "I liked Emma, too. I've never met a healer like her back home."
"I hear that women healers arenae permitted in England," Dominic remarked, leading the way towards the dark forest path, a lit lantern in his hand, lighting up their way.
Paisley hurried to catch up with him. "There are some. Midwives and such."
"Aye, we have midwives here as well as healers."
"They aren't taken seriously, though. I remember one of the maids in our house having a baby – it was a terrible scandal, but Mama wouldn't allow her to be thrown out onto the streets – and a midwife coming to help with the birth.
The baby was coming out backwards, you see.
She told us what to do, and the woman lived.
One of our neighbors had the same problem giving birth to her own child, and her husband hired an expensive London doctor.
Nobody liked him – they said he was pompous and treated the poor woman like a fool.
She died, and so did the baby. I often wondered if that midwife had attended, if things would have been different. "
Paisley bit her lip after this outburst, glancing uncertainly up at Dominic. She hadn't meant to mention the maid. Had he noticed? He didn't seem to be shocked and didn't ask any follow-up questions about what sort of people Paisley's family had been to employ servants.
"Emma is a trustworthy healer, and a fine woman," he said eventually. "She's the finest clan lady in these parts. Me own maither was very taken with her and has her heart set on me marryin' a healer meself."
Paisley blinked, not quite sure what to do with the image of a hectoring mother at Dominic's shoulder.
"You aren't married, then?"
"Ye seem surprised," he counted. "Are ye married?"
"Would I be here alone if I were?"
He shrugged. "I daenae ken. Ye seem to be guarding yer past pretty well. Daenae worry, I willnae pry. Nae unless it's something I ought to know."
Well, how should she take that? What was something he should know?
Like learning that his newest hireling is an English Lady, with a vast family fortune behind her and a Duke and Duchess as parents, perhaps? Paisley thought, her stomach clenching. She put the thought aside. That wasn't who she was now. Not anymore. Lady Paisley Burton was gone.
"Ye never said where ye lived," Dominic said, cutting into her thoughts.
"I'm staying at the Crown."
He nodded, and they walked on in silence.
After about ten minutes of walking, they emerged from the forest, and the blocky shape of the Crown inn loomed up before them.
Paisley saw her own window, a large, round thing set just under the eaves.
She could see the flickering light of a candle up there, so obviously Ava was already home. Paisley had so much to tell her.
"Well, I shall leave ye here," Dominic said, following her gaze and eyeing the lit window. "I'm sure ye can make it safely from here."
"Yes, thank you," Paisley said, her treacherous cheeks turning red. "I appreciate you walking me home."
He nodded and turned to leave. He made as if to go back the way he had come, the dark, shifting shadows of the trees poised to swallow him up. The man seemed very small, all of a sudden.
"Where do you stay, then?" Paisley asked impulsively, something clenching in her chest.
Dominic paused, looking back at her. In this light, his gray eyes seemed coal-black, and his face looked pale and ethereal.
He grinned, his teeth glinting white and vulpine in the moonlight.
"Well, that's none of yer concern, is it, Paisley? Get to The Sinner for noon tomorrow. We've got a lot of cleaning to do."
And then he was gone, as if he'd never been there at all. Paisley stood where she was for a few moments, blinking, before she summoned up the energy to go inside.