Chapter 5 #3
His response had been the perfect one, acknowledging the lad rather than arguing, and making a jest out of the lad’s observation. Anders had charm aplenty. And knew how to use it. What had he been about to say to her before the tub arrived? In other circumstances, he would … what?
Next, a parade of serving lasses entered with buckets of steaming water.
Ailsa noted Anders nodded to them, but didn’t smile.
He pulled the plaid around his shoulders together over his chest and waited until the parade was finished and the lasses had gone before he let go and reached for the bowl to finish the broth.
Not that his circumspection had helped. Every lass had eyed him with interest, one after the other.
In a few cases where a lass couldn’t look away from him, more water landed on the floor than in the tub.
The last one was so entranced, she dropped her bucket into the tub, sighed and left without retrieving it.
The next lass in line pulled it out and took it with hers.
Ailsa’s jaw clenched watching them admire him.
Something about their behavior tensed her shoulders, too, and drew a line between her brows.
Was she jealous? Or just embarrassed for his sake?
“Ye’ll be the talk of the gossip mongers in the clan in no time,” Ailsa told him after the guard closed the door behind the hapless lass.
Lorna had already gotten a glimpse of him when the guards carried him in from the front gate.
She’d be furious when she heard what the lads and lasses who’d just been in here had seen.
Ailsa would need to avoid her or she’d beg an introduction every chance she got.
“Let them talk,” Anders said, but his expression betrayed concern.
“They will.” She wondered what sorts of things the lads would say, and how different the lasses’ comments would be.
And how much of it would get back to Boden.
Lorna was an irritant, but her brother could be a danger to Anders.
“Take yer time,” she told him. “Ye’ll want that water to cool a wee before ye try it.
” There were several buckets of hot water and cold on the floor nearby to adjust the temperature of the bath.
Maighread returned and took in the large tub. “Ah, good. Yer bath is ready for ye.” She put a stack of bath sheets on the nearby table and handed Ailsa a pottery bowl full of soap. “Ye’ll do the honors, lass. Brana’s bairn is coming. I dinna ken when I’ll be back.”
“What? Wait. I canna—” Bathe Anders? She felt her face go hot as her fingers grew cold. She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to get her hands on those shoulders, that chest, but it wasn’t proper. She wasn’t the clan’s lady with a husband to protect her honor, and he wasn’t an important guest.
“He’ll need help, and I canna stay to do it.” Maighread plunged a hand into the tub. “The water is ready. Get to it. He can dress when he’s clean.”
“What about the wrap on his leg? His hands?” Ailsa didn’t dare look at Anders, afraid he’d be angry the healer left this care to her, or worse, he was laughing at her.
“Unwrap them for the bath. I’ll check them when I get back.” Maighread gathered what she needed for the mother-to-be, left them and closed the door firmly behind her.
Ailsa gestured for him to take a seat at the table, bent and removed the cloth covering the gash in his leg.
The wound looked much better than it had when he first arrived.
“’Tis healing well,” she told him, trying to distract herself.
She was much too close to him, and to his lower half, covered only by a layer of linen and another of wool.
She kept her eyes on his leg wound as she stood. His hands were nearly healed.
“Dinna fash, Ailsa. Turn yer back. I can get in the tub without help.”
He probably could. She was tall for a lass, but he was bigger, heavier and stronger. “What if ye fall?” The idea that she could hold him up seemed preposterous.
“If I do and ye are beside me, I’ll fall on ye. I dinna want to hurt ye. Stay here until I ask ye to come to me.”
Ask her, not tell her. She liked that. “Ye are kind, as well.” She saw heat in the smile he gave her, not at all like his earlier grin, but not a polite smile, either. He saw her as a woman, one he found as attractive as she found him. Or so she imagined.
“Turn around, lass,” he said and moved to the tub, dropping the makeshift shawl from his shoulders onto the table as he went.
She took a moment to admire the muscles that defined his back.
It was as firm as his chest, wide at the shoulders and narrowing to a trim waist. When his hands went to his waist to loosen the plaid tied there, she turned away, but as soon as she heard him testing the water, she glanced around.
Heavily muscled buttocks and legs matched the rest of him.
When his head started to turn toward her, she looked away.
Had he seen her looking at him? The swash of his body entering the water told her if he had, he had chosen to accept or ignore it.
She hoped for the former, because she would see—and touch—much more of him soon.