Chapter Twelve The Morning After #2
She closed her eyes, letting out a soft noise of enjoyment as the maids worked quickly to detangle her hair and started washing her back.
As they worked, her mind brought her back to the night before.
The wood of the door on her back. His hands around her.
His mouth, fingers, and manhood. She had not realized that her legs were pressed together until she heard Catriona giggling.
She opened her eyes, her cheeks flushed.
“I am sorry, my lady,” Catriona giggled softly.
“No, no, I’m sorry,” Alice muttered. “I am just… Thinking…”
“About last night?” Siobhan asked with a grin.
“Maybe…” Alice muttered.
“Ye enjoyed it?” Molly asked with a grin. Alice’s cheeks burned.
“I suppose,” she mumbled. She looked down into the water, not wanting to meet their eyes.
“Ye are allowed tae have enjoyed it,” Molly said softly.
Alice nodded but that still felt strange to her mind.
Before coming to Scotland, she had never been told it was something she would be allowed to enjoy.
She was usually told it was something that a woman endured, or a duty to be done, and that the only women who enjoyed it did it for work.
Being told she was allowed to enjoy it still made the back of he neck prickle and anxiety bubble up in her chest. Molly’s giggle broke her from her thoughts.
Molly grinned. “That means ye will want tae do it more, and ye will be more eager tae make an heir.”
“Or just make the laird happy,” Catriona giggled.
“Or,” Siobhan snapped. “The lady may just wish tae enjoy herself.”
“It is good tae ken our laird is nae useless with his wife,” Catriona giggled.
“We ken that already,” Siobhan rolled her eyes.
“We had been told he was an accomplished lover,” Catriona corrected. “We dinnae ken if that was lasses being fanciful toward the laird or if the rumors were tae be believed!”
All at once Alice’s body felt cold and nausea rolled through her.
She had almost forgotten about that woman from the tavern.
Being reminded of Evander’s prior experiences did not sit well with her.
She did not know the woman’s name, and in truth she did not want to know it.
But she remembered how it had felt to walk into the tavern and see them kissing.
Alice had believed his apology and truly thought that it did not matter, that whatever had come before her had ended in the dark of their chambers last night.
Even so, some small part of her still worried and fussed. That small part practically begged her to demand answers from him, but she refused to be dictated by something so irrational.
Molly noticed Alice’s expression and flicked Catriona on the arm.
“The important thing is,” Molly said, clearing her throat. “That our lady is happy and, now the laird has come to his senses, a bairn will be a matter of time.”
“Indeed,” Siobhan nodded.
“I will try to not make you all wait too long,” Alice said with a half-laugh.
She closed her eyes, letting the warm water take away the worries she had had the night before.
As Molly and the others washed her hair, her mind drifted.
Back to Evander’s arms, his touch, his mouth.
It was more than the bedding, although that had been a wondrous part of it.
It was also the fact that, for once, he had been entirely focused on her, and her needs.
When was the last time anyone had been focused on her like that?
She got her father’s attention when he was angry, her mother’s when she was lecturing Alice, and her brother’s whenever he was being cruel.
But to have someone look at her with open affection was foreign.
Perhaps it was fitting. To be treated well by the one everyone had said would treat her poorly.
When her eyes opened, bleary from the steam, the maids helped her to stand and dress.
I think I am falling in love with him.
The thought settled over her like a warm blanket. It was like she had finally found the words for what had already been decided in his arms last night.
She let the thought sit there, almost expecting such a thing to frighten her.
It did not.
In fact, the more she sat with it, the more right it felt.
She thought of his hands, not just on or in her now, but the steadying hand on the small of her back as she had entered the keep on that first day.
The way he had watched her as she walked in to say her vows and fended off her brother.
The way he held her as they danced. She smiled as she thought of how foolish she must have seemed not to have seen it before.
For a few moments, Alice’s world was at peace.
Peace never stayed in Alice’s mind, though.
As the day went on, her thoughts changed, attempting to reconcile the image of the man she had been brought to with the one who had held her the night before. Sitting in her chambers, she could not stop her mind from spinning.
You are restless. You are seeing issues where there are none, because you do not wish to face reality.
She told herself this several times, and yet, it did not help. Was her mind truly trying to find a problem because her heart had decided that it wished to be a part of her relationship with the laird? Was she really so fickle?
Even as she wondered that, she could not stop the restless fidgeting of her hands.
Her finger tips picked at the edge of her sleeves.
It was not just the tavern woman, but smaller things too.
The way his jaw tightened when someone spoke of his brother, the way nobody spoke of the other man, and the nights he had forced distance between himself and her without adequate explanation.
I must know more. I must understand.
A man does not get a reputation without in some way earning it.