Aye, Elysande decided. She would be most firm with them about that. It was bad enough they weren’t going to get to sleep in a bed like the rest of the men and herself. She wouldn’t have them out in the cold hall too.
Determined that she was going to have her way in this matter, Elysande finished her bath, dried off using the linen that had also been left on the chair and then just stood there uncertainly when she realized she had no clean clothes to put on. Rory had said he’d set them inside the door when Simon brought them, but that hadn’t happened yet. She’d obviously been quicker about her bath than she’d realized, Elysande thought, and almost sank back into the tub to enjoy it a little longer. But that would mean drying off again, and—
Her thoughts died on an alarmed squeak, and she scrambled to cover herself with the linen when the door opened. She needn’t have bothered. The door opened on the side opposite her, and only enough for Rory to slide the bags in.
“Yer bags, love,” he said, and then pulled the door closed.
Still clutching the linen to her, Elysande hurried to collect the bags and set them on the bed. She found a clean tunic and pulled that on, and then donned clean breeches as well. She picked which dress she’d wear next, a white-and-blue creation she liked a great deal, but Elysande didn’t put it on. She simply laid it over the chair the soap and linen had been on by the tub. It was terribly wrinkled from traveling in the bag and she was hoping they would fall out by morning. Besides, she was decently covered in the tunic and breeches, and it would be more comfortable for sleeping if she didn’t have lengths of skirt beneath her.
Setting the bags on the floor against the wall beside the bedside table, she gathered her dirty clothes, folded them quickly and set them next to the bags to go through later. The coin and messages her mother had sent with her were still in pockets sewn into the lining of her skirts. She’d have to transfer them to the clean gown in the morning, Elysande thought as she picked up the brush she’d retrieved from the bag earlier and sat on the bed. Walking to the fire, she stood in front of it while she quickly brushed her hair to get the tangles out, and then set the brush on the bedside table and went to open the door.
Chapter 12
Rory was alone in the hall, leaning against the wall, when Elysande opened the door. He looked to her to be half-asleep, but straightened with a start when she asked, “Where is Tom?”
“He went below to have a drink with Simon. I’m to call him after I’ve applied the liniment to yer back.”
“Oh, aye . . . the liniment,” Elysande murmured, and backed into the room when he started forward. While he stopped to push it closed, Elysande kept backing up until her legs bumped up against the bed. She bit her lip and glanced toward the bed and then the bags where the liniment was. Instead of going to get it though, she blurted, “The bath seems to have eased my aches and pains. Mayhap I could do without the liniment tonight.”
Rory tilted his head and eyed her with concern before saying, “Are ye afraid o’ me, lass?”
“What?” she asked with surprise. “Nay, of course not. Why would you think that?”
“Because ye’re wringing yer hands and looking like ye’re ready to bolt fer the door the minute I move away from it,” he said gently.
Elysande glanced down at her hands to see she was indeed wringing them, and immediately let them drop to her sides. “Nay. I just . . .” She paused to try to sort out why she was suddenly so skittish and then sighed as she realized it was the bedchamber. They were alone in a bedchamber, with a bed . . . which wasn’t proper at all. And after what had happened in the woods the last time he’d put liniment on her . . .
A little shiver slid through her as Elysande recalled the pleasure she’d experienced before they’d been interrupted. And that was the problem, she realized. She had enjoyed it, and would like to enjoy it again, but it was so wrong. Circumstances may have forced her to travel alone with eight men who were neither related nor married to her, but there had seemed little choice in the matter. That would be accepted or not by people, but she, God and her mother knew it had been out of necessity. However, if he started kissing and touching her again and she gave in to it—and she would give in to it, Elysande knew—then that would be her shame to carry.
She couldn’t say all of that to Rory though. At least, not without possibly dying of embarrassment, so she said, “I would rather not use the liniment tonight.”
“Lass, dawn is no’ far off. I’m tired and planning to sleep until the nooning tomorrow. I would rather no’ be woken in the middle o’ me sleep because ye refused to allow me to put liniment on now.”
Elysande chewed her lip a bit more and then said, “Well, then mayhap we should have Tom up here while ye put the liniment on. ’Twould be more proper.”
That had his eyes widening incredulously. “Tom up here seeing ye half-naked would be more proper?”
“Nay. Not to watch. He could keep his face to the wall while you did it, but his presence would ensure . . .”
When she paused, blushing, he narrowed his eyes and then scowled and finished for her, “To ensure I behave? Ye think I’d take advantage o’—”
“Nay. So I behave,” Elysande countered quickly, and felt her face go up in flames. She’d only blurted the truth because he appeared to be taking offense and she hadn’t meant for that to happen. But the moment the truth left her mouth, she wished she could call her words back.
“What?” Rory asked with a combination of wonder and the beginnings of a suspiciously pleased smile.
Since she’d already humiliated herself, Elysande gave up on saving her pride in favor of saving her virtue instead, but she wasn’t happy doing it. In fact, she clucked her tongue with irritation before saying, “My lord, I am sure you are aware that you are a very handsome man. You are also a highly intelligent and an exceptionally skilled healer. But as skilled as you are there, you are even more skilled in the arts of the bedchamber of the woods.”
“The bedchamber of the woods?” he queried with a crooked smile.
“I thought it sounded better than at the art of tossing up a lady’s skirt in the woods,” Elysande snapped, annoyed that he would tease her for her choice of words when she was admitting to something so embarrassing.
“Ye were no’ wearing yer skirts, lass,” Rory said, his voice husky. “As I recall, ye were no’ wearing anything at all. There was no tossing up. Just darkness and yer warm body and soft cries.”
Elysande’s flush deepened and she was quite sure the room was growing overwarm from the fire, but she ignored that and struggled on. “The point, my lord, is that you are so damnably skilled in the arts of loving that were you to try them on me again here, I fear I would happily throw off my clothes and toss my maidenhead at you like flower petals before the king.” She frowned at him as she said that because she was sure it was all his fault, and then she added accusatorially, “And you smell good even though you have not bathed since I met you, which is, frankly, just unfair.”
When Rory bowed his head briefly, her gaze narrowed on him. Elysande was quite sure he did it to hide his amusement from her, because she’d spotted his lips twitching just as he lowered his head. However, she couldn’t be sure, and when he lifted his head again, his expression was solemn.
“Lass, I am verra pleased ye find me attractive, like me smell and find me attentions pleasing, for I feel the same way about you,” Rory assured her, and then scowled and said, “What?” when she rolled her eyes at the claim.
“My lord, only a blind man could be attracted to me at the moment with my face swollen and lumpy like a black mass is growing out of it,” she pointed out dryly.
“The swelling is gone, and the black has faded to red like a wine stain on yer cheek. It does no’ hide that ye’re a pretty lass,” he said firmly. “Besides, there is more to ye than just yer pretty face. And do ye really think I’d have acted like such a rutting bull if I did no’ find ye attractive?”
Elysande considered his words a
nd then shrugged unhappily. “My mother did say there were men who so enjoyed mating they’d bed a sheep or old crone, ’twas all the same to them.”
Rory’s jaw dropped, and then he shook his head with disgust. “I am no’ one o’ those men,” he assured her grimly. “I find ye attractive, lass, and usually smart and kind, though I do wish ye’d show yerself some o’ that kindness now, fer I’ve never met a lass so cruel to herself.”
When Elysande didn’t say anything, he sighed wearily.
“Me point is this. Ye need no’ fear tossing yer maidenhead at me, because while I find ye attractive I’m too damned tired right now to accept it,” Rory assured her. “Now take yer tunic off and turn around so I can spread the liniment on and we can get some sleep.”
Elysande didn’t know if it was his irritation, his commanding attitude or the exhaustion now plain to see on his face, but she stopped arguing, and spun away to tug her tunic off.
“Where’s the liniment?” Rory asked testily.
“In the middle bag against the wall,” she answered without looking around, and heard him cross the room. A moment later he was stomping back to smear the cool liniment over her back.
“The bruising is red and green here too now,” he said grudgingly as he worked.
She gave a half shrug. “It no longer hurts to touch, but my muscles still ache back there. I think de Buci’s man damaged them.”
“Most like,” he muttered. “Damaged muscles can take weeks to heal with rest. Riding as we have been will just slow the healing.”
“I can rest after we get to Sinclair and send the message to the king,” she said, straightening her shoulders determinedly.
Rory merely grunted and then fell silent as he finished covering her back and side with the liniment, massaging it quickly and impersonally into the skin.
“Put yer tunic on and get in bed,” he ordered when he’d finished.
Elysande heard him cross the room to replace the liniment as she shook out the tunic she’d been clutching and pulled it over her head. When her head popped through the neck hole and she opened her eyes, he was standing in front of her.
“Ye are beautiful,” he said firmly, and then kissed her. It was a quick brushing of lips, followed by a slower melding that had her melting against him before he ended it. Easing her away then, Rory sighed and said, “Get into bed, lass. I’ll go tell Tom he can come up.”
Nodding, she just stood there and watched him leave the room, then turned and walked over to crawl under the furs on the bed. Elysande settled on her side in the middle of the bed, her fingers rubbing over lips that were warm, wet and swollen . . . and still tingling from contact with his.
Rory woke feeling warm, well rested and reasonably content, but like something was missing again. It took him a full minute to realize that what was missing was the warm weight of Elysande on his shoulder, chest and legs. Blinking his eyes open, he glanced to the side, and then sat up abruptly when he realized he was the only one abed.
Rory frowned when he spotted Tom sitting in the chair beside the tub of bathwater from the night before. The English soldier was also eyeing him expectantly and a little resentfully.
“Where is she?” Rory growled in a voice raspy with sleep.
“Gone to the shops with Alick and Simon. She wouldn’t let me go,” Tom added, his tone testy. “She said she needed to get more of those weeds the two of you are so fond of. She said her liniment was running low.”
“Aye.” Rory ran a hand wearily over his face. “’Tis. I noticed last night when I was putting it on her.”
When Tom gave a “hrrumph” of sound, Rory narrowed his eyes on the man. “What?”
“She was most upset when she woke this morning to find us all abed,” Tom announced, before adding with satisfaction, “As I told you she would be.”
“What?” he asked with a frown. “Why? We slept the same last night as we have every night since I agreed to escort ye to Sinclair, you at her back, and me in front of her. The only thing missing was Alick above her head and Simon at her feet.”
“Aye,” Tom agreed mildly. “Except we were in a bed.”
Rory waved that away with irritation and slung his feet over the side of said bed to get up. “What difference does that make?”
Tom arched his eyebrows at the question. “We were in a bed, the three of us, in a bedchamber, in an inn where anyone, for instance a servant, might enter at any time.” He let that sink in for a minute, and then added, “And did.”
“What!” Rory stopped in the midst of pulling his boots on to look at him with horror. “A servant came in while we were sleeping?”
“Aye, the innkeeper’s wife was wanting her tub back, and one of the maids came up to see if it was all right to take it,” he explained.
Rory’s gaze swiveled to the full tub still sitting there as he finished pulling on his boots.
“Lady Elysande scared the lass off with her shrieking when she woke to find herself abed with the both of us,” Tom explained dryly. “She bellowed at me, called me Judas and then said if the lass returned to let her take the tub. Since her shrieking hadn’t woken you, she did not think anything would. However, the maid has not returned.”
“Hmm.” Rory stared at the tub, and shrugged. “Elysande must have given her a good scare with her yelling.”
Tom’s mouth compressed with irritation. “Frankly, I am amazed that she did not wake up the whole inn. But you and your men appeared to have no trouble sleeping through it. Which is rather concerning since you are supposed to be helping us protect her,” he added with an unimpressed look.
“It must’ve been an angry shrieking,” Rory said with confidence. “No’ one o’ us would have slept through a frightened cry, but camp followers are always fighting among each other and shrieking angrily. We learned to sleep through that.”
“Oh, aye,” Tom said with a nod of sudden understanding. “I should have realized. I can usually sleep through angry shouting too,” he admitted, and then added under his breath, “When someone isn’t trampling over me to get out of bed at the ass crack of dawn, shrieking Judas at me.”
Rory gave the man a sympathetic smile and suggested, “Why do ye no’ crawl back into bed and get more rest? I have business to attend to here and we’ll no’ be leaving until the morrow.”
Tom shook his head and stood up. “I went back to sleep after she left with Simon and Alick. I only woke up again a short while ago. I was just waiting for you to wake before going down to break my fast.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Rory said, running his hands through his hair as he headed for the door.
They passed a maid coming up the stairs as they were going down, and Rory stopped to tell her the room was empty and the tub could be removed now. The way the girl barely nodded and scampered away made him think that she must have been the one who had come in search of the tub that morning. “Elysande must have really given the lass a fright with her shrieking this morning.”
Tom shook his head. “I suspect it was the innkeeper giving her hell for waking us up at all that really has her on her back foot. He came up the hall as she backed out of the room to Elysande’s shrieking and I think the innkeeper misunderstood what had upset Elysande. He promptly grabbed the girl by the hair, tugged the door closed, and we could hear him berating her all the way back down the hall. He was not pleased that she would trouble paying customers as ‘fine as the Buchanans.’” Tom arched his eyebrows as he said that.
“Aye, we come here a lot. No’ just me, but other members o’ me family too. As I told Elysande last night, the sweets keep bringing us back. But so does the service. They always find room fer us, and always treat us well. Probably because there are so many o’ us and one o’ us is often stopping in. Dougall used to stop in on his way to deliver the horses he bred, Niels used to stop in a lot on his way to deliver hunting dogs, or cloth from his sheep. I stop in on me way to or from tending the ill . . .” He shrugged. “Over the years we’ve g
iven them a lot o’ business.”
Tom nodded, but didn’t comment as they entered the taproom and settled at a table. Instead, he glanced around at a lone customer at another table, and noted, “They do not appear to be very busy.”
“Angus said they just had a large party leave the morning ere we arrived.” He gave a shrug and added, “The Gordons on their way north to marry a daughter off to Campbell’s second son or some such thing. He said he was turning people away while they were here, and then as soon as they left, no one came until we showed up.” Rory smiled at the English soldier. “Good luck fer us.”
“Aye,” Tom agreed with a faint smile.
“Ye said Alick and Simon went with Elysande?” Rory asked suddenly.
“Aye.”
“Where are the other men?”
“Sleeping, last I knew,” Tom said. “They’ll probably wake soon and wander down.”
Rory nodded as Angus rushed up to see what they’d like. They had just asked for drinks and a serving each of whatever the innkeeper’s wife was offering for the nooning when the front door of the establishment crashed open. Both men glanced toward the doorway to the hall in time to see Alick rush past carrying a protesting Elysande in his arms.
Cursing, Rory leapt to his feet to hurry after them, aware that Tom was following on his heels. They rushed out into the hall together, nearly running over Simon as he closed the door and turned to follow Alick.
Pushing the English soldier aside, Rory hurried up the stairs, catching up to Alick in the upper hall between the second and third bedchamber.
“What happened?” he growled, trying to get a look at Elysande over his brother’s shoulder.
Alick came to a halt in front of the third door and faced him with a flushed and exasperated Elysande in his arms.
“Nothing,” Elysande snapped as Alick opened his mouth to answer.
“It was no’ nothing!” Alick barked, his usual good cheer missing and a glare in its place that he directed at Elysande. “Nothing would no’ scare the life out o’ me!”
Highland Treasure EPB Page 18