Jeannie released the patient even as Finnan turned to the wounded stump. Her stomach flipped over. “Aggie?”
“Here. Give me the basin.” Steadier now, Aggie took the reddened bowl and languished a glance on Danny in the doing.
Jeannie experienced a flash of disquiet. She had supposed Aggie interested in the groom at Avrie House. This lad, with his redoubtable master, would not make a suitable substitute.
She turned her gaze back to Finnan. He appeared calmer now, but the anger still simmered in his eyes.
She blew out a breath. “Will he survive?”
“Oh, aye, no thanks to those who attacked us.”
“Avrie’s men.” She had to ascertain it.
“Aye, so.” He shot her a searching look. “You must ha’ heard enough about the situation to know those of Avrie blood do not want me here. But this glen is mine. And, Mistress MacWherter, I always protect what belongs to me.”
Chapter Ten
“I fear I will not be able to move him,” Finnan told Jeannie MacWherter, nodding toward the lad who slept in her bed, “until I am certain that wound has closed. I am sorry,” he added with what he hoped was well-feigned concern. “’Tis an inconvenience for you.”
Jeannie stared at him with those wide, blue eyes. Bonny eyes they were, and no mistake. No wonder Geordie had found himself snared by them.
But Finnan was surprised by her mettle this day. She had barely protested his arrival with a wounded lad in his arms, and had assisted him with unshirking competence. Pity the woman was a deceitful lowlander, else she might be worth something.
“Come,” she told him now, “and wash up at the hearth.”
Ruefully, he looked down at himself, liberally splashed with blood on skin and clothing, most of it Danny’s and some his opponents’. He nodded.
“I will sit and watch over him, mistress,” the maid whispered.
Jeannie hesitated before nodding. What did she expect, that Danny would rise up and strangle the chit with his one hand?
“Call us, Aggie, if he stirs.”
She led Finnan from the small bedroom to the other room, which served as both kitchen and sitting room, and indicated the pan of hot water Aggie had ready by the fire.
He went to the hearth and stripped down, removed his tunic and the shirt beneath, now ruined. He heard not a sound behind him, but Jeannie supplied a wedge of soap and a rough cloth for drying, laying both on the fender. The soap smelled like a summer’s day, like lavender—like her. Ruefully, he acknowledged now he would carry her fragrance also, sure as if he had taken her in his arms and stolen her scent. To his surprise, the thought aroused him. He turned from the fire and caught her staring.
At him.
And what was that he saw in her beautiful eyes as they measured the width of his bare shoulders, his chest and arms, marking every tattoo? She had seen all that of him and more, yet she had not had her fill of looking.
He smiled to himself in satisfaction. It would be all too easy to use her desire against her, make her want him as Geordie had wanted her, and serve her in kind. For he recognized desire when he saw it, and after ten years at large in the world understood what women wanted. Aye, he knew how to bring a woman to the brink of abandon and satisfy her. He knew what made her scream and moan and come apart in his hands.
He needed to keep his eye on the goal here. The ambush and Danny’s injury had distracted him, yet he played still another game.
Moving slowly in order to let her look her fill, he dropped his shirt beside the hearth. “Ruined,” he said in lament. “I dare not put that back on.”
He heard the catch in her breath when she said, “I have nothing to lend you, I am afraid.”
“No matter.” He gave her his best smile. “You have been naught but kindness itself. I would ask no more.”
“May I offer you tea to settle your nerves? I confess, I could use some.”
Finnan asked hopefully, “Have you nothing stronger?”
“Not in the house.” She shook her head and moved past him to reach the hearth, so close her gown brushed his knees. He stood where he was, and when she straightened he had her virtually within his arms.
Her breath hitched again. He could feel the warmth of her combatting that of the fire at his back. He wondered what would happen if he kissed her, plunged his tongue into that pretty rosebud of a mouth. Would she protest? Or succumb to the want he saw brimming in her eyes?
