The teasing glint in his hazel eyes made her laugh. She accepted his offer, then fell in step beside him. “We are flint and steel, my friend. We clash and the sparks fly.”
“Sparks often cause flames, mistress.”
His suggestive tone rippled across her like a hesitant caress. He was testing the waters. She managed a noncommittal smile. “Verra true.” She didn’t want to encourage him yet didn’t want to put him off entirely either. No connection sparked between them, but he seemed nice enough. However, tonight was not the night to make that decision. The whirlwind of the day’s events still had her head spinning. “We shall have to take care with our flint and steel, aye?”
“Or not,” he said softly as they came to a halt on Miss Bella’s floor. He ever so gently tipped her face up to his and leaned in closer. “What say ye, Mistress Lorna?”
Before she could come up with a way to avoid the kiss without offending him permanently, the nearest door burst open. Frances exploded into the hall, waving both arms. “A fearsome spider has Bella trapped! Hurry! Ye must come and help!”
Thank heaven for spiders.Lorna shooed the boy onward. “Show me!” She didn’t risk a backward glance at Jasper but prayed he wouldn’t follow.
“This way, mistress!” The lad led her through the solar, across the library, and to the closed door of Bella’s bedchamber. “Dinna be thinking I was in there, Mistress Lorna,” he hurried to explain. “I heard her scream from my room.”
“I wasna thinking anything ill of ye,” she said. “Ye are a true gentleman for looking after the lasses.”
“I shall run and tell Sir Jasper that Bella needs ye to console her.” He scooted around her and took off like a shot.
Suspicions rising, Lorna turned and watched the lad disappear. “I smell a sneaky wee rat.” She rapped on the door, then eased it open. “Bella?”
Bella stood at the foot of her bed already changed into a fresh shift. “Thank ye for coming to tuck me in,” she said with a not-so-innocent smile.
“Where is the spider?”
The youngling’s eyes rounded even wider. “What spider?”
Lorna held up a finger. “Hold that thought.” She stepped back to the door and cracked it open. “Frances? Could ye come in here, please?”
With more color in his cheeks than she had ever seen, the lad reappeared. “Aye?”
She waved him inside and pointed for him to stand beside Bella. “Who came up with it?”
“With what?” Bella asked.
Arms folded across her chest, Lorna waited. Instinct told her that if she gave them enough rope, one of them would hang themselves.
“It was Bella’s idea,” Frances confessed. He lowered his gaze and stubbed the toe of his shoe into the carpet. “But I didna think it a bad one.”
“Is something wrong with Jasper that I should know about?” She appreciated the interruption but wasn’t so sure the children needed to know that.
“Da said Jasper plans to marry Esther Oliphant come spring.” Bella stamped her plump little foot. “If’n he is to marry another woman, he should not be kissing ye.”
“Ye are absolutely right.” Lorna moved to the large bed and patted it. “In wi’ ye, miss.” She shifted her gaze to Frances. “Ye are not in trouble. Stop holding yer breath and go to bed. I will be in to tuck ye in proper in a bit, aye?”
The lad exhaled with a loud whoosh, then scurried out of the room.
She helped Bella settle under the covers, then sat on the edge of the bed. “Thank ye for the information about Jasper.”
The child smiled as she snuggled deeper into her pillows. “I am glad ye understand.”
“I do.”
Bella reached over and patted her hand. “Are ye sad about it, though?”
“No.” And she wasn’t. She hadn’t felt drawn to Jasper as she had to… Well, that didn’t matter. Gunn was a lost cause. “I am verra tired. It has been the longest day of my life.”
“Tomorrow will be better,” the young lass promised. “Mama always told me that.”
Lorna leaned forward and kissed the child on the forehead. “Yer Mama was verra wise. Goodnight, Bella.”
