She threw herself into his arms, hugging him tightly while burying her face in his chest.“I love you so much it almost hurts,” she whispered.“I never knew it could be like this.”
He held her right there in the middle of the outside kitchens as if no one else in the world existed.His heartbeat thumped a strong, reassuring beat beneath her cheek.“We are going upstairs,” he said with quiet firmness, then bellowed, “Sawny!”
She cringed and pulled back, unable to resist scolding him.“I am now deaf in one ear.”
“Forgive me, but I nay wished to miss the lad when I saw him pass by.”
Jessa tried not to smile as Sawny slowly approached, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open.Apparently, word about the laird being at death’s door had already spread through the keep.
The boy dropped to one knee and bowed his head.“My laird—’tis glad I am to see ye so braw and filled with life.”
“Thank ye.Now, I need ye to find Henry and Lachie.Tell them to care for the clan jointly, using their best judgment until my lady and I have recovered from our ordeal.They can update me on any damages at that time.Not before.Have Mrs.Robeson send food and drink to my chambers.Griselda is seeing to the hot water for our wash.It needs to be delivered to us as well.Can ye remember all that, lad?Can I trust ye to see those things carried out with no issue?”
Sawny lifted his head and nodded, reverence in his eyes.“Aye, my laird.”
“Off wi’ ye, then.”
As Jessa watched the boy go, a niggling worry, a concern that refused to be ignored, gnawed at her.“What are your people going to think about today?About your healing?About Griselda calling me a goddess?When word spreads, there is bound to be trouble.Don’t you think?”
He scooped her up into his arms and carried her like a babe.“I think those are worries for another time.Now is our time for thankfulness, joy, and love.”
Chapter 13
“Carrying me up three floors on that winding staircase was very impressive.”
“’Tis my hope to impress ye in many ways, m’love.” Grant shouldered open the door to their bedchamber and lowered Jessa’s feet to the floor, watching her closely for any additional signs of weakness.She still had a paleness about her, and while it was rightly so after all she had been through, it worried him.The wily lass could be injured somehow and determined to hide it.
“How in the world?”She turned in a slow arc, pointing at the turned-down bed, the table laid with an assortment of fruits, cheeses, breads, and bottles of wine, and the long, low dresser piled high with fresh linens, a quartet of basins, and their wide-bellied, steaming pitchers.“How did they do all this so quickly?And not only that—how did we not pass them in the stairwell?”
“I have often thought the women of this keep in league with the Fae.What with the way they make things appear—and disappear if they so wish it.And I feel sure Mairwen lent her magic to their aid this day.”He gently brought her closer and lifted her face to his.“I dinna care how they did it.What I care about is ye.I find yer coloring worrying.”
“I’m fine.”But her eyelids drooped as if she could barely keep them open.Then she wrinkled her nose.“The smell of smoke is making my stomach churn, though.Would they be upset if we stripped down and tossed our clothes out in the hall?”
Her suggestion nearly undid him.The perfection of her in his arms, as he carried her to the bedchamber, had hardened him to the readiness of a rutting stag.“I shall be upset if we dinna strip down.”
With a coy look and keeping her gaze locked with his, she tugged on her stays’ front lacings.Then she tugged again and growled.“Seriously?”Glaring down at the front of her corset and using both hands, she picked at the knotted ties.“Did she mean for me to wear this thing until it rotted off?”
“Here, now.Let me.”He wouldn’t tell her he was quite experienced with removing a lady’s underpinnings.Feckin’ hell.The front ties refused to yield.“Let me try the back ones.Surely they’re not so knotted.’Tis as though the wetness and filth bound them and made them one.”
Jessa laughed as she turned.“Kind of like us.”
“Aye, lass.”He swallowed hard, finding this newfound sense of completeness, the strong contentment centering his very core, both strange and wonderful.He resettled his stance, aching with the lusty need to complete the spiritual binding with a physical joining as well.“Bloody hell—enough!”He pulled hissgian dubhfrom his right boot and severed the ties that refused to give.
“Well, that was effective.”Jessa peeled off the grubby thing, held it by two fingers, and carried it to the door.“I don’t want to nasty up the rug, so I’m starting our pile one thing at a time.”She nodded at his boots.“You might want to do those first.”
“Ye are a rare woman, m’lady.”He started to sit on the bench at the end of the bed to remove his boots but halted when she made the same sound his mother used to make when warning him he had better stop whatever he was doing or she would tan his wee arse for him.“How am I supposed to remove my boots if I canna sit?”
“Lean on a wall or hold on to something,” she said.“Your backside is even filthier than your front.”She tugged her overskirt around, unfastened it, then stepped out of it and added it to the pile in the hallway.“And why am I a rare woman?Is that good or bad?”
“Most women would not consider this a verra romantic path to their first loving with their new husband.”
She went still, and both her brows arched high behind the curtain of messy curls she kept shoving out of her eyes.“Husband?”
“Aye.”Her tone and expression worried him.“We married in the old way, lass.With the binding oath.”He held to the bedpost, toed the heel of his boot, and worked it off his foot.“Ye knew ye were marrying me, aye?Ye told me ye were willing.”
She avoided his gaze by concentrating on untying her bum roll and petticoats.She tipped a nervous shrug without looking up.“I knew it—I guess.Hearing it out loud for the first time kind of startled me.”
He carried his boots to the door, set them in the hall, then returned to her and took her by the shoulders, forcing her to look up at him.“Are ye already regretting it?”he asked softly, dreading her answer.
