“Robena?” She blinked and found the two staring at her. “Do ye mind, then?” he asked.
“Mind?”
“I am going to Pol’s smithy to lend a hand there,” he explained. He needed not ask her permission for anything, and yet he was doing just that.
“Ye ken how men are, Robena,” Moira said with a laugh. “Too much time listening to the tales of women and they break out in hives,” she teased.
“If ye wish, Iain,” she said, nodding. “Of course. Do as ye want.”
His gaze narrowed as though studying her, and the corner of his appealing mouth lifted, and he smiled. He took but a step towards the door before coming back to stand in front of her. The kiss, quick and sweet, surprised her. He was out the door before she could take a breath.
“Well then,” Moira whispered as she moved along the table.
“What do ye mean by that?” she asked, touching her fingers to her lips and then dropping her hand as Moira met her gaze.
“Things are going well between the two of ye?” The words were both a statement and a question.
“Iain is a pleasant man,” she said. The description sounded tepid even to her ears, and Moira’s nod and raised brow informed Robena that her attempt to minimize his action was unsuccessful. “He is no burden to serve.”
“Of all the ways to describe that man,” Moira began, “pleasant is not the word I would use.” Moira walked towards her now, and Robena was tempted to step away.
“Something is different this time,” she said. “Should he not be in the keep or with Rob?”
“He is avoiding Struan,” Robena explained. “The laird is attempting to match his cousin Gunna and Iain.”
“Ah, I ken no man who would want to marry that one,” Moira said. She took Robena’s cup and filled it once more. “So, he runs to yer side.”
“He runs away from Struan,” she corrected. She did not want Moira making assumptions that were not true. “And he pays me well enough that he can run to my side or my bed or away from them as he pleases.” She must keep things in their places. She must not look at him as anything but a customer—a man who was paying very well for her time and attentions. He was only that.
“Just so.”
Two words, uttered quietly, and yet they challenged so much. She looked away, pretending to examine the bunches of herbs above them, so she would not see understanding in Moira’s very clear, very knowing eyes. The woman was not only a gifted healer, but also a gifted seer. Stories of her otherworldly insight were whispered through the clan. Though she’d never witnessed such a thing, Robena could easily believe it of the woman.
Moira let it go, handing her a basket of dried herbs and such, and Robena began following Moira’s instructions. When she reached the bottom of the basket and a tidy pile lay next to it, Robena finally said what was on her mind.
“He kens, Moira.”
“What does he ken?”
“All of it, I think,” she said, staring at the flames in the hearth. “I told him I couldna bear children, and then he sought out Rob this morn.” She shrugged. “From the look in his eyes, the pity there, he kens all of it.”
“Ye think he pities ye, Robena? When ye look in his eyes, that’s what ye see there?” Moira asked. The woman stood in front of her, waiting for Robena to look at her. Robena glanced up and nodded.
“Aye.”
“Then ye do not ken men as I would think a woman who has whored as long as ye have would.”
Robena gasped, for Moira had never called her that. No matter what the woman had seen or heard, or what injuries she had tended, Moira had never called her a whore.
“That man has a care for ye. That man looks on ye, not with pity, but with wanting and needing and caring.”
“Nay.” Robena shook her head, trying to deny it to herself, too. “Nay. He canna.” She clasped her hands together, feeling the thing that kept her in control, the line that separated those long-ago dreams from the life she lived, start to weaken. “I am just his whore.”
“Ye are trying to fool yerself, Robena. A man cares not if his whore canna have bairns or how it happened. He only worries if she canna give him pleasure or if he can take it on her.”
“Ye dinna understand, Moira,” she said.
What Moira said and the woman’s way of seeing things were dangerous. If she allowed that Iain was more than just a man who paid for her, it would open up the dark, desperate need within her for more. More than lying beneath a man. More than waiting for him to arrive and waiting for him to leave.
