“I need to wash up.” It seemed that everyone else was being looked after but him.
“The tub is set up in yer room,” Lady Margaret answered without looking at him. All Duncan offered was another of his infuriating shrugs. “Anice was asleep before I left the room the first time. If ye have a care”—she cast him a warning glare—”she will stay asleep while ye bathe.”
Robert crossed his arms and narrowed his gaze at her. Duncan’s silence in this was a puzzle. The laird knew exactly what he had done in asking Anice if Robert was husband to her. Robert knew it even as the words left Duncan’s mouth. From the expression that passed between laird and lady, Margaret understood the significance of it as well, even if she was not privy to all the reasons.
Even if the wedding before the priest of the old church was not upheld, something almost as old and respected would bind him and Anice together... for at least a year and a day. Forin calling him husband and declaring it before the crowd, Anice and he were handfasted, by his words and hers. The laird and lady knew it. The crowd of old friends among the MacKillops knew it. He knew it.
Anice apparently did not.
It must be a dream,she thought as she snuggled even deeper under the covers. She felt clean for the first time in days. A soft bed lay under her, caressing her in its warmth and comfort. Her son was being cared for while she rested. Robert was...? She could not remember where Robert was. She stretched and rolled to her side, moving the covers aside and repositioning herself. It was the sound of the water splashing that forced her eyes open.
She’d found Robert, and, dear God in heaven!, he was getting a bath not four feet from where she lay. And he was naked. Not four feet from where she lay. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of him so close and so... wet. Intimidated by his nearness and size, she gasped, inadvertently drawing his attention.
Robert leaned back his head and groaned out loud. He shifted his body, drawing his long legs up to his chest. The tub that had been luxurious to her did not accommodate his much larger size and longer limbs.
“Lady Margaret will have my head if she finds out I woke ye,” he complained. Pounding his fist into the water, he groaned once more as water splashed everywhere around the tub.
“You did not wake me, Robert. Truly. I was shifting and heard the water.”
She tried not to stare at him, but this was her first sight of him this undressed. The water made his skin glisten in the fire’s light and she had the most absurd impulse to touch where the drops ran down from his shoulders and onto the wide expanse of his chest. His hair was slicked back and even the growth of many days on his face looked clean. Suddenly, the covers that had warmed her just minutes ago in sleep were tooheavy and too many now and she wished she were alone so she could throw them back and cool off.
“I will leave,” he said, beginning to stand in the tub. Holding on to the sides, he pushed himself up and then stopped as if he finally realized she would see the rest of him.
“Nay,” she called out, afraid of what she might see if he stood now. She started to get out of the bed, but the glimpse of the sheer nightrail she wore stopped her. “Robert, I will turn over this way”—she turned away from him—”and you can finish your bath.” She faked a yawn and patted her mouth at the end of it. “I am so very tired I will be back to sleep in no time at all.”
“Are ye certain I am no’ disturbing ye?”
“You are not,” she answered as she turned to face the wall. She lay down and pulled the covers high up onto her shoulders. Even as hot as she was, she would not lower them until he was gone.
He grunted in that low tone she’d heard several times over the last days. Did that mean he would finish? Well, she was not turning back to find out what he was doing. She would stay in the bed until he was gone.
“Ye will no’ tell Lady Margaret, will ye?”
She wanted to laugh, but his voice was filled with a kind of grudging respect for the wife of his laird. “Do you fear her?”
“Oh, aye! She haes fists of rock and a tongue that will slash a man to bits.”
“Then I will protect you from her wrath,” she said. He grunted once more and then began to splash around in the water, obviously finished his bath. She added another word to let him know that the realization of what they had done before the clan was sinking in.
“Husband.”
22
She knew.
He did not think her a fool, but he did think she had been too exhausted and overwhelmed to notice the words that Duncan invited her to say. Her words sealed their bargain and, although Struan and her father might seek annulment of the church ceremony, the handfasting bound them together for a year and a day. And it could only be broken by one of them. Now he could think of nothing to say to her in response to her call.
He resumed his bath even as she lay under the covers listening. He smiled as he remembered the blush that crept up her neck and face when she looked at him sitting in the water next to her. Her mouth had dropped open and she looked at him with unashamed interest. Robert fought the urge to call her from under her tent of covers even now as he stood to climb out of the tub. She was treading a thin line between curiosity and terror now and he did not want the expression on her face to turn to fear at the sight of him naked. It would ruin his own esteem to see dread in her eyes as she looked upon him.
Once he was dressed again in plaid and shirt, he tied his hair back and sat on the corner of the bed to replace his boots. He heard her squeal and then saw her peek her head out.
“Ye can come out now, wife. I am dressed.” He stood before her as she pushed the covers back and took in a breath of the cooler air.
“I can see that,” she answered in a snippy tone. He arched a brow at her.
“Is there something amiss?”
She slid back and sat against the wooden headboard, nevertaking her eyes from him. She lifted a single layer of linen up to her neck, effectively blocking the view of her breasts he could see through the sheer nightgown she wore. A gift from Lady Margaret no doubt in anticipation of their wedding night this evening. She must have seen the path of his gaze now for she arranged her hair over her shoulders like a curtain. Anice probably would not have done so if she knew how the sight of those fiery red tresses inflamed him even more.
