Her mother had taught her to sew in wonderfully small and accurate stitches. And how to add and subtract numbers and keep records. And how to speak and read in their language and that of the court and church. With patience and guidance and by example, her mother had taught her about the virtues and about loyalty and honour and courage. If Sorcha could demonstrate even half of what her mother had taught her, it would be a fitting tribute to the woman that Erca MacPherson MacNeill was.
As Sorcha unlaced her gown with chilled and trembling fingers, she realised that the dangerous gap in her education was not one her mother would have or could have foreseen or prepared her to face. It involved men.
Actually, it involved one man—Alan Cameron.
Her mother’s plan had been clean and clear, for she would go from her father’s house to God’s and therefore men were not a matter for consternation. But the situation just now had shown Sorcha just how unprepared she was to face life outside her protected existence as Sorcha MacMillan. And it had made it clear to her that she would find life in a convent difficult at best.
Lady Arabella’s words about her lack of choice once she entered the convent had unnerved her. Alan Cameron’s touch and kisses made her question her resolve very quickly and with a thoroughness that would have made her mother blush. Had that kind of passion and excitement ever existed for Erca MacNeill? Sorcha found it impossible to believe that her father would be so gentle towards any woman, especially not his wife.
Was that why her mother had never spoken of matters of the flesh between a man and woman? Because her own experience had been a poor and failing one and she’d never dreamt her daughter would be tempted by such a thing? Surely, Sorcha never had.
Oh, she’d heard and seen things, private things between men and women at her father’s keep. A glimpse here, a word or expression there. The harlot who lived in the village made no secret of her profession or her lures. But not once had Sorcha ever felt a moment of attraction or arousal as she had when Alan touched her hand. Or kissed her. Or, even more so, when his hand slid up and covered her breast.
A sigh escaped her as she remembered the pleasure of his caress and her body reacted, too, heating and throbbing in memory.
‘You do not look chilled to the bone,’ Clara said quietly from the doorway of the smaller chamber. With the bairns being seen to by their father, Sorcha had use of the room to change out of her wet garments. ‘That blush speaks of heat and more.’
Sorcha touched her cheeks then and found them hot. She turned to face Clara, still fumbling with the laces.
‘Here, let me see to those,’ Clara said.
With sure and steady actions, the laces were loosened and untied and with a little more assistance, Sorcha found herself in a clean and blessedly dry shift and gown. A thick blanket tossed over her shoulders drove the cold from her bones and skin. From Clara’s lingering, Sorcha knew she has something to say.
‘Is he what has distracted you all day?’
‘Aye,’ she answered truthfully. ‘Him and more.’
‘The bairns are at Margaret’s and Jamie waits without. Come, we should speak plainly about this.’
There was no condemnation in her tone of voice in the invitation to talk about what had happened. Whatwashappening. And Sorcha would welcome plain counsel over the final steps she must plan and take. Desire had caused some change within her as it woke. Desire for him brought with it a myriad of problems and impossibilities.
‘And Alan?’ she asked for the first time. Speaking his name aloud made her voice tremble and her body react once more. ‘Is he working with Jamie?’ Sorcha both wanted to see him and feared her ever-weakening will when he was close.
‘Nay. He left when you returned. Headed to the keep from his direction.’ Clara walked past her to find the comb on the table. ‘Let me comb out your hair while you warm up. Then we can speak with Jamie and sort out the rest.’
With her experienced hands, it took Clara no time at all to untangle the wet strands of her hair into a proper braid. The blanket tucked around her shoulders now, Sorcha walked into the main chamber of the cottage and sat at the table where Jamie waited. She took in and released several slow breaths before speaking.
‘I think it’s time to leave Glenlui.’ Silence but several speculative glances between husband and wife met her words. She looked at one then the other. ‘It is too dangerous for me here.’
‘Well, if you speak of Alan, that might be true,’ Clara admitted as Sorcha nodded. ‘He is relentless when he fixes his sights on a task. By the looks of it, that task is you.’
Jamie did not laugh as much as smother a laugh that threatened escape. The sound was that of someone choking. Clara’s sharp and narrowing gaze prevented him from adding more sounds.
‘And his attention is too dangerous,’ Sorcha said. ‘He will discover my truth and then...’
‘Hell will break loose on earth?’ Jamie asked. He shook his head at both of them. ‘You do not ken him as I do. He is not looking for your secrets, Sorcha, he is looking for your...looking at you. As a man looks at a woman, not a hunter at its prey.’
‘I heard you two speaking of it as you worked. He was the one who declared me dead!’
‘Aye. Dead and gone now. He has relegated the Lady Sorcha MacMillan to another of those lost in his uncle’s machinations.’
Startled by those words, Sorcha wondered if she should share the rest of what she knew about his uncle’s plans with Clara and Jamie. Deciding to keep it to herself for now, she nodded.
‘What he sees is a lovely, widowed, young woman with fine manners and a gentle heart who is helping out her kin while recovering from her losses. And that, Clara’s cousin, would call to most every man.’
‘Do you not understand? He is the worst possible man to pay heed to me. He is the one who could put all the pieces together. He is the one who could expose me and make matters far worse than any of you can imagine. Alan Cameron is the one man I should stay away from. He is...’ She paused then, surprised at the vehemence of her own words. Worse, surprised by what she wanted to say and could not.
He was the one man with whom she could easily fall in love.
