They were slowly starting up the stairs when a voice behind them demanded, “What are ye doing?”
Both women screeched and Emily grabbed hold of Mrs. O’Neal. When they turned to see it was Iain behind them their fright turned to annoyance. Emily scowled at him.
“You should not sneak up on people like that,” she said.
“You scared us half to death, son.” Mrs. O’Neal patted her chest as she fought to calm herself. “I am helping her back to bed so she can rest before tonight’s meal. She was helping me. Too much too soon, I am thinking. What are you doing?”
Iain tugged Emily free of Mrs. O’Neal’s grip and swung her up into his arms. “I will do it. Ye can go back to your work now.”
Mrs. O’Neal just raised her brows, nodded, and hurried away. Emily silently cursed and tried to ignore the broad chest she was being held against. She stared at her hands to keep from looking at his face. Then he faltered in his step and she quickly wrapped her arms around his neck. His pace up the stairs immediately smoothed out and she frowned as she glanced up at him.
“Better,” he said. “Before it was akin to toting logs up to the fire.”
“I am unaccustomed to being carried about.”
“What? No servants to carry ye about back home?”
“I suppose you think yourself amusing. You may have noticed that Annabel and David had no servants.” Except for her, she added silently, but quickly buried that bitter thought. “And I left England almost four years ago.”
“Where in England?” he asked as he set her on the bed.
“Hertfordshire. My sister chose the wrong man to love and was carrying his child.”
“And that made her need to run here?”
Realizing she was close to telling him too much, Emily shrugged and looked at him. “Why did you and your family leave Scotland? I have seen the paintings you have. You loved that place. One can see it in each painting.”
“We were not given a choice.” He looked down at her feet as he fought down an old anger. “Where are your shoes?”
Emily blushed. She had hoped he would not notice that. Once she had realized she could not put on her stockings she had seen no point in struggling with shoes.
“I left them off because I was unable to don stockings. I am not ready to bend down and put them on, either.” She tried to pull her feet up under her skirts but the slight bending of her upper leg caused her wound to protest enough to make her hiss with pain.
“Dinnae be a fool,” Iain said, and tugged her feet down. “I have seen unshod feet before.”
“Not mine,” she muttered.
“Why did your sister feel the need to leave just because she carried her husband’s child?” He sat on the edge of the bed near her hip.
“I told you, she chose the wrong man to wed, one our parents did not approve of.” She sat up against the pillows and gave him her best polite smile. “She could not raise her child where he would always be looked upon as less, as a terrible mistake. Where she and her husband would not be accepted in the places she always went to so freely.”
“Aye, that would be hard on a lad and a woman but harder yet to leave all your kin as weel.”
Not liking how intently he was studying her, his expression pleasant enough but his dark green eyes narrowed, Emily settled herself more comfortably against the pillows. “I came up to get a little rest before supper so I suppose I best get to it.”
He knew she was hiding some piece of the real truth, quite possibly the piece that would explain why her sister was dead. She held his stare for a moment and then closed her eyes, tensing when he moved up the bed until he was face-to-face with her. He thought of that box the boy kept such a close watch over, of the mark on that birth certificate, and her talk of papers proving that the boy owned land in England and the land his parents were buried on. He also recalled the rings and the locket, all worth more money than a blacksmith’s son and shamed daughter could gather. Emily was gentry but for some reason was determined to keep that a secret. He had to wonder what kind of trouble he had brought into his home.
Emily opened her eyes and frowned at him. “I do not need to be watched until I go to sleep.”
“I think there is something ye are hiding from me.”
“Why would you think that? What reason would I have to do so?”
Iain tried to think of a good reply, one that would help to pull the secrets out of her, but all that filled his head were thoughts of her mouth and if it would feel as warm and soft as it looked. It was a foolish thought but he could not shake free of it. She was trouble. Every instinct he had honed over the years told him so. Yet, even as those thoughts went through his mind, he realized he was lowering his mouth to hers.
Her mouth was sweet and warm. She offered no resistance when he slid his tongue between her lips, needing only a light push to get her to open to him, although he had felt her give a start of surprise. He pulled her close and she wrapped her arms around his neck. It was the tiny sound she made as she raised her wounded arm that snapped him out of the haze of pleasure he had fallen into. He pulled away, ignoring the wide dazed look in her eyes as he leapt to his feet. There was also a lingering warmth in her gaze that called to him and he needed to get out of there before he answered.
“Best you get some sleep now,” he said, then turned and hurried out of the room.Running like a damned coward,a small voice whispered in his mind but he sternly ignored it.
