Best not to think too hard about that.
There was no time to think about anything, in fact, because at that moment Sophie came sailing in, followed by Kat.
“Wake up, me dear, wake up!” Sophie chirped. “Oh, ye have thrown off yer blankets in the night, I see. Ye must have been freezin’.”
“I dreamt about being cold,” Melody mumbled, sitting up and clawing her blankets back onto the bed. “What time is it?”
“Sunrise, lass. Ye have overslept! Up, up!”
Melody swallowed thickly. At home, she generally slept until she woke up naturally. The night after a party, neither she nor Victoria tended to get up before ten or eleven o’clock. It was rather hard to rise early when one had danced until dawn.
Well,Victoriawould dance till dawn, and Melody would slink from room to room and wish that she were brave enough to talk to more people.
That was England, however, and this place seemed to be a different world altogether.
And of course, I was sent to my room early, like an errant child,she thought, swallowing back a flush of anger.The Laird had no right to speak to me in that way.
Sophie hobbled over to the window and threw back the curtains, letting in a stream of angry white sunlight. Melody yelped and hid behind a pillow.
“Can’t I sleep alittlelonger, Sophie?” she pleaded.
“Nay, ye may nae,” Sophie responded mercilessly. “We’ve brought a few gowns for ye to wear. Then I want to take the air, so we’ll take a turn around the Keep courtyard. Hurry, hurry, dress! The day will wait for nay one, lass, nae even ye!”
Kat laid out a plain-looking green gown over the bed and shot Melody an apologetic, faintly amused smile.
Melody bit back a sigh.
It seems that I am rising early today, then.
A worryingly short period of time later, Melody found herself scuttling along the hallway after Sophie.
“She can move fast when she wants,” Melody gasped to Kat. “I’m going to hear that cane click-clacking in my dreams.”
Kat snorted. “Oh, aye. Where did ye go last night? Ye disappeared rather early, and I could nae find ye.”
“I… I went to bed. I was tired.”
Kat shot her a sharp look, and Melody sensed her lie hadn’t been believed. Well, that was just too bad. She had no intention of telling her the truth.
And what truth is that? That my betrothal is all false, and that my false-betrothed dragged me into a secluded corridor and told me to go to bed?
Or should I tell her that I was so sure he was going to kiss me, and that the idea did not repulse me? Quite the opposite, in fact.
That in itself was worrying. Respectable English ladies did not allow men to kiss them before marriage. The idea of themwantingto be kissed… well, ladies did notwantanything; everybody knew that. It was unladylike to crave anything, even a sweet treat, even dinner when one was starving. To want to be kissed, touched… oh, that was unforgivable.
Melody swallowed hard, trying to work some moisture into her mouth. The plain fact was that she had looked at Callum’s large, rough hands and imagined what they might feel like placed on her waist, on her bare arms, on her… well, enough of that. She had imagined what it would be like for him to touch her, and worse, she had imagined what it would feel like for him tokissher.
“What are courtships like in London?” Kat asked abruptly. Melody flinched, throwing a horrified look at her companion. For one awful moment, she feared that she’d said everything out loud.
“What?” she managed faintly.
Kat shrugged, not meeting her eyes. “Courtship is different everywhere, is it nae? I’ve heard that in England, there are allsorts of hoops to leap through before ye can declare yer feelings. Over here, men and women are more… more bold, I’d say. If a man likes a woman, he steps forward and tells her so. Sometimes she tells him. So, if ye care for somebody and they daenae tell ye so, ye can assume that they daenae care forye.” She was turning progressively redder. “I just wondered if it was the same in England.”
Melody frowned, trying to decipher what Kat was truly trying to say.
“Are you saying that there is somebody you like, but you fear that they do not like you in turn?” she hazarded.
Kat scoffed. “Nay. Of course nae.”
