Her heart started to pound.I’ll bet it was that servant.
“I haven’t been humping the chieftain, Blyth.” She ground the words out, enjoying the shock that rippled across his face. “I’ve had more important things to worry about … since my motherdied.”
That doused the leer in his eyes. “Och, lass,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”
Heat pulsed in her belly. “So am I.”
Blyth handed over the basket of eggs, and she pressed a copper penny into his palm.
And then, before he could say anything else, she turned away.
Duncan snorted as she placed the eggs inside one of his pannier baskets.
“Don’t,” she muttered to the donkey. “Not a word.”
Moving through the market, she gathered what she needed—oats, dried peas, and salt. At each stall, it was the same.The veiled looks. The whispers that stopped when she drew near. The smiles that suggested people thought they knew exactly what had happened between her and the Chieftain of Moy.
Some she told about Siùsan’s passing. Others she merely ignored. They’d all hear soon enough, anyway. The tongues in this village flapped like washing in the wind.
She was a private person by nature. On one hand, it was a relief to know that the locals weren’t sneering about Siùsan, yet the real reason for their stares galled her. God’s troth. Did everyone think Maclean had made her his mistress? Her temper spiked once more. She wasn’t some man’s ‘other woman’.
By the time she reached the onion seller’s stall, she was seething.
“Onions,” she snapped at the frail woman behind the display. “Two dozen.”
The vendor selected the onions with agonizing slowness, placing each carefully in a cloth sack. “I hear our chieftain’s to be wed soon,” she said conversationally. “To the Macquarie lass.”
Hazel’s fingers tightened on Duncan’s lead rope. “So I’ve heard.”
“Aye, well.” The woman tied off the sack and handed it over. “Some lasses have all the luck, eh?”
Hazel drew in a deep breath and prayed for forbearance. “I wish them both the best,” she replied coldly.
The woman chuckled.
Jamming the sack of onions into another of Duncan’s panniers, Hazel turned to leave. She was done with the market this morning. She wasn’t yet finished shopping, but she’d come back another day for the rest.
At that moment, the pannier strap snapped, and the basket tipped sideways.
Hazel lunged for it. Too late. The basket tumbled to the ground, spilling onions across the packed earth. They rolled in every direction—under carts, between feet, one bouncing off a scratching fowl that squawked indignantly.
“Satan’s stinking bollocks!” Hazel snarled, dropping to her knees.
Around her, people stopped to stare. Of course they did. She could almost hear their whispers.
Did ye hear the foul mouth on the herb-wife?
Ye can’t be surprised … the woman’s a strumpet.
Grabbing for the nearest onion, she barely marked the thud of boots on earth until a hand reached past her, plucking up an onion that had rolled against a cartwheel.
“Here.”
Hazel’s chin kicked up, a curse clawing its way up her throat as she met a pair of frank peat-brown eyes.
Craeg Maclean crouched beside her, holding out an onion. He wore a simple lèine and braies, his wavy dark hair framing his face. Hunting boots hugged his muscular calves. A sash of bright red of the Maclean plaid crossed his chest. A dirk hung at his hip. He looked every inch the laird.
Behind him stood four warriors, all looking on with barely concealed amusement.
