“You’ve been so helpful with the cleaning over the past year, I’ve forgotten how much work it was—how much I did—until you took it over for me. And I’m not going to lie to you, I don’t miss it at all.”
He laughed, and Abigail stared at him in shock. Roan laughing—she’d never thought she’d live to see that day.
He stopped laughing when he saw the look on her face. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You were laughing,” she pointed out.
He had the decency to recognize how unusual that was, because he didn’t ask further.
He sighed and reached for another dish, plunging the teacup in his hands into the soapy water.
“I know I can be a bit of a beast sometimes.” He paused, pulling the cup out and staring at it. “It’s how Beastie got her name, you know.”
“I… I didn’t know that,” Abigail replied. She cocked her head at Roan and waited for him to continue as she grabbed a towel and took the cup from him to dry it.
“I was raised primarily by my father,” Roan said. “He was worse than I am, and I know it doesn’t excuse me, but it’s why I am the way that I am. When I was growing up, sometimes some of the other boys would call me a beast and say that none of the girls would ever want to marry me when there were other options for them. And everything I experienced since then seemed to support their taunts.”
Abigail’s heart hurt for the child that Roan had been. No child deserved to be taunted like that.
“So I thought, when I got Beastie, that perhaps she could make that memory sting a little less.” Roan wouldn’t meet her eyes as he handed her a wet bowl. “I think it worked, but it doesn’t change the fact that I know I’m still a beast at times. So I thought maybe I could help with the dishes for once.”
“Well, you’ve never been a beast to me,” she pointed out. “And I think those boys were wrong.” Her ears began to burn with embarrassment as she realized what she had just said. “I mean, I suppose they were wrong—not that I want to marry you, but I wouldn’t not want to. I mean, it’s not as if you’re so bad that I couldn’t marry you. It’s just that…you know, you’re my employer, and I shouldn’t be thinking about marriage when it comes to you, and I would be silly to even think about it.” She cut herself off as Roan looked at her in amusement.
“I’m not trying to trap you into marriage by sharing woeful tales of my childhood,” he said, “so no need to fret.”
“As long as nobody realizes that I spent all this time alone with you and all those other men,” Abigail said lightly, the realization sinking in that it might be exactly what everyone thought if they found out about this—her reputation would be in tatters.
But maybe Beastie’s ball had been an example of the fact that they had gone back in time, and perhaps no one would notice, except the six men who would hopefully wake up in the storage room…though perhaps they could convince them it had merely been a batch of bad ale.
There was a loud thud as something hit one of the windows above the sink, and Abigail and Roan looked at each other. “Was that a bird?” Roan asked.
Abigail’s eyes widened. “Was it?” she asked.
A bird had hit the window two days after Beastie found the ball in the garden.
She remembered because Beastie had found it, too.
If it was…it was further evidence that they had gone back in time, as opposed to simply being caught in a curse.
But she didn’t want to talk about curses and magic right now. Not when they were already talking about something uncomfortable.
“I should hope you’re not trying to trap me, anyway,” she said, realizing the silence had gone on for far too long. “I can’t imagine why anyone would go to such lengths to force me into a marriage. Nobody has ever wanted me.” She said the words as lightly as she could.
It was true. She hadn’t wanted to marry the man her father had tried to force her to marry, but he hadn’t exactly been keen on the idea, either, and neither had any other young man before or after.
Now it was Roan’s turn to watch her uncomfortably. “You know it’s not because of you, right?” he asked. “Anyman would be lucky to marry you. You’re smart and kind and…beautiful.”
His voice caught on the last word, and he turned to Beastie, who was lying next to him. “Did you want to go outside, Beastie?” he asked the dog, who sat up immediately at the word “outside.”
So, it was his turn to use Beastie as an excuse to leave a conversation.
Abigail’s lips twitched in amusement at the sight of Roan, quite literally running away from her. He could say all he wanted that any man would want to marry her, but in her experience, no man had ever wanted her—and it looked like he was included in that list.
Chapter seven
Roan
Roanpacedinthegarden as he threw sticks to Beastie and waited for her to bring them back to him,
