Jane jumped right before he touched her nubbin of flesh. Alistair looked at her in confusion. “I must go now, Alistair.” She came to her feet and picked her dress up from the ground.
“Have I offended ye, Jane?”
“What?” she paused pulling on the dress to say. “Of course not. It is just that… we need more plants for your medicine. They wither if they are gathered in large bunches, you see, and that is why I harvested only a little at first. I must go now.”
“Jane, I am certain that if ye stayed an extra minute, the plant would still be waiting fer you,” Alistair said.
“Well, yes,” Jane said as she put one hand through a sleeve, and then the other. “But why do late something you can do early? You are a warrior. Surely you understand the importance of time.”
“What has come over you?” Alistair asked.
“Nothing,” Jane said, and walked to him. She bent to kiss his cheek and pulled away. “You must rest, Alistair, if you want to truly heal.”
In the blink of an eye, she was out of the door. Alistair stared after her for the longest time.
* * *
Jane sat on a chair in the library, as she had left Alistair in her bed, deep in thought. The happenings of the last hour seemed surreal to her. She had bedded Alistair within mere days of knowing him!
Oh, it had been glorious! She had always wondered at the nuances of lovemaking, and he had shown her more than enough to last a lifetime. He had been gentle and reverent but also lusty. He had given, and he had taken. Unashamedly. As though their joining were a simple, regular thing. She had been lost under him, unable to think, capable only of feeling. Every time his blue eyes had met her green ones, she’d felt like he was looking into her soul.
And she had wanted him to. Heavens forgive her, but she had wanted, in those moments, to be joined to Alistair in every possible way.
But now the reality of what she had done had hit her. Hard. She was no longer a virgin. And she had to be one of she was to be married to Commander Pierce. There were some men that did not care much for virginity, but she could bet against anything that Commander Pierce was not one of them. She had made the very mistake that Eleonor had made. She’d given herself to a Scot. It did not matter that he was a handsome, powerful Scot that had the ability to gaze into her soul. What was she to do on her wedding night? How was she to avoid ridicule?
She comforted herself by reasoning that the bridge would be crossed when she got there. But for now, she needed time away from Alistair.
* * *
Just before she had entered the library, which took her a while to find, Catrina had told her that Alistair was to speak to his warriors about a plan of attack against the English.
Catrina had then told her she was busy supervising the cutting up of a stag that had been caught for supper, so Jane had no hope for company. She would go back to the lake where she and Campbell had gotten the last ingredient for Alistair’s tea from alone. It reminded her of home. The herb grew on the Marsh fields and gave off a fragrance that was both citrusy and gingery when its stalk was broken, and it stung the eye upon exposure to it. It had been her and Eleonors’s weapon of choice when one of the children of the serfs on the Marsh property had called Jane a she-devil because of her eyes and wanted to see them up close.
Jane had almost as good as secured Alistair’s consent to return to the lake (for he hadn’t exactly declined, had he?). And so, Jane walked into the kitchen. When Catrina looked at her, she did a double take.
Jane frowned. “Is anything the matter?” she asked the woman. Could Catrina see that she had spent a great part of the morning engaged in lovemaking with Alistair? As a child, she had been told that older women had a way of knowing girls who had turned wayward.
“Oh, no,” Catrina said with a quick smile. “Dae ye need me fer anything, Jane?”
“Oh, no, it’s just… I was thinking of visiting the lake, The same one that the healer and I went to yesterday. It was so calm, and so beautiful. I also wanted to get more of that herb I used for the antidote, just in case.”
“Oh, you’ve asked Alistair, then?”
“Yes,” she said.
Catrina cocked her head. “And the laird gave his consent?”
“I might have suggested that you ask to make sure it is the truth, but, like you said, he has a meeting with his men.”
“Something tells me that the laird would welcome any news about ye, even in the middle of a military meeting.”
Jane said nothing but hoped secretly that it was true.
“But that would nae dae at all. I trust that ye wouldnae lie tae me, Jane Marsh,” Catrina said with a thoughtful look. “The lake Argyle is only a short distance away. I suppose ye can go. But I must send a soldier with ye, just in case.”
A few minutes later, Jane was in front of the castle, a rather unwilling young warrior behind her. “Dinnae stay too long,” Catrina said. “Or you will miss supper. It would be a tragedy, fer I have nae seen a deer this big in almost ten years!”
“I shall not tarry,” Jane promised with a smile, and began to walk. The warrior followed at a respectful distance. Suddenly, Jane heard the familiar trot of a horse. “Go back, Tasgall,” she said without turning.
