“Thank you.”
“Aye,” Jenny said, as if they had settled a household matter. She went to the door and called for water, then came back to the tub and checked the temperature of the copper. “We will have ye bathed and dressed before the bell. It rings once for the hall and twice for the small room when the Laird eats there. If he says ‘the hall,’ we go grand. If he says ‘quiet,’ we keep it neat and fast.”
“So, which is tonight?”
“We are going grand,” Jenny replied.
Emma nodded. “Then I will be ready.”
Jenny laid out a clean shift on the bed and a dark gown beside it. “This one will do till we speak with the seamstress. If ye prefer another one, I can fetch it.”
“I do have a dress that I intend to wear tonight,” Emma said. “But thank you once again, Jenny. You have been very kind.”
“It is me work,” Jenny said, but pride warmed the words. “I will leave ye to yer bath and come back when the water needs topping or when the bell rings.”
“Thank you, Jenny.”
Jenny bobbed a curtsy and left, the door closing on a small eddy of cooler air.
Emma stood for a beat and let herself breathe. The room felt like a place meant for a person, not a punishment. The castle no longer pressed quite so hard against her edges.
And all it took was a few hours with people. Perhaps she should write to Melody and let her know that she was all right. She would do that much later, though.
She undressed and slid into the bath, the warmth taking her with a relief that shook her once and then made her relax.
For a few minutes, she let the water do the work. When her thoughts rose, they went where they wanted: to the study, to the set of Logan’s shoulders, to the rules he listed, to the provocative way he spoke to her.
She sank once, wetting her hair, and came up with her face toward the fire. She would be ready when the bell rang.
It was only dinner anyway. What could possibly go wrong?
Logan wiped a clear oval with the back of his hand and set his mouth while the reflection steadied. The steam still clung to the edges of the glass his hands could not reach, though.
The cut ran along his ribs, clean now, the edges closed by a line of neat stitches that pulled when he took deep breaths. He snatched a bottle of spirits from the shelf and poured a little on a folded cloth. The sting bit deep. He counted to five, then pressed again, careful, precise, the way he had learned to do in a cabin with a lantern swinging and a crewman gritting his teeth beside him.
“Ye have to give yerself time to heal,” he could almost hear the healer saying in her commanding tone as she handed him the bottle. “This is a deep wound, nae a cut ye can just abandon and hope the skin around it grows, me Laird.”
Well, clearly it wasn’t.
He sighed and looked away from the glass. The old bandages lay on the table, dark in places and white in others. He slid a clean wrap under his arm and around his back, then drew it tight and tested the pull. Unwilling to take more chances, he drew it tighter, then tied a flat knot where it would not rub against the hem of his shirt.
“God!” he groaned, the ache throbbing beneath his ribs.
He rolled his shoulders anyway and finished tying the bandages. Outside the window, the light had disappeared and was now reduced to a dull and somewhat peaceful grey. The kind he only began to find relaxing when he started living on land.
He reached for a fresh linen shirt and had just slipped his arm through a sleeve when the door flew wide open and Isobel barged in with the speed of a small storm that had chosen a single target. She did not stop at the threshold or lower her voice for the sake of his walls.
Logan turned to look at her, his eyebrow raised in both confusion and mild upset. “Well, come in. Daenae let me stop ye.”
Isobel ignored his joke. “What in God’s name do ye think ye are doing?”
He kept one arm in the sleeve and looked over his shoulder at her. “What does it look like? I am dressing.”
“That is nae what I’m talking about, and ye ken it,” she huffed, taking in the table, the stained bandages, the new ones.“Emma is a delight.”
“Uh—”
“A delight! I just finished talking with her.”
