“Trick?”
His head was tilted back against the edge of the tub, his empty goblet on the floor beside it.He looked to be sound asleep.
“Trick?”She walked over and jogged his shoulder.“Trick, wake up so we can get you washed and into bed.”
Not a sound.Not a movement.Nothing.
“Trick?”She shook him harder.
“Tired,” he murmured.A moment later he was snoring.
He was home, and she was burning.Moreover, she was standing beside him, naked as the day she was born—and he was sleeping.“Curses,” she said aloud and knelt down to wash him.
He slept on.
Four
Caithren
Later that morning
Cainewood Castle
THE MARCHIONESSof Cainewood was finding her bodice unusually tight.Had she been eating too much of late?Caithren frowned down at the strained fabric as her maid loosened the lacing a wee bit and tied a firm bow.
“I’d like to discuss something before we leave,” her husband said.
“Oh, aye?”It sounded important.“I can finish here, Ida,” she told her maid.“Please make sure my trunks made it onto one of the baggage carts.”
As the young woman left, Jason dismissed his valet as well.
“Do I look plump in this gown?”Cait asked when the two of them were alone.
Jason was busy pulling on his boots.“Of course not,” he said.“You look lovely.”
It took everything Cait had not to snort.“Don’t look up.What color is my gown?”
“Blue?”he guessed.
“Green.Christmas green.You can look up now.”
He did.And grinned.“You do look lovely.Since Ida left, would you like some help with that stomacher?”
“After twenty-one years in England, I reckon I’ve mastered English clothes.But you can help if it makes you happy.”
“It does.”He rose and stood behind her, reaching around her to fasten the tabs.“Twenty-one years,” he echoed, his breath warm by her cheek.“Unbelievable, isn’t it?”
She nodded.“It’s gone so fast.I don’t feel any older, but the lads are all but grown.”Griffin was twenty, Adam seventeen, and their youngest, James, had turned fourteen over the summer.
Cait remembered the day James was born like yesterday: the entire family cramming into her bedchamber to meet him, Kendra bringing a gift of Leslie tartan to wrap him in.Cait still had that precious blanket, and she couldn’t help sniffing it once in a while, imagining she could smell Jamie’s sweet newborn scent.Someday she would wrap a grandchild in that tartan.Considering how quickly the years were speeding by, she feared that day could come alarmingly soon.
“What did you want to talk about?”she asked.
Thankfully the stomacher hid the fact that her bodice was too tight.Jason turned her to face him and gave her a light kiss.“Twenty-one years,” he murmured again against her lips, “and nearly twenty years since we’ve gone anywhere alone together.”He pulled back.“As we’ve readied for this short journey, I’ve been aware of how much trouble it always is to travel with all five of us.How many carriages we need, how many servants, how much baggage.Wouldn’t it be pleasant to go somewhere on our own?Next summer, perhaps, we could visit your cousin in Scotland.”
“And leave the lads behind?We’ve never left the lads.”
“My point exactly, sweet.Don’t you think it’s about time?Jamie will be fifteen by then, and Griffin will have graduated from Oxford.We could leave Griffin here to play marquess for a few weeks, and take Adam and Jamie to stay at Greystone.”
